Perth, Western Australia (May/Jun 2017)
JJ in PER (29th May – 2nd Jun 2017)
Type: Free & Easy (Self Drive)
The JJ kids are up early this morning as we scurry to get ready for our flight! We catch some quick shut-eye on the way to the airport but nothing’s stopping us from posing for the cam at T3!
The J Twins posing with Mummy Koa (who’s headed back to Aussieland) and Elsa.
It wasn’t long before we hop onto to plane.
Daddy says its 5 hours to get to PER, but…
JJ: How long is that Daddy?
Daddy J: Thats the equivalent to 2 runs of Frozen kids… you can watch it twice, or once and have a little shut eye after your CHML before we get in.
How’dy Mate! Sure enough we soon land in Western Australia, the new Aussie Sunshine State (with officially more hours of light that Queensland, with an annual average of 8.8hours of sunshine/day). Anyways… we disembark, and make our way to the immigration clearance. Wow, the queue builds up really quickly, we think there was another flight (guessing its MH) which arrives into the gate within minutes from ours.
No trouble… we clear immigration after a 20-min-ish Q without any hassle, pick up our bags, and our Kiddy-booster seats.
Note Australia has stringent legal requirements on child seats – Disclaimer on below requirements. Please CHECK the current legislations and latest requirements online via www.transport.wa.gov.au for Western Australia (RTA for New South Wales), or log on to the AusGov Roads and Transport Authority site since different AU states have different local governing bodies which manage licensing and regulations within their jurisdiction – https://www.australia.gov.au/information-and-services/transport-and-regional/roads-and-road-transport/authorities
What we had when we were there though we noted as below:
- < 6M – Babies less than 6 months need to be put in an approved rear-facing seat (baby capsule or convertible child car seat)
- 6M – 6Y – Toddlers in this age bracket to be in a forward-facing child seat with inbuilt harness.
- Kids > 145cm in height can use the regular fitted seat-belts.
After collecting our bags we were randomly selected for a secondary customs inspection where we were instructed to stand still in a line when Mr-Customs-Officer a cute waggly beagle comes along to sniff our bags. He takes a little extra sniff on ours maybe because of Rex’s scent but then trods along soon enough. Too bad we couldn’t snap pix… he was really adorable.
When we get out the sliding doors, we make a left turn towards the car rental desks. Daddy told us to wait as he queued at the yellow Hertz‘s counter with what appeared to be like 5 others folks ahead of him. And boy did we wait. We found out subsequently there was only 1 guy on shift that day, and was probably out at lunch. Daddy must have been in Q > an hour since during this time we had gotten his Aussie Optus SIM card from the local telco store, and had bought us a quick something to eat and drink while Mummy stood in line on his behalf! FINALLY we get our keys, Daddy manages to secure our trusty Safe’n’Sound seats into the rental and on we go all strapped up and ready to rock’n’roll! Despite the multiple delays we have every reason to smile from ear to ear!
We make our way to Caversham Wildlife Park in Swan Valley to see our favourite Aussie marsupials.
For the record – Jiejie (T1) was so tired (she’d refuse to sleep on the flight – ended up maxing out 2 movies with the endless request for more snacks and OJ) she falls asleep on Mummy’s lap for most of what we recall at Caversham. Daddy hurries around with Jon to see the other animals (we tried tirelessly to track the croc but only find a measly baby hidden behind some shrubs in the enslosure but were happy to find the family of baby penguins happily swimming away). That of course was after the standard Koala and Kangaroo trail.
Funnily though when we were about to leave, Jo wakes up feeling all fresh! *we remember Daddy nagging away about us having enough sleep before the holiday so we don’t sleep our holiday away…”.
Daddy says we’re a stone’s throw away from the Margaret River Chocolate Company also in the Swan Region. We get there soon enough and perk ourselves up after stuffing ourselves silly with chocolate!
The next day we get on the Perth Explorer (aka the Hop-on-Hop-off) bus…. we basically just do a little circuit and hop off at almost the same spot we left our car. We do spot SHREK along the way apparently at a Shrek Show in at Burswood Convention/Entertainment Centre. *Whee!*
We alight the bus at the Hay Street stop, right outside the Perth Mint. Daddy got us discounted tix from the Perth Explorer bus captain to go into the Mint. Seems there was a fixed timing so we play around the outside while waiting for our slot. We recall there was this interesting display of melting what looked like a gold brick. We thought Daddy seemed to be getting some ideas at one stage staring wide-eyed at the gold bar the whole time…. 🙂
After we whack him in the bum to wake up his silly ideas and he was sober enough to get behind the wheels again, he drives southwards to Cicerello’s @ Freo (Fremantle) for the best fish’n’chips in town!
On the way, we chance upon a nice big toy store called ToyWorld (what caught our eye was the yellow banner with the familiar while-emblazoned-on-red LEGO fonts claiming to be “Western Australia’s Largest independent Lego Store”. We make a pitstop and check out the Lego there to validate that claim!
Turns out to be pretty extensive a range, but the lineup wasn’t the newest… we did enjoy the giant trampoline and made ourselves pretty much at home in the basement though!
Soon it was munch time at Cicerello’s! Great food, some nice colouring sheets we helped ourselves to with some crayons while waiting for our lunch! We really liked the fish tanks with marine sea life around the restaurant (even in the little boy’s room!).
After a hearty lunch we head to Fremantle Prison.
We’re in luck, next tour leaves in 5mins so we quickly sign up and jump into our Orange Prison jumpsuits for our prison tour (just kidding on the jumpsuits!).
All in we took >2hrs to complete the prison tour. Daddy really liked it, Mummy we thought was too tired from chasing us around the sprawling outdoor grounds…
The next day we went shopping Westfield Carousell…. we enjoy the twin shopping cart at Coles. From Cannington we drive to X-treme Ice @ Mirabooka for some ice-skating. This is our first attempt on the rink, and Daddy says the cute little Penguins would come in handy. As there were absolutely no other people that day the staff were nice enough to offer us the Penguins at no additional cost – thanks heaps again guys from the JJ Twins! You guys rock! We will be sure to come back again soon!
At the University of Western Australia (UWA) grounds the next day. Surprise surprise who do we bump into there but our BSF teacher who was on holiday with her family.
At King’s Park with the picturesque backdrop of the beautiful Perth City!
At the Synergy Parkland King’s Park, where kids play like KINGS!
All in 5 days seemed pretty short. Soon we were packin’ up and Mummy got us to do our usual stuff sitting on the suitcases so we could pull the zipper together to close it shut…
Daddy says there’s so much more we weren’t able to see this time, and we should come back soon – if only we eat our veggies and continue to be the vegetable heroes we are, hope to see you soon Perth!
Summary of May/Jun 2017 Perth Accommodation:
We split the accommodation at different properties based on the best available rates (BAR) at each establishment.
Jo developed a fever towards the end of the trip so we had extended by 1 day (SQ was kind enough to waive the cancellation/rebooking fee and had rebooked us to another flight at no additional cost!).
- First 2 nights at the Mercure Hotel Perth (10 Irwin Street, Perth, WA, 6000 Australia).
Price breakdown
Room price AU$265.52
2 nights: AU$121.51 /night
Taxes : AU$22.50
Total AU$265.52
- Subsequent 2 nights at the Pan Pacific Perth (207 Adelaide Terrace, East Perth, WA, 6000 Australia)
Price breakdown
Room price AU$351.01
2 nights: AU$160.44 /night
Taxes : AU$30.13
Total AU$351.01