Perth, Western Australia (Last Day)

We woke up at 4am today when everyone was still enjoying their sweet dream under the warm blanket, no choice our flight was 7.00am. Again felt so sorry to Mr.& Mrs.Wong as they also got to wake up so early.

Mrs.Wong prepared some simple breakfast for us before Mr.Wong sent us to airport. We appreciate their hospitality and kindness so much and promised to bring them for Kajang's satay (his son favorite food) when they are back to Malaysia again next time.

This was truly a wonderful trip. Goodbye Perth! I will be back........

Perth, Western Australia (Day 6)

Before we leave Perth the next day, we planned to buy some souvenirs today. Ops....I'm yet to see any koala bear and kangaroo (beside those dead body and some wild kangaroo while driving down south). So, we decided to visit Perth Zoo. Ha ha......

Firstly, Mr.Wong drove us to a hardware shop.....no, it's big and should be a warehouse. This is the biggest hardware warehouse we have been. You can find everything and anything you need or you don't. The warehouse is even bigger than Tesco. After getting what he wanted, we moved to Swan Valley for lunch and buy some honey from a bee's farm.

After that, Mr.Wong sent us to Perth Zoo. Yeah.... don't you think it's weird to go zoo at our age without bringing our children? He he.... what to do? We paid AU$19 (RM50) per pax for entry fee. Huh.... expensive hor? Never mind, we willing to pay for you, koala bear. Mr.Wong's children said we were lucky to see an awake koala. This is because koala usually sleeps 16 hours in a day.

Hungry tiger.... keep on knocking the window glass when walk close to people.

Find this cute tree, name "sausage tree".

Due to we missed out an important tourist attraction yesterday, we planned to go there after this. So we explored the zoo in an express way. Roughly in 2 hours time we finished our task and took a bus to the city center again. We were trying our best to reach there before they close for the day. Luckily, we arrived just 15 mins before they close, it's Perth's Mint. This is the place where you can watch gold pour but unfortunately we missed the 'train'. There are schedule for tour in The Perth's Mint. At first I thought the tour is free but answer is no. If not mistaken, they are charging AU$22 per person for 30 to 45 mins tour. Don't you think it's expensive?

In front of The Perth's Mint

This was the last stop for today. Really tired!

Perth, Western Australia (Day 5)

It's Mother's Day today.

Feel so 'pai seh' to disturb Mr.Wong and his family as they have 2 strangers to celebrate Mother's Day together this year. They were celebrating this special day by treating Mrs.Wong a delicious dim sum at Six Happiness located in city. It's our pleasure to join them. We bothered them so much today as they got to drive 2 cars to city for brunch. The traffic law there is very strict. 5 person in a car means only 5 and you can't tolerate even hand carry one more baby (fyi, toddlers below 2 years must be seated inside a car seat). So we can't squeeze everyone inside a car even the car is big enough to cater 7 of us like how we usually did in Malaysia.

The restaurant open at 10am but by the time we reached (around 10.30am), it was already full house. We took a number and wait outside for almost 20minutes. The waiting crowd getting bigger by the time our number being called. By looking at the crowd, we must agreed that this restaurant serves very tasty dim sum even we are yet to taste because comparing to the next door restaurant which only half of the tables being occupied. Emm....yummy, we are truly satisfied with the dim sum they served. I like the 'fried mini fish' with egg inside and 'fried baby crab' so much.

After the brunch, Mr.Wong brought us to the city centre and guide us the route for sightseeing and shopping. With the map on hand, we won't be losing our way. We assured them and they left us to explore the city by our own.

We walked from one corner to the other as per the route suggestion inside the map. I think we have marked a record of 5km walking distance in Perth City. *Phew*. Even though I find it quite tiring but it was a nice and relaxing experience. My only complaint : both legs' muscles were exhausted and so painful.

London Street

Swan Bell

Government Council

St.George's Church

Inside St.George's church (I'm so excited as this was the first time I went to a proper 'church' like we usually see from movie and it's so amazing)

Inside St.George's church. It's so unique

This is not statue but real women!

