Wednesday we spent most of the day Christmas shopping at Karrinyup Shopping Centre. Angela and Nicholas separated the girls to go in search of special Christmas gifts for sisters. It was indeed a treat to spend some time in a large shopping centre again, even Nicholas enjoyed shopping just a little bit. The centre had a huge Christmas tree and stage where various community groups and schools sung Christmas carols. We are always up for a good free activity and the shopping centre provided Christmas biscuits to decorate with icing and lollies supervised by two lovely elves.
After loading the beast with all our new purchases we drove back to park for a swim and play on the jumping pillow. The jumping pillow is a new experience for the girls on this trip. A jumping pillow is a huge pillow filled with air that children (and some adults) play on; somewhere between a trampoline and a jumping castle.
Thursday we had a day of exploring Perth's beautiful beaches. We were staying at Karrinyup which is north of Perth city, about 15 minutes from the coast. Just a little further north we started our exploration at Sorrento Beach near Hillary's Boat Harbour. Even on a Thursday morning there was surf life saving patrol at the beach and the girls loved swimming in the water.
We eventually were able to extract the girls from the water to drive down West Coast Highway to find a picnic spot for lunch. At Watermans Bay there was a picnic table and a playground that over looked the bay below. The bay below was quite sheltered from the wind and a reef off shore sheltered the cove from the waves.
After lunch and the girls had gone off for a play Nicholas noticed a dorsal fin in the water off shore. After retrieving some binoculars we confirmed that it was not a shark (they had been in the news such a lot recently) but two dolphins with a baby swimming about in an area clear of the reef.
After having our fill of dolphin watching we continued down West Coast Highway to City Beach (unfortunately we missed Scarborough Beach this time). City Beach was also patrolled and with the dumping waves, justifiably patrolled. Nicholas went in with the girls and all had great fun until Bianca was dumped by a wave. Bianca decided she didn't like swimming with waves anymore and sat out with Angela.
Still further down West Coast Highway we stopped at Cottesloe Beach. Cottesloe Beach has little parkland but is mostly residential. Cottesloe Beach was not patrolled but that didn't stop us going in for a swim. The waves were more gentle but kept taking the girls further down the beach. After having afternoon tea on the beach, iced coffees and fruit mince pies, we drove back to camp to prepare for a night out. We drove through the suburb of Claremount and Angela spied a very stylish looking 'boutique' shopping centre. Nicholas had an uneasy feeling we would be back there before long.
We (read Angela) packed a picnic to take to Carols in East Perth Park. The carols is a benefit for homeless people in Perth (not ones in camper trailers though) and sponsored by the City of Perth. The setting in the Victoria Gardens beside the Swan River and Claisebrook cove was quite picturesque. The gardens had a Hoop Pine tree decorated with Christmas lights. A lot of the children that came to the carols armed with cardboard, which initially puzzled us until we saw the grassy hill they were sliding down. Of course Chantelle managed to 'obtain' some cardboard to slide on!
Santa came for a visit and we think it was an official Santa helper because we saw the same Santa and helper in Perth City a few days later. The last song for the night was Jingle Bells and all the children were invited down to the stage area to dance and sing. Bianca had some great dance moves going on and was quite impressive. The performer put the microphone down for various children to sing into. The first of ours was Bianca, then Chantelle and finally Chelsea had the microphone to sing the last few lines of Jingle Bells. They each sang in tune and in time wonderfully. What a great carols it was just a pity it was not better supported with larger crowds.
Friday morning we went back to East Perth to visit a children's book store that Angela spotted the night before. It has been difficult to have enough books to keep the three girls with pages to read. When they get their hands on a book and have it read in less than a day the number of books read and the parcels of books sent home has, so far, been mind boggling. We had a lovely walk around East Perth which is a very stylish area.
We drove on to Kings Park, no visit to Perth is complete without at least a drive, preferably a walk through Kings Park. The day was very hot, well into the 40s in the shade and being close to Christmas there were office parties all over Kings Park. We found a vacant BBQ at a respectable distance from an office party. An observation this trip is the placement of picnic tables (where there are some). They seem always to be in blazing sun during the middle of the day when they are most likely to be used. At cricket grounds the engineers place light towers so that their shadow doesn't fall across the pitch, yet a park cannot place a table so that the shade falls across it in the middle of the day. We had a lovely patch of grass in the shade of a ficus that was growing through the dead trunk of a host tree.
