G'day! Sorry I haven't posted anything in the past while...I've been pretty busy here and haven't really had a chance to sit down and write anything since my last post.
On Saturday, June 27th my family here and I made our way southbound to a small town called Albany. If you don't know, my auntie Judy and uncle Seng's house is located in Perth, Western Australia. I've attached a map of the entire state of Western Australia for your viewing convenience so you don't have to google it and so you know what I'm talking about. Anyways, Albany is just under 500km south of Perth and took us about six hours to drive on the Albany highway. An interesting fact I learned about Australia is the rather strigent traffic rules. On most major highways, the speed limit is set at a firm 110 km/h. If you exceed this speed limit by 5 km/h, and you get caught (either by radar or well hidden speed cameras) then you will get fined...and you can't even fight it. So most drivers here are extremily cautious and drive well under the speed limit - as you can imagine, that slows down our trip to anywhere. Another thing about Perth, even though it's the fourth largest city in Australia, is that it is completely isolated from anything, so driving is a way of life here (public transit sucks anyways).
From Perth, we stopped by a small family owned persimmon farm. Persimmons are a large, tomato shaped/sized berry. They are a beautiful, reddish-orange coloured fruit, especially when packed together nicely in boxes in which they are commonly sold. They are common in this area of Australia so we bought a box and continued on the Albany highway southbound.
We arrived in Albany around 6:30pm and found the nearest Best Western on the highway and immediately booked two rooms (each room had three beds) since we were all tired from the long and boring car ride down. After unpacking our things in the hotel room, we walked over to the "Hungry Jacks" which is Australia's version of Burger King. After eating, we went back to the hotel and I passed out around 7:30 cause I'm a big loser...
Waking up at 8:30 in the morning, I quickly showered and got ready. We checked out of our hotel and drove down to Middleton Beach, located very close the the Albany city centre. At 9:00 in the morning, the sun was just rising over the water, which was an absolutely gorgeous sight to see. I wish you all could have been there, since pictures won't do it justice (that's my excuse for not uploading pictures since I forgot the USB cable for my Canon SLR back at home in Belleville...shame on me). Since it's winter here in Australia, the beach itself wasn't overly populated and the wind and waves were fairly strong so we packed it in and drove around Frenchman's Bay, located on the southern point between Denmark and Albany (see the map). The area provides fantastic whale watching opportunities, swimming, diving, snorkelling, fishing and sailing, but our primary reason of visiting was just because it was a halfway spot to Denmark; where we got breakfast.
At Denmark, we stopped at a small shitbox restaurant, which served very authentic Auzzie meals. I've learned a long time ago that the smallest, hole in the wall restaurants always serve the best food, at the best prices, and this time was no exception! On the menu, the first thing I saw was that they served kangaroo. Me being the hypocrite that I am, was craving kangaroo meat since I've heard so much about it from the locals here. From my last post, you saw that I was making friend's with the little marsupials and now I'm ready to eat them haha. Anyways, I ordered the "Big Outback Breakfast" which consited of eggs, toast, smoked kangaroo meat and kangaroo sausage. When the plate came, I was greeted by three large, pale breakfast style sausages and a few slabs of reddish coloured kangaroo meat. Needless to say, I jumped in and began eating it. So you're thinking to yourself...what does kangaroo taste like? Well let me tell you...the texture of kangaroo is almost like a cross between liver (if you've ever had that) and a really good quality beef tenderloin. Very tender and lean with a unique flavour (slightly gamey) and texture. It's honestly something that I can't compare to at home, so you'll have to try it if you ever make it to Australia. I mowed down breakfast, my uncle paid the bill and we were off on the highway again, heading west.
Our next destination was "the Gap" and the "Natural Bridge" located in Torndirrup National Park. The Gap is a natural occurance created in the granite rocks off the shore of the Indian Ocean due to natural erosion from the waves. A viewing platform located over 50 feet from the water provides a spectacular view of the gap. I'm pissed I didn't bring my cable to upload pictures, but if you google image search it, you should be able to find a picture. I can't begin to describe the scale of the scenery...but a picture should suffice - so look it up or be a bitch...whatever. It's even more impressive to visit during the winter as the waves from the Indian Ocean are ferocious and the spray from the water easily reaches the top of the rocks from the bottom.
Finally...after the gap, we drove to Pemberton and visited the Gloucester Tree, located within Gloucester National Park. The Gloucester Tree is a giant Karri tree and was built in 1931 I beleive as a fire lookout tree. At the top of the 61 foot tree is a man-made platform, where rangers stationed there would sit and keep a lookout for potential fires in the forests of Western Australia. To scale the tree, metal spires are drilled into the sides, kinda like a ladder so people could climb. As it's opened to visitors, I decided to give it a shot. I made it halfway up and got scared. Since there's no safety equipment, a fall could have killed me...or worse, turned me into a gimp. So I stopped and climbed down. I bitched out, and now only have a stupid story to tell about the time I made it halfway up a tree. If I had kids, they would be ashamed of their dad. After 30 minutes of my unkle Seng making chicken noises, we left and headed north to Mandura for dinner, about an hour south of Perth. The trip took an extra long time since we were experiencing torrential rain and wind (due to the winter)...we arrived just before 8 pm.
My uncle Seng's good friend owns Cicerello, a fantastic seafood restaurant, complete with a huge saltwater aquarium on the mouth of the Freemantle harbour. When we arrived, we were seated instantly and were served a huge bounty of seafood...including chili mussels, steamed fish, seafood linguine, fish and chips and their famous seafood chowder. I can't recall the last time I ate so much that comes from the bottom of the sea. It was amazing, and the toilets of Australia did not thank me the next day haha. (p.s. I can't find any toilets that flush in the traditional spinning water style...they all just push water down the drain...but my quest for the opposite spinning toilet water still continues...).
Anyways...laptop battery dying...not enough time to finish story. I will add more later before I go to bed or tomorrow morning. I'm going for a walk with my cousin and the dog.
Cheers!
Simon
