To the City of lights

Our last fabulous breakfast in this abode was again thoroughly enjoyable, this time the locally produced & toasted bread elevated eggs were poached with a hollandaise sauce topping with spinach and bacon circumnavigating the perimeter of the plate. Not bad for a B&B breaky, suspect the Nuns of past never had it this good, still, one never knows what benefits were beholden to them as a reward for their endeavors (ciggies aside of course). Point is that the breaky was again so spectacular that the taste buds were thoroughly exercised, the stomachs stretched to capacity and the minds fully revved up for the pending days activities. Packing up the sprawling confusion of the room into 2 suitcases gets harder every stop, not sure how this will transpire when we get to the plane on the last leg home, in the meantime though we have a car, a boot, a back seat and an endless capacity for nonchalance for those sorts of issues down the track. Or tracks (…watch this space)

And so after the inevitable stop for a shop browse in M/R village center we headed off northwards in search of the city of lights. Like Mr Glenn it wasn’t that difficult to spot. He looked down, we looked for signage, he whipped overhead, we landed smack bang in the middle. Beforehand, however we had the issue of driving over roads previously driven. No adventure there - except we did play the  Cowaramup game… 27 cow statues adorning the streetscapes that we counted on the way through. That’s not a light hearted effort – someone went to a serious amount of cow sculpturing work here – let alone getting everyone else in town to agree to and facilitate the process. Still doesn’t explain the “up” thing for the town names, but it does show a combined dedication to a pointless cause – gotta love that.

The cool cloudy conditions continued to persist while the Km’s rolled away listening to the tomes of two local young women telling us about the life journey of two famous young women in the USA. It was so fascinating that we almost missed the sign “Mandjoogoordap Drive”, pity it wasn’t an “up” as it would’ve taken the cake….still have to give it to the Sandgropers – that’s another level above Mooroolbark, Korumburra or even… Coonabarabran. Pity those people living on this road all their lives …or the signwriters for the pain of doing so (not so much Paris and Nicole).

By this time we had driven out of the cloudy south into brilliant blue skies and a bustling metropolis which is the capital city of the state. Nice roads. Lots of signs of modern day wealth with flash new trains running down the center of the freshly reconstructed freeways. Turning left we almost ended up in the port of Freemantle instead of Freemantle proper. Interestingly the whilst the first is industrial and the second is touristial, they do collide – as experienced by a really, really long freight train cutting its way through the heart of the touristy wharf area… holding up peeps for a least 5 mins as it trundled its way through the precinct.

Freeo is a nice part of town – we only stopped long enough for a serving of fish and chips, a lesson for others on how to stop seagulls (aka rats of the skies) from proliferating and short wander to spot some beach and to notice some local sculpture work. Bon came from these parts. The local trees looked like they were planted for replacement ship masts in olden times and the architecture is reminiscent of bygone eras. One could possibly hang around here for a bit, but we didn’t – we had a non-booking to get to in the heart of the city and so headed off upstream along the Swan into city central.

Friday afternoon in the heart of Perth on a 23 degree Saint Patrick's Day was a pretty good time to be here. Any hotter and it would become possibly unbearable..and they get this often – possibly remediated by the doctor most days though. The place is buzzing with an eclectic mix of people from all parts of the world, lots green clothes to celebrate the day and a generally good vibe goin’ on.

After checking in (sorting out the booking issue) dropping off the car and a wind down in the very centrally located room, heading out we had drinks on a funky rooftop bar watching the various people of life wander the alley below, had another tipple at the Terrace hotel before heading to our prebooked restaurant for dinner. Considering the pace of the locale it was strangely empty. 2 bookings for the night. 4 people. Thank goodness another 4 decided to drop in. We hung around to enjoy a couple of fabulous dishes. Poor chef obviously had nothing better to than give his (or hers) heart and soul into feeding only 8 people for the evening.

Whilst a bit surreal, it was a very enjoyable foodie experience. On the way out - in the foyer of the place snapped this pic...

Upon later consideration it seems to be wrong on so many levels one felt obliged to include it in the blog.

Wandering home, the temp had dropped but we were wearing our wine jackets and thus didn’t feel it.