It just so happened that not far from Kings Park down the Stirling Hwy was the Clairemont Shopping Centre. Just to make the girls day Angela suggested that we go there to Shoes and Sox to buy new school shoes for the three people due to go back to school in a little over a month. Oh what diabolical touture we inflict on our offspring, ha ha ha ha. In compensation we did take the girls to Koko Black for a drink.
Each year as a family we have a day out in Melbourne city just before Christmas. Saturday became our day out in Perth city. Our first stop was Myer to say hello to the jolly old man with the belly like a bowl full of jelly. Myer had changed the rules this year an allowed people to book a time to see Santa online to avoid the queues. When we arrived the queue we could see was reasonably short, but what we couldn't see was all the people queued up online. Consequently the queues moved at glacial speed. Eventually we had our chance with Santa and told him they all wanted books for Christmas. With that it was coffee-o'clock for Nicholas and Angela.
In Forrest Place the City of Perth had put together a bunch of children's activities, all free. There were rides and face painting and the Santa from carols the previous night was walking around with his special helper (Mrs Clause should have more say in who Santa hires as helpers). So while Nicholas and Angela sipped iced coffee drinks the girls, under our watchful eye, took off for free rides.
Again we tore the girls away to explore some more of the city. Off one of the street malls was London Court. London Court is a Tudor style version of Melbourne's Block Arcade. Twice each day London Court produced snow to rain down on its visitors. We turned up for the midday snow storm and what fun to stand under the snow. The snow was like washing up suds blown out of industrial blowers from second story windows.
After some more retail therapy Angela left Nicholas alone and unsupervised with the kids while she went to do some secret stuff. Nicholas took the kids back to Forrest Place to the queue for the giant snow globe. The giant snow globe is a pressurised dome with plastic snow and about 12 children and their adults play in there at a time. Very hot in it but really good fun.
Sunday morning and we checked the weather, in Melbourne it was 17 degrees and in Perth three hour earlier it was already 30 degrees. Another warm day in Perth. Probably the only way we would have had a summer this season as there was not much warmth in Melbourne.
Sunday we had the day in Freemantle. Our first visit was to the Freemantle Prison, not because someone was locked up but they decommissioned the prison in 1991 and it is now a World Heritage Site open to the public for tours. We started with the Doing Time Tour that went for about 90 minutes and explained the history of the prison, prison life and changes to the prison over the 140 years of operation. The prison was built out of stone quarried from the prison grounds by its first inmates in the 1850s. Four divisions each of four stories were initially built within the walls and later two additional divisions were added for women and one for 'the deranged'. The prison had a colored history that was more or less ended in 1988 when the inmates of division 3 rioted and burned the division. The riot led to an enquiry which found the prison inadequate and a new prison built closing Freemantle in 1991.
We all enjoyed the tour so much we decided to come back after lunch and upgrade our tickets for the Great Escapes Tour. Down at Freemantle docks we had lunch at Kaili's Fish 'n' Chips. It is a bit like production line fish 'n' chips but the food was really good. Eating outside was the go as there was a slight breeze that just kept us a little cooler as the temperature nudged into the 40's. We didn't have time to get back to the prison for the next tour so we checked out the Freemantle Maritime Museum (always room for one more museum). The museum had artifacts about WA's shipping history and a really good explanation on how they restore and protect fragile artifacts when they find them. We would have liked more time there but also wanted to make the last Great Escapes Tour.
The Great Escapes Tour took us through some more of the prison and we relived the events of some of the escapes from Freemantle Prison. There was one accidental escape when a prisoner was up a ladder mending a wall. He lost his balance and fell off the wall on the freedom side. The guard supervising the prisoner could not leave the ladder in the yard with 160 other prisoners so by the time the alarm was able to be raised the prisoner had run to the main gate begging to be let in! Some escapes were well planned some were pure opportunistic. One well planned escape saw Brendon Abbott (AKA the Post Card Bandit) on the run for a number of years.
The escape proof cell with three grills on the window and jarrah lined stone block walls.
Sunday night there was carols by candlelight at Scarborough Beach. Another picnic and we staked a claim with a good view in the ampitheatre on the foreshore. The carols were compared by a local TV personality who did a great job. Santa arrived on a SLS buggy for a visit. We decided that he was a Santa school drop out because he didn't do very good ho ho hos and his voice was not very Santary (iPad tried to correct to sanitary). Carols was fantastic and was really starting to put us all in the festive mood, particularly those that are generally less festive.
