Invasion of the Northern Hordes- Part 2

 

6 days after our visit with David and Teri came to an end, our visit with Sam and Sonia (my parents) began.  They arrived to Perth in early January right in the middle of Australia's summer.  Prior to coming to Perth they spent some time with their friends in Sydney, then they went on a cruise aroud south east Australia and then spent some more time with their friends in Sydney.  This is actually their second trip to Australia.  Despite the fact that we've been living here for almost a year and a half, they've seen much more of Australia than we have.  Bloody tourists...

 

 

Our first dinner together in well over a year.  Sitting on our deck as the Sun is setting.  Receive bonus points if you can count the number of fingers the photographer is holding up. Hint: it's more than one.

 

A trip to Perth wouldn't be the same without a visit to Cottlesloe beach.  Cottlesloe is the most iconic beach in Perth but in truth, besides a few shops in the area, it's not much different than most beaches in Perth.  The sand is white and soft, the water is calm and clear, the beachgoers are largely British and boorish, with the occasional Canadian/Russian tourists thrown in for good measure.

There are a lot of kangaroos in Western Australia.  Most of them are Grey Kangaroos.  In the east they have the larger Red Kangaroos.  However, the Roos don't generally come into the city...with one exception.  There is a beautiful cemetary fairly close to our home that houses dozens of wild kangaroos.  We drove around the cemetary and saw quite a few just from our car.  Here a couple of males are having a slap fight in the background, while in the foreground is a mother with a Joey in her pouch.

One of our favorite things about Perth is that there are several outdoor cinemas in the city.  Some of them are open grass fields and others have chairs set up.  Generally, people bring some food and wine, have a picnic in the theatre area, then find a seat and watch a film.  This particular theatre is our favorite one in the University of Western Australia.

One of the more popular tourist destinations in the Perth area is the city of Fremantle.  It's a coastal city about 50km southwest of Perth and is a busy, working port.  It's the shipping hub for this part of the world.  It's also a fairly old city but is quite vibrant and has some interesting architecture.

After spending a couple of weeks in Perth all seven of us (!) packed up and headed to Bali, Indonesia.  Bali is very close to Perth: it's less than a 4 hour flight away.  It's also very cheap to fly, stay, eat and play there.  In general, Bali is to Australians sort of what Las Vegas is to Canadians without the gaudy gambling.  Many people here will go away there for a long weekend and people often go on a regular basis.  We ended up spending 5 days in Bali.  We were taking a bit of a risk as it was the wet season.  But whatever, it's still Bali.

Our first dinner together at our resort in Bali.  Our villa was very nice and it was in a good location.  The only problem was that there was quite a bit of construction around the hotel.

We spent the first day, and some time afterwards, walking the streets of Bali trying to get a sense of the area.  It was generally very safe and cleaner than I anticipated, although still not quite up to western standards.  We also found the people to be very friendly and gracious.

We actually had two pools in our resort.  The one above was the main pool in the center of the complex (which had about 6 villas in total).  The other was a smaller private pool in our villa.  Here, everyone is taking a dip and cooling off from the heat.  When we left Perth the average temperature was in the mid to high 30s.  In Bali, because it's close to the equator, the temperature is essentially always around 30.  However, because of the humidity it felt much, much hotter in Bali.

We hired a driver from our resort and he took us around the island a little bit (until I got sick- more on that later).  Here, our first stop is a large temple in Bali.  There are big and small temples everywhere.  As a matter of fact, every family complex has their own temple, some bigger than others.  Also, every town has several main temples.  The one above is an old, historic Hindu temple.

About an hours drive from our resort was the monkey forest.  It's a little forest enclave that is inhabited by wild macaques.  Obviously the monkeys are quite used to people and are fed by locals and tourists alike regularly.  Above Keva is watching 3 monkeys playing in the water.  One of them, the littlest one, was literally swimming around under water like a snorkeller.

