Australia here we come!

28/7/12

We woke to a cool morning and the thermometre said it was 10 degrees. That's not the type of temperature that would make me leave Fremantle and drive 1000kms to Broome for 3 months. But it appears Perthians are terrified of the cold for some reason.

We set off on foot this morning at 9.00am and walked to the free CAT bus stop and caught the Blue bus into Fremantle. We got off at the Fremantle railway station and after a short walk the girls went ballistic with all the shops, street markets and established weekend markets. It was the worst day of my life. I was dragged from shop to shop to market to market all day. Even the relief of a free bus ride ended up being a trip to the E Shed markets at the Fremantle Wharf. I couldn't win a one horse race that day.

At the end of an exhausting day we caught the free bus back to where we caught it in the morning and walked 20 kms home (Well it felt like it on my aching legs!!).

29/7/12

We had a change of pace today and decided to take a drive to a town east of Fremantle called Armadale. It was a pleasant drive once we found the right road. We called into the Information Centre and found it didn't open until 11.00am so we walked across the road and had McDonalds for breakfast. After breakfast we walked back to the Information Centre and the girls found out about trains and fares. There was museum called the Bert Tyler Vintage Museum attached to the Information Centre and I amused myself in there for some time.

Mr Tyler is a very clever man as he had on display many old steam and combustion engines, wagons and other implements that he has restored back to working order and some, I'm sure, look better now than when they were new. There was also a Post and Telegraph museum at the Information Centre and that was interesting too. I sent a morse code SOS message but I got no reply.

From the Information Centre we drove to the Coles shopping centre on the pretext of having a look at a 1500 year old Jarrah tree growing in the carpark and the girls couldn't resist the lure of shops and had to go in for a look. The tree was great but the shops sucked.

We needed somewhere to have lunch and couldn't find a park that had a car park attached. So we went for a drive and saw signs to the Churchman Brook Dam picnic grounds. We followed the signs and arrived at a wonderful picnic area at the base of the dam wall. We lunched under an enormous Marri tree and some type of huge pine tree. After lunch we walked to the top of the dam wall and gazed down on Churchman Brook.

With our tummies full we drove back into town and found the History House museum. It has display exhibits and explains a lot of the history of Armadale. It was very interesting. We had a great day in the bush but all things must come to an end so we drove back to the big smoke.