Monday we planned a much less active day out in the Swan Valley. The Swan Valley Information Centre had put together two car trails that started from the Information Centre. We did the Swan Valley 'Amazing Valley Chase' that took us to several interesting stops in the Valley including a Chocolate factory, coffee roaster, ice cream place, and a nut and nougat place. When we returned to the Information Centre we were given a family certificate for completing the challenge and solving the mystery.
Tuesday was the last day of the Perth Ashes Test and Australia needed six more wickets to win the series and the little urn. We decided to go as a family. We went in by train and someone that wasn't Nicholas was offered a seat on the train not once but twice! What is with that? At the ground we found a great spot on the grass (on the crowd side of the fence) where we could stretch out and watch the match or read a book. Nicholas and the girls had a great time during the lunch interval playing tag and stacks on dad. Of course the highlight was Austalia taking all six remaining wickets and winning the little urn!
After the cricket we went back into the city to a beach Tourism WA had built in the CBD. I don't know why, they just did, maybe it was a beach with no sharks. There were beach umbrellas, deck chairs, buckets and spades and the girls had a great time until they started packing it away for the night. We moved on to the State Library that was close by.
We stayed in the city because there was a nativity play on that night. The City of Perth puts on the play each year for four nights and thousands of people come to see it. We found a table on the edge and had dinner while waiting for the play to begin. What a show! There was a huge cast including a real donkey, three camels and some sheep that got a little cranky. There really was no apology in Perth for why Christmas is celebrated in the city and if you don't like it buzz off. It would be good to see Melbourne take that approach.
After a late night Tuesday, Wednesday all we needed was a quiet relaxing day. The beast needed a service again before we tackled the long drive home and while Nicholas delivered the car to the service centre Angela took the girls for school. Nicholas managed to procure a loan car for the day while the beast was at the health spa.
The afternoon was most exciting. While Angela had a haircut Nicholas and the little girls had a movie afternoon back at camp. A very relaxing day just what we all needed before another big day out on Thursday.
Thursday morning we were off to Rottnest Island. We took the ferry from Hillary's Boat Harbour because it was very close and easy parking. The ferry ride only took 45 minutes and the girls were extremely well entertained by Mr Bean on the TV in the main cabin. Chelsea was in stitches with the antics of Bean, that one really does have a wild sense of humour.
Our arrival on the island coincided with a walking tour about some of the shipwrecks that had occurred over the years. Just off the island is a maze of reefs and rocks that caught out many a sea captain. There was one captain who mistook the signal from the lighthouse to stay away as come closer which didn't end well. In 1848 a pilot service was started from Rottnest. The pilot was rowed to the ship, or occasionally if the conditions favourable they hoisted the sails, to guide the ship through the reefs. The tour took us to a sheltered beach around the island a bit where we stayed for lunch right on the beach.
The three girls were super keen to hire some bikes and ride about the island. Nicholas and Angela were a bit apprehensive, particularly as none of us had ridden for almost six months and Bianca had only come off training wheels weeks before we left. The hire place agreed to let Bianca have a trial before we committed and she did super good. We grabbed five bikes and headed around the island anticlockwise. This took us first to the army barracks of WWII vintage. Kingstown Barracks provided living accommodation for four warrant officers or sergeants and 72 rank and file personnel, officers mess, cottages, Army institutional buildings, small hospital, dry canteen, workshop, store, railway buildings, and supporting communication and observation structures. The barracks were decommissioned in 1984 after use declined post war.
We rode on to Parker Point and saw the wreck of a fishing boat that broke its mornings during a storm in Freemantle and navigated itself to Rottnest and crashed on the shore. Incidentally we heard a report on the radio that a ship that broke its moorings a couple of years ago has finally shown up on the coast of Africa. The girls had a really good ride and Chantelle and Bianca really got up some speed going back to the village down hill with the wind.
A lovely day at Rottnest and we even saw a few of the 10000 quokkas that enchantithe island. They make it clear that we should not feed the quokkas however they have worked out where the food is kept and just need the opposable thumb to work the zip.
Friday we headed to the Swan Valley again to complete the second of their challenges. All three girls enjoyed driving around solving the mysteries. Probably all the books the girls read.
Saturday morning Hip hip hooray, it's off to Dunsborough today and Christmas is just around the corner.
