Western Australia before x-mas

*we haven't been blogging very much lately so I realize that the entries are a bit after their time, but we will try and catch up, this entry is about the 2 weeks we spent in WA from Dec 3 to Dec 17*

Arriving in Perth from Bangkok in the middle of the night was quite a shock to us since there was no humidity and the Fremantle doc(the famous wind that comes in every afternoon) welcomed us with a quite cool wind and about 15 c (terribly cold! ;)). It was also shockingly clean everywhere and to get supplies here you have to go inside instead of shopping noodles and Cd's in every street corner.

The weather turned out to be real hot in the day though so swimming was high on our to do list.

We stayed with Sean and Karin, our new found friends from this summer when the couple where in Malmo. They used to live in Malmo and were involved with the Aussie rules club. They live in a house in one of the suburbs in Perth with their little 2 year old Isabella. We went to see some of the gorgeous beaches around the area and checked out the city. We had some nice BBQ nights with Sean, Karin and their friends. Sean's indoor soccer team was about to win the tournament of the year so we went to give our support and drink beers after.


We made a day trip to Rottnest Island which is a small sand dune island just a 1hrs boat trip from Fremantle. The island is famous for its quokkas which are small marsupials ( the kind of animal that has the baby in a poach on its belly) mistaken for rats when the Dutch came and thus the name Rottnest. We hired bicycles and went around. It is beautiful with small bays, white beaches clear water and sand dunes. We went snorkeling for a while there, it was great but the water was a bit cool and you couldn't stay in that long.


Our stay in Perth was only to be 2 weeks since we wanted to be back in Melbourne for Aaran's mums birthday on the 17th of Dec. After nearly a week in Perth we rented a little car and made a one week road trip in the south. We drove in the south west corner of Western Australia, it is just afragment of the state, but still it was


We drove about 5 hrs south east of Perth to Albany. We stopped in one of the many national parks on the way and did a spectacular walk up a little mountain with a panoramic view of the landscape. It was mainly farmland around, small hills with cattle in fenced areas and small Forest areas.

Albany was a bit cold when we came but the second day the weather was great and we explore the area on foot and by car. The city lays straight on the water and the centre is full of old style buildings, it's charming. Outside Albany there are many national parks and two different bays that we visited. The beaches there are spectacular with crystal clear water and unspoilt nature surrounding.


Albany used to be a big whaling point and there is an old whaling station outside that is now a museum. Now many go there to see the whales pass by twice a year as the travel to the warmer waters we didn't have the luck to arrive at that time.


There are blowholes which are really cool to see and hear. It is holes from the ocean up to the top of the cliff, every time the water hits the hole it comes pumping up the cliff and blows through the hole making a loud thunder like sound. There was also a huge gap in the cliff created by the forces of the water and a natural bridge of stone. It was all very impressive.


We drove from Albany along the south coast west ward. We stopped at some beaches outside of Denmark (a small town, there was also a place called Bornholm nearby) and at one we made a close encounter with a big grey seal which was sunning itself amongst the rocks. At one point along the coast you could look straight toward Antarctica with only the great ocean in between, a moment where I felt very small in this world.

The week we spent going around was spectacular. The coast was rugged with rocks, cliffs, desolate beaches and wildlife. Just a bit inland nature was grand with forests of giant gum trees up to 1000 years old.

Before heading back to Perth we stopped in a place called Bunbury. They have a Dolphin discovery centre there on the beach. Almost every morning around 8 o'clock the wild dolphins come in to the bay to have a rest because they feel safe in the shallow waters. With the guidance of the volunteer workers at the centre people can go out in the water and meet the dolphins, but without touching them, as with all wildlife. We were lucky the day we went down, only about 10 minutes after we arrived the dolphins came in. It was a mother and her son. I didn't know this before but the dolphins sleep by shutting down one half of the brain for a few seconds and then shutting down the other half a few seconds later, so still swimming around the dolphin mother came in for a snooze.

We also went to Margaret river, famous for its wineries. We styed there one night and went out to visit the vinyards and taste their wines. There are hundreds of vinyards in various sizes, we visited maybe ten, that was quite enough. The wines are really good and the scenery was beautiful.

Western Australia was very wild and gave me a taste of what Australia is like. It was crazy how nature was wild and free everywhere, along the coast was almost only nature reserves without any buildings. Some of the encounters with animals we had were special and feels like if we had been around for longer there would have been more. We met a seal who was lying sunning itself on a beach in the Frenchmans bay nature reserve, we saw an ospary feeding on rottnest island, kangaroos jumping along the road at dusk... We didn't see any whales, but the mere knowledge of that these waters are their home and highway was impressive enough.

Some other day I would love to come back and visit western Australia.