Time to go home now. We will be taking LRT and bus to go back to Mr.Wong house by our own. Not a problem at all. People there are helpful and there have a good safety environment, so we don't have much worried. Unlike Mr.Wong, he worried that we might taken the wrong bus or miss the bus station where we suppose to stop, he purposely walked to the bus station and wait for us. A big thanks to him!

Perth, Western Australia (Day 4)

Today, we have a local tour guide (Mr.Wong) to bring us explore few places around Perth City.

After having breakfast, our first stop was Market City. What is so special about this market until Mr.Wong think we shall pay a visit as usually tourist won't be coming here? This is a market distributing all sort of goods or shall I say grocery for resell purpose. It's just like our Selayang Market. The only differences are they only open to public every Saturday (to get rid off those balance stuff before they off on Sunday), they sell everything in box, tray or bulk and you will find majority of buyers are Asean. Why? Asean like to pay little for more things, to increase profit especially for those who run business in restaurant or even for housewife, they can save money through some good deal over there. Mr.Wong said you will not find yourself in "ang mo" country as you can see so many Asean here.

One big basket of apple costs AUS10-15.

Not sure what kind of fruit is this, AUS20/tray.

Walnut : AUS10/bag

Mushroom : AUS30/box and Persimmon : AUS20/tray (price drops as it's getting late)

After that, we went to Kings Park, a reserved garden at Perth city center. This delightful parkland is big and you feel so greats and comfortable walking around. The grass there was so green and soft. For natural lover like us, we enjoyed the peacefulness there so much.

Perth City, view from Kings Park

Next, we drove to University Of Western Australia (UWA). To study overseas used to be my dream. Since I've missed the chance, I felt so good to walk around there for some fresh air. UWA is the oldest and one of the famous university in WA. I wish my girls will have opportunity to study here one day.

University Of WA

Then we moved to Fremantle which took about 45 minutes drive from the city. We arrived Fremantle before noon and straightaway went to Fremantle Market for shopping. This is another market that only open on certain day. From here, you are able to find many different types of souvenirs with reasonable price.

Fremantle market, selling all kind of fruits.

Restaurant Cicerello's

Anyone who visited Fremantle will definitely try their famous food, fish and chips. Mr.Wong told us that his children like the fish and chips here so much and find it's the best. So how can we miss that? We went to a restaurant called Cicerello's for fish and chips. The restaurant was full of people and luckily we managed to find places to sit. This is a self service restaurant, we have to queue up for order and to collect it when it's ready. The business was so good and we have waited for almost 1/2 hours to get our food. Emm..... the fish was fresh and so tasty. This was the first time we use bare hand to eat fish & chips and chili mussels, no cutlery at all.

After filling up our stomach, we left Fremantle and heading towards Lake Monger. From far, I could see a lot of "black spot" floating on the lake. Wondering what was that? When come closer, it's black swans! Lake Monger is a natural attraction and home to the famous black swans. All the black swans here are being protected. They were so friendly and weren't afraid of human. They walked closer to us for photo shooting...... cheeseeeee!

This is our last stop before we wrapped up today's itinerary.

*Mr.Wong brought us to an Asean food court for dinner. If you miss curry laksa, cantonese fried mee, Kajang satay, chay kuai teow, bak kut teh, etc, you could have it all here. And if you are home sick (for those migrated), you will feel better as you can find some home feeling from here too.

Perth, Western Australia (Day 3)

"We are late again today" I told hubby when we were moving our luggage to the car. The car park which were full yesterday night was nearly empty this early morning, 7.30am. Wondering the people staying in the same hotel has adapted to the culture here, 'start the day early and come back early too'. Not really our style. We tend to wake up late and sleep late.....agree?

After having sandwitches for breakfast at Subway, we took out our map and drove to Smith Beach, Yallingup. To our surprise the beach was so beautiful. I think the weather also help to contribute to beautify the scenery. Another sunny day with blue sky but windy. I still can feel it so cooling even with my jumper.

