A tale of three cities, a scary flight and more rain. Exploring Australia’s west and east coasts in the summer!
My phone doesn’t seem to work but there is WIFI, so all is well and S is there to meet me. First, we stop at the pharmacy to see what they can offer for my ailments. We head to S’s abode and cook some food before heading to nearby Scarborough Beach, where there are market stalls and a lot of people chilling out on the beach for the evening. I hear quite a few English accents. There is a wind! I have been told about this and apparently it is called “The Fremantle Doctor,” which blows in from the southwest and actually helps to moderate the extremely high temperatures. It plays havoc with your hair and means that a jacket is sometimes necessary and preferably a hat, although one that you can jam on your head as it will blow away.
The next day my friend takes me to Fremantle. I believe it is known to the locals as Freo, but Australians shorten a lot of their words! We drive via Cottesloe Beach, which looks like a great place to hang out but we are bound for the city. We visit the Arts Centre and then go to the oldest public building in Western Australia, the Round House which was built in 1831 and used as a gaol between 1857 and 1900. We wait until 1pm when the cannon is fired and the dropping of the Time Ball. Apparently, the cannon was always fired at 1pm so that ships in the harbour could set their clocks. Now it’s a symbolic tribute to this practice. Outside the gaol, I get into the stocks and am handed a ticket dated 1st January 1834, which gives an example of what a felon had been imprisoned for. The charge was an assault on a constable whilst executing his duty and the sentence was fourteen days imprisonment with hard labour. I read that there were many convicts sent here from Britain to provide cheap labour. A curfew bell was rung each night at 9.50 and the convicts needed to return to their lodgings by 10pm. If they didn’t, they were locked up for the night in the Round House. The original curfew bell is obviously not there but there is a replacement bell, which came from Coseley in the West Midlands, near to where I was born. We head to the harbour and it’s a must to have fish and chips in the famous Cicerello’s. We move on to Bathers Beach and a peep at the statue of Bon Scott of AC/DC fame who spent much of his early life here. We also see a pub called the Norfolk Hotel, which was originally built in 1887. We look inside at the verandas and iron balconies reflecting the colonial era. There are some beautiful buildings in this city and it is good to get out of the heat for a while and into the air conditioning.
The next day we set out on our mini road trip heading south to the Margaret River, famous for its wineries and beautiful surfing beaches. On the way we make a detour to Yallingup and sit and admire the strangely twisted trees and beautiful beach. We arrive at Surfpoint Resort, where we are to stay for three nights. Gnarabup beach is a five-minute walk, so we go across and sit overlooking the surf at the White Elephant beach café. It’s hot but still windy!
Margaret River is a stunningly beautiful place. We walk and swim and go for lunch at Xanadu to celebrate S’s forthcoming big birthday and then watch the sunset from the top of the rocks. We visit the Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park, driving through the Boranup Forest and stopping to look at the very tall Karri trees, which are part of the eucalyptus family. We visit Hamelin Bay Beach and are lucky enough to see a lot of stingrays close to the shore, although I am a bit perturbed to see small children trying to pat them. It does not feel right somehow and eventually a man tells them to stop and tells them firmly that this is not a zoo. We visit the spectacular Jewel Caves and marvel at the crystal formations which have grown over thousands of years. We are told by the guide that the remains of a Tasmanian tiger were found here as he fell down a hole and couldn’t get out. Driving on we arrive at Cape Leeuwin, the most south-westerly point of Australia, where the Indian and southern oceans meet. Antarctica is to the south and Africa to the west. The Cape-to-Cape walking trail of 135 km ends here.
I would love to do that trek but probably not in the summer heat. We end the day eating at a restaurant called Pizzica for the second time, as we were so impressed with the food the first time that we came back for a second meal. Healthwise I am on the up although I still have some mouth ulcers which are just refusing to heal.
It is time to head back to Perth and we make a day of it, visiting various spots on the way. First we stroll by the Margaret River and see a variety of beautifully coloured birds and then we drive to a town called Cowaramup, where life sized fibre glass cow sculptures are dotted through the town as a tourist attraction, although I understand that a cowara is a purple lorikeet which once inhabited the area. We drive on to Canal Rocks, which is an impressive coastal stretch with large rocks which we clamber over to get a good viewpoint of the ocean and the amazing sky. Moving on again we arrive at Meelup Beach and fit in a swim. There is some beach information which tells us that our lifeguards are Indie and Soph and the temperature is 33 degrees. As there is a southerly wind there is an instruction that Sups and blowup toys must be careful of the wind!! We are also invited to slip, slop, slap, seek and slide although I’m not sure what that means. I’m still more worried about sharks down here. We carry on to Dunsborough and visit an award-winning ice creamery called Simmos, which boasts 60 different flavours of ice-cream, then on to Busselton Jetty before driving back towards the city.
