Western Australia's Black Swan

Not a lot to see, so just enjoy the ride

On our way to Tahiti, we spent the weekend in Perth, Australia. The most secluded capital (city) in the world. After checking in at the hotel, we got tickets for the hop on hop off bus tour. Perth is not a very large city and we saw the entire city in less than 3 hours. For dinner we headed to an artsy area of town close to the hotel with lots of bars and restaurants. After walking up and down all the streets we settled on a small pub and had a pint of apple cider - never had it before but it was awesome! Melissa even liked it! We went back to the Mexican restaurant we saw. We had reservations as we were 10,000 miles away from Mexico but after ordering our meals we read the owner is a Californian who worked in Mexico. We had Mexican once in Hong Kong and it was not good at all, but this place was actually pretty good.

The next day we went on a day trip to NgILGI Cave with some stops along the long drive south. The first stop was at a meat pie shop that specializes in emu pies, but that day had emu, kangaroo, and deer pies for purchase. Having a few emus running around the side of the building did not help us get over our reservations with the pies and we decided to pass, but I did pick up some local honey. After our snack (or lack thereof), we were back on the road heading south.

Finally we arrived at the cave! The guide explained that the rain water filtered through the top soil and one drop at a time  leaving a trace amount of calcium, taking millions of years to form some of the larger formations. It was explained that this was Australias first tourist destination and way back when, it would take 4 days to get to the site by horse and buggy. Back then there was no stairs and you had to descend via ropes and pulleys.. much scarier needless to say.

After the caves, we stopped by a local town for lunch at a local fish and chips shop. They had other items on the menu, but we went with their specialty. When I went to the counter to collect our order it was wrapped up an paper like a present and was so big I needed to pick it up with two hands - no Mom, we didn't finish it all! On our drive back to Perth we stopped at a winery, cheese maker, and chocolate factory.. it was very filling.





 Our last night we decided to head back to the Mexican restaurant, it was not as good as back in Texas, but our standards have lowered undoubtedly.. After dinner we stumbled across a churros cafe., well they had a lot more than just churros, but we had not had churros since we were in Spain and Melissa is always looking for an excuse to eat more chocolate. They has 3 different chocolate dipping sauces, but we settled on the milk chocolate.

Our last day we took the ferry to Fremantle for lunch. The 2 hour ferry tour gave us stunning views of the Perth skyline as well as pointed out notable sights along the way. The glass spaceship looking thing is actually the Swan Bell Tower which houses bells from England that date back to the early 1700s.

Freemantle is a beautiful town with numerous heritage buildings that were built in the mid 1800s. We made our way across the town center to the promenade where all the restaurants are located for some fresh seafood. As it was Mother's Day the place was packed with kids running around, but we managed to find a nice QUIET seat in the sun to enjoy our fish, calamari rings and some chips off course. After lunch we started heading back toward the Perth ferry, but not before doing some quick exploring. 

The town center was practically deserted until we got to the pedestrian street in front of the farmers market. There was a magician that drew a large crowd as well as other street preformers, but as we only had about an hour before our boat back to Perth, we headed straight for the market. No major finds but it was interesting nonetheless. On the taxi ride to the airport we did see the much talked about black swan along the river bank, this animal seems to be the mascot of the city. Then it was back on the boat, next stop French Polynesia!