The second part of our week in Perth

The second half of our week spent in Perth has been great!

One of the "must-do's" on our list was to visit Fremantle Harbour, Western Australia's largest and busiest cargo port.  We spent a leisurely afternoon touring the city, including the museum and the Fremantle Prison, which was in operation for over 150 years, having closed in 1991.  The entire prison was built by British convicts in the 1800's... an eye opening tour.  We had lunch on the harbour at Cicerello's, famous for fish n' chips.

The last hanging was in 1968

The prison Anglican Church, still host to weddings (for weirdos, I'd say)

Cicerello's on the harbour

Inside that paper wrapping is ONE order of Fish n' Chips!

Delish!!

Our picnic spot on Cottesloe Beach

We were true tourists the day we spent in Perth.  We had the best view of the city on our fully commentated tour on the double-decker site seeing bus.  We visited the Bell Tower, city centre, the Royal Mint, and toured through King's Park.  We were 2 of 8 people on the entire tour, so it was a well spent day with a bird's eye view.

On the double-decker

Perth Bell Tower

City Hall, also entirely built by convicts

Entrance to King's Park

City skyline

Sugar Gum Trees, each planted represents a fallen soldier

Ian and Jo took us out to a local pub, The Albion, where we met up with Kate and Sean (one of their employees and her boyfriend) for an interactive dinner.  We chose our cut of meat from the butcher counter and prepared them ourselves (Andre actually cooked mine for me).  We all enjoyed our steak dinner and the four of us (Kate, Sean, Andre and I) entered a team in the Wednesday Night Trivia.  Our team actually won round 1 of the trivia, resulting in 2 free pitchers...but were slaughtered in round 2 with only 4 of 20 questions answered correctly.  We had a really fun night and Kate and Sean gave us some great ideas for our road trip down the East Coast.

The guys (Andre, Sean and Ian) cooking dinner

Group photo at the grill

We had a busy day yesterday.  The five of us went to a WAFL (Western Australia Football League) game in the afternoon.  It was great to see a live game and we did our best to follow the game and learn more of the rules.  Last night we were invited to one of our friends' birthday house party.  We met loads of people, had drinks and quickly discovered house-party drinking games are pretty standard no matter where you're from.

Billy, a serious spectator

Billy and Andre kicking the footie on the oval at half time

Footie treats!

The kids in their warm-up jerseys

So, with heavy heads, we were up early this morning for Billy's AusKick game and lunch with Ian's family.  We are now packing up and getting ready for our late night flight to Cairns...marking the beginning of our Ultimate Road Trip down the East Coast!

Hello Australia...you certainly do not disappoint

We have now been in Perth, Australia for 4 days.  We took a late night flight in from Denpasar, Bali on Thursday, arriving to welcome wishes and smiles (and we hadn't even been outside the airport yet!). 

Jo preparing our "welcome" breakfast...Vegemite Sandwiches

Andre ate, and enjoyed, his :)

We are extremely fortunate to have wonderful hosts here in Perth.  We are spending a few days with extended family of Dana's (Andre's sister-in-law).  Ian, Jo and their son, Billy have been most welcoming and we have been made to feel right at home with them. 

Our weekend has been spent enjoying family life with the Ure's.  We have visited Billy's school, toured the beach on bikes, spent an afternoon at the beach watching the surfers and watched one of Billy's AusKick (pre-primary Footie) games on Mother's Day.  Ian has taken Andre to his Paddle Boarding spot twice now, and he seems to be getting the hang of it.  The boys have also spent a few hours watching Australian Football  League (Footie), trying to teach Andre the game rules.

Cottesloe Beach, 5 minute bike ride from the Ure's House

How about this Dog Beach? Pretty great!

An afternoon at Time Zone Arcade with Billy

The big race, Ian, Billy and Andre assisting

First day on the Paddle Board

Billy seeing the men off

We stayed back to hunt for treasures on the beach

"My Turn!!"

We have completely fallen in love with Perth and will be spending the next few days exploring the tourist "must-sees".

Billy in the lead, with the orange "boots"

A little scrum for the ball

And Billy WINS for the kick

A great kick!!

He Scores!!!

The end of Part 1

We have continued to explore and enjoy the rest of Bali over the past week.  We spent a few nights in Ubud, then back to Kuta Beach, and now we will be finishing off our stay in Sanur.

Ubud is a really interesting little place.  There are so many artists centered there and the 2 main roads in town are lined with unique and interesting boutiques.  I went out to shop one evening and only made it halfway up one street in 2 hours.

When we arrived at our hotel, we were "upgraded" to the sister hotel up the road, only to later find out that we were actually downgraded to a lesser rated hotel.  But the manager comped us some spa services for our inconvenience...and a girl is never going to turn down free spa time! We ended up with a huge room in a 4-plex with a very nice, large bed and patio.  The Pool area was a bit suspicious...2 chairs on the grass and a pool...and that was it.  We only spent about half hour there anyway, and it did what it was meant to do.