After spending nearly an hour there, we moved to another attraction, Eagle Bay. I'm not sure why it was called Eagle Bay as no eagle around, only a light house. I don't see any value added to visit a light house that cost me AU$15 per person. We just mingle at the entrance for some photo shooting before we move to Sugarloaf, a heart shape rocks.

Bushfire happened in Feb, luckily the light house is safe.

Can't really see the heart shape rock from this angle.

We enjoyed driving so much as the road was built along the sea side. You can easily have the sea view while driving, it's so different.

Since we got to travel back to Perth by late afternoon, we started our journey back a little earlier. Another approximately 330km to reach Perth, whoaaa..... !

We leaved message to Mr.Wong to pick us up from the car rental center as we need to return the car today. The office closed by 5pm so we were informed earlier to just dropped the car key inside a "drop key" box located outside the building. Do you think this unofficial way of returning car is safe?

After jumped into Mr.Wong's car, he drove us back to his house. Yes, we will be spending the remaining nights at his house.

We received a warm welcome from his family before dinner. We have not been eating rice for 3 days! So our stomach were truly satisfied with the dinner. Later on, we gathered for tea and fruits. Besides chit chatting, we also planned itinerary for the next day.

Perth, Western Australia (Day 2)

Morning sun starts to shine at 6am during end Autumn in Perth. We took simple breakfast and make a walk to the beach. It's cold but still there were people wearing shorts and jog along road side. Salute them .....

We snap some photo and make our way to next destination, Dunsborough. After a good night sleep, both of us felt so fresh and full of energy. Before we reached Dunsborough, we stopped at Busselton for sight seeing. We went to their famous jetty that believed to be the longest in WA. However we didn't make our way out there as they are under maintenance.

It's already 11.30am when we reached Dunsborough. We can't check in before 2pm so we decided to drive down further to visit some wineries and choc factory at Margaret River.

We stopped at around 7 winneries and make all the way wine testing until finally hubby gave up as he still need to drive. All the wine testing were free of charges. Towards the end, we bought 2 bottles of red wine from those winery. Hubby said the price is so much cheaper as compared to Malaysia however you could even find it cheaper if you get it from wine shop there. It's true!

Finally we reached Margaret River around 4.30pm. At first we planned to go back after seeing the sunset but we think it's too dangerous to drive back as we are not so familiar with the road, it started dark before 6pm and all the way back are without public lamp. In fact, we saw few kangaroos died at the roadside along the way down south and this make us worry if drive in dark.

I think we have wasted too much time on wine testing in the winneries until we got to rush back to hotel. We were extremely tired and sleep soundly the whole night.

Perth, Western Australia (Day 1)

We took midnight flight to Perth on 6th May. Frankly it wasn't easy to fly without a proper and comfortable seat as we hardly sleep a wink. Luckily we decided to leave my 2 gals with MIL, otherwise they must be suffering for not having a good night sleep through and flow.

We reached Perth airport 5.40 in the morning, after clearing our luggage we have Lye's former boss, Mr.Wong to come over to fetch us and send us to Belmont to collect the car we rent online. Mr.Wong was so surprised that we were be driving directly to south after a tiring night. But we wished to save some rest time. We were refreshed by a cup of coffee and started our journey to Bunsbury. After almost 2 hours drive, we stopped at Mandurah for brunch. It's a nice and very relaxing place to keep us refreshed. We also drove to the Dolphin Quay for some sight seeing after charged with some fresh air.

We continued our journey and finally reached Bunsbury around 3pm. We checked in and took nap before going out again. By the time we woke up it's already 6pm. It's dark like 8pm here.

We walked few street down to find food. Along the street, not many restaurant or cafe were operating. We noticed most of the restaurant will be closing at 8.30pm, so we got to make up our mind before we got nothing for dinner. After dinner it's only 8pm, the night was still young for us. We don't know where to go as all the shop already closed for the day, so finally we decided to buy a drink at a cafe and read some magazine. It's quite scary when you noticed you got nothing to do or nothing meaningful to be carried out as we used to have busy life that we always need more time. On the other hand, we enjoyed our coffee in a cooling night without any hassle of kids around. This is life!