Generally, the monkeys would ignore the people who came to gawk at them...unless you had something that was either edible or interesting.  In this case, Sonia has both.  This little monkey tried to grab her pink, plastic water bottle and steal it from her.  Sonia valiantly held onto the bottle and the monkey was even hanging from it for a few seconds.  In the end, "good" prevailed over monkey and nobody was harmed.

One of the interesting features of Bali are the rice paddies.  Some are flat and some are tiered like the hill shown above.

 

 

 

During that excursion I was the first to fall victim to the dreaded "Bali Belly".  The systems are nauseau, dizziness, upset tummy and listlessness.  We all ended up getting Bali Belly but fortunately, most of us recovered very quickly.

 

 

The next day was the highlight of our trip to Bali.  We went on a guided bicycle ride down from the hills and through several villages.  Unfortrunately, this was the day that Sam got sick and didn't join us.

 



This is how we roll.

 

Our day actually started by taking a tour at a local plantation where they grow fruit, vegetables and coffee.  Above, Sonia is taking a drink of the most expensive coffee in the world.  The coffee is only grown in this region of the world and is special because of...

...these little guys.  These cat-like creatures inhabit the hills of Bali.  They eat coffee beans, the bean ferments in their stomach, and then they poop it out.  The locals collect the discarded beans, clean them, roast them and prepare them just like any other coffee.  The beans ferment while in the stomachs of these animals.  The result is nicknamed "cat-poop-chino".  We all tried it and agreed that we'd stick to Nabob.

After we'd had our fill of cat poo we were taken for breakfast near the top of the hills.  In the picture above there is a volcano on the left, a lake in the middle and a volcano on the right.  Our restaurant looked over this spectacular view.

We eventually stopped eating and drinking and starting riding.  As we road our bikes down the hill we stopped in a spot where some locals were harvesting rice.  Nadia and Sonia got in on the action.

 

After several hours of riding through the country side and villages we finally ended our day with lunch at our guides home.  The food was prepared by his wife (and was amazing).  Their family complex housed several members of the family and was gorgeous.

 

While we were in Bali Keva celebrated her 15th birthday!  Cake for breakfast...this time only.

 

Some of our time was spent going through the local markets barterring with the shop keepers for cheap junk that we will likely never use.

 

Our trip to Bali was exciting, interesting and exhausting.  Between the stifling weather (it never did rain much), the Bali Belly and our ambitious schedule, we were exhausted by the end of it all.

 

When we arrived back to Perth it was back to business as usual.  The kids went back to school and Nadia and I went to work.  In the meantime, Sam and Sonia booked a couple of trips on their own to see the Pinnacles, Margaret River and a river cruise of Perth.  However, we still managed to do a little more sight-seeing with them.

 



One of our excursions was to a town about an hour south of Perth called Mandurah.  It's a coastal town with not a lot going on except for the fact that it's a coastal town.  After we parked the car and walked to the shore we came across a dolphin and her calf swimming around.  You can see Sonia watching the dolphin above.  There is a pod of dolphins that live in Mandurah year round and generally hang around the bay and occasionally swim with bathers.

 

We took a boat tour in Mandurah to look at the canals and on the way back some of the dolphins were playing in the boats wake.

 

 

Here's Sonia enjoying a night swim in our pool.  We all spent quite of bit of time in the pool when the weather got warmer.

Sam and Sonia at Lake Monger with the Perth CBD in the background and the local birds (ducks, black swans,etc.) in the foreground.

 

While in Perth we also spent some time at our favorite beach: Sorrento.  This beach is a 5 minute drive from our house and is usually very calm and not too busy.  On this day the weather was HOT and the water was perfect.

 

On their last night in Perth we all went to dinner together.  We couldn't decide where to go until we stumbled upon this sign.  As it turns out there is an ongoing facebook war between this restaurant (The Naked Fig) and one patron who really didn't like it.  It's gone a little viral.  We didn't know it at the time though.

Despite the warning the food and service was very good.

 

 ...and then it was time to say goodbye.  We really enjoyed having our visitors from the north and it really lifted our spirits.  After two solids months of having visitors stay with us it's been a bit of an empty feeling without them.  But don't worry, we'll get over it quickly I'm sure.