For Easter, we enjoyed our free 3 hour spa treatment, which I will admit, more than made up for the downgrade from a 3.5 star to a 2 star.  I'm not sure the star scoring system really applies here anyway.  We have been in a range of 2 to 4 stars and they have all been very similar.  Now I'm rambling...back on track. 

Andre, being the culinary adventurist, was dying to have the Babi Guling (suckling pig), which Bali is well known for.  We got a recommendation for a little place that serves from 11-3 each day...otherwise you have to pre-order 24 hours in advance.  The restaurant was not air conditioned and set up with low tables with guests sitting on the floor, and was PACKED.  We got spot at a table right away, and almost immediately after we sat down, there was a long line down the street.  I wasn't quite as hyped about the pig, but tried to put on my game-face for Dre.  The menu was comprised of 3 different "specials", deep fried pork and pork soup.  Okay, so special it is!  Our plates arrived with a scoop of rice, some kind of veggie, a slab of fatty pork, some deep fried pig fat (yep, that's right), and a bit piece of skin.  I had a few bites to say I tried it, and Andre enjoyed both plates and some soup.  Later that night we found a busy pub and had pizza for dinner and a 4-piece cover band for entertainment.  There really isn't anything I get a kick out of more than the Asian covers of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Eric Clapton, and the likes...  All of this made for a very memorable Easter!


The past few days we have been in Sanur, on the south east coast of Bali.  It is a really quiet spot with beautiful beaches.  Unfortunately, I have had the flu for the past 48 hours and have only left the room for a total of about 90 minutes.  Thankfully it was pouring rain today, so we didn't feel we were missing out on too much.  Hopefully our last 2 days here will be more ambitious.

We will be flying to Perth on Wednesday and so, it will be 'so long South East Asia'!! 

Around the island in 3 days

After one week in Kuta, it was time to see the rest of the island.  We hired a driver to take us on a private, 3 day tour of the less-touristy Bali we heard existed.  We had a very full itinerary, and would have a difficult time relaying all the details, but there are definitely some highlights to share.  

Day 1:
We began the tour traveling from Kuta (West Coast) through the center of the island to Lovina, at the Northern tip of the island.  The roads run through endless small towns and villages, winding their way up, down and through mountain valleys.  We visited 2 temples, a huge waterfall, a coffee plantation and fed monkeys on the side of the road.  

Entry Gate to Tanah Lot

Tanah Lot Temple

The monkeys were surprisingly gentle

Awwww...

At the plantation we had a tasting of numerous Bali coffee and tea, including "Kopi Luwak" coffee.  This is the world's most expensive coffee as the beans are harvested from the droppings of Luwaks.  That's right, these little animals eat the coffee berry, it ferments in their belly for a few days (or weeks...??) and then is returned to the forest floor.  The droppings are collected, cleaned, and then the beans ground into this amazing and expensive coffee.  It is actually really delicious coffee...very smooth.  :)

Roasting coffee beans

The BEST smell!

Grinding the beans

And sifting

The white cup on the right is the Luwak "Pooh" Coffee, around $4.50/cup

Black sand beach at Lovina

Day 2:
We left Lovina, traveling down the east coast to the village of Amed.  Amed is a narrow fishing village built along the coast where the mountain meets the ocean.  Along the way, we drove up to Penginapan Volcano.  Unfortunately, it was very cloudy and photo ops were limited.  We had the most scenic drive down and once we were below the cloud line, there were rice paddies as far as you could see.  We also stopped to visit the Royal Water Palace and the Pura Ulun Danu Batur temple.  The last stop was a natural hot spring shower/pool (not very refreshing after touring around in the 30+ heat all day....).  At the end of the day we found accommodation at a small guest-stay with an amazing view.  Aside from the power outage and loss of our cooling system (a fan), and endless entanglement in the mosquito net, it was the most peaceful stay we've had in 4 months. 

Beautiful Rice Paddy fields

Natural Hot Springs

Royal Water Palace at Tirtagangga

Nothing like morning coffee with a view like this

Day 3:
We woke up to a gorgeous day with a thermos of coffee waiting for us on our veranda.  Had we not had another day of touring ahead, we may have been convinced to stay.  But onward to Ubud!  We had a light itinerary planned for day 3...thankfully, I'm not sure we could have pretended to be excited to visit another temple or palace or historic site.  So, we grinned and bear-ed it through a tour of a wood carving operation and yet another temple.

Hand carving wood sculpture from Hibiscus wood

The ladies do the sanding and finishing work

Puto (our guide) and I at Candidasa

The king sized bed and hot shower awaiting us in Ubud was enough to brighten our spirits for a 4 day stay.