Australia here we come!

26/7/12

It was a bit chilly when we woke (3 degrees in the caravan) and I couldn't get outside quick enough to check for frost. I wasn't disappointed as both cars were white and the oval was the same colour. There was even a huge fog to set the scene even better. As the sun rose the frost and the fog disappeared and a lovely day ensued.

We ventured over to the Information Centre and paid to visit the museum and join the guided tour. The museum is full of old relics from the early days of the settlement and was worth seeing. The art gallery has some magnificent old oil paintings from the time when a painting was a painting. Most were from 16^th century artists and there was even a drawing done by Raphael and his students in the 15^th century. There was a modern art section and it was crap when compared to the real thing.

At 11am we joined the guided walking tour of the town. The guide was excellent and his knowledge of the town history was excellent. We visited churches, a flour mill, three separate schools (boys, girls and aboriginals), the monks’ monastery and the hotel, which was originally a guest house for visiting parents of white boarding school pupils. We learned that the monks built their buildings from bricks made in the work shop and that they had sheep properties, wheat properties and grew all their own food. They made bread from flour milled in the flour mill. There was a blacksmith shop, carpenters shop - anything you could imagine they had it.

We had such a wonderful time we decided to stay another night on the oval and experience some more frost, hopefully.

27/7/12

We were not disappointed and jack frost came early. We were all up just after 7am to witness a better frost than the day before. There was no fog and the clear skies allowed the frost to venture to places it missed yesterday. The outside temperature gauge in the Prado showed 0 degrees. It was with regret that we packed up and left this paradise of ice.

Today our planned destination is Perth. Our first stop on the way was a nice little town called Bindoon. The girls visited the Information Centre and found out about a scenic detour on the Chittering Valley Rd which we decided to take. We were not disappointed as the scenery was great but the road was a little narrow and windy for caravans. Nonetheless, we made it to Bullsbrook and back on the Great Northern Highway for the easy run into Perth and Freemantle.

The girls wanted to visit the Information Centre at Freemantle so we took the Freemantle exit and unfortunately followed the Information Centre signs to the City Centre, which was the last place I wanted us to be with caravans in tow. After annoying everyone in the city centre twice, without finding the Information Centre, we found a spot wide enough to pull over just near the Armadale turnoff. There we regained our composure and confidence while we had lunch. The girls rang a couple of caravan parks and they decided we would stay at the Freemantle Village Caravan Park just back along the road a bit towards town.

It was with great relief that we settled into our sites that afternoon, after our harrowing trip through the city centre and Mary-Anne even wanted a whiskey. (Don't worry kids I didn't let her have one!)