I am excited for today as we are on the guest list to see the The Teskey Brothers at a mini festival called A Day on the Green in Bursford Park. There is a lineup of both international and Australian artists and we decide that we will get there in time for Band of Horses, an American indie rock band who my son recommended we should see. It is a great evening with seats just in the middle and pretty near the front. The Teskey Brothers played all of the songs I know and love and as always finished up with “Hold Me”, although a slightly shorter version than usual. It is great to be outdoors in the evening for a music event, even though there is still that wind!!
We have two days left for S to show me around her city. Perth is the capital of Western Australia and it sits where the Swan River meets the southwest coast. Sandy beaches line its suburbs, and the huge, riverside Kings Park and the Botanic Garden on Mount Eliza give sweeping views of the city. We set out to see these views. First we head to Point Resolution, which overlooks the Swan River, then on to Mounts Bay, the Royal Perth Yacht Club and Kings Park. The park is huge. We walk past the war memorial dedicated to those who lost their lives in World One and Two. There is also a memorial to those killed in the Bali bombing, which happened on October 12th 2002 and killed two hundred and two people, including twenty-three British people and eighty eight Australians. I visited Bali three years after this and it was still a topic on everyone’s lips. The memorial in the park is extraordinary. The axis aligns with the sunrise on 12th October each year when the light passes through the memorial space to illuminate the commemorative plaque. I feel as if I would like to return on this date someday to see this. We then go on to look at the Botanical Gardens, which are full of flowers I have never seen before and some trees, such as the boab and bottle tree that I am more familiar with. S has a wealth of knowledge about the plants and trees.
On my last day in Perth, S gives me a whistlestop tour of the city. We start at the Museum of Boola Bardip which is a good place to find out a bit more about Western Australia. We spend some time in the “Reflections Gallery”, which highlights personal stories from people of many cultures who came to live in Western Australia. I see a poster for ten-pound Poms, which was a term coined when the government tried to persuade British people to emigrate and it only cost £10. One of the posters stated, “Men for the Land, Women for the Home.” Emerging into the hot sun we walk around the centre of the city and S points out various buildings including St George’s Cathedral, Barrack Square, The Treasury Buildings, the Town Hall and His Majesty’s Theatre. I nearly get knocked off my feet by a woman on an E Scooter who hurls abuse at us. We are shocked when she tells S to “shut her hole”. She is the most unpleasant Aussie I have come across because generally I find the people so friendly and upbeat here.
It is always a great idea to see a city from a rooftop bar and after an early evening meal we head to the DoubleTree by Hilton Perth on the Waterfront. The rooftop bar is located on level 18 and we are just in time to see the sunset over the city and after it has spectacularly set, the whole of the city is lit up. I believe that Perth is known as “the city of light.” We then drive around the city to see some of the views we had seen yesterday but this time by night, which is a whole different experience. Perth is definitely not the “Croydon of Australia”, as someone once described it to me. I have loved the city and I can’t understand why it isn’t more popular, but I guess people are more attracted to the east coast where there are cities which are closer together making it easier to access them. So goodbye Perth. It seems that the temperature is due to rise to about 40 degrees this week.
The next morning S drops me at the airport and after four and a half hours I land in Brisbane. Now I have visited here several times but some time ago so it will be interesting to see how much it has changed. I am to meet up with some of the “Bamboo Legends” whom I originally met when I volunteered in Thailand and Cambodia, a story which is documented in “Lockdown Stories.” Some of us have met up a few times since in different parts of the world but I am very excited that I will see at least three of them who live in Queensland during this vist. Leesa and her big smile are waiting for me at the airport, along with her mum and we drive to Bribie Island where she lives. Bribie Island is the smallest and most northerly of three major sand islands forming the coastline sheltering the northern part of Moreton Bay and is about an hour and a half from Brisbane, depending on the traffic. Leesa’s partner, Morten, greets us along with some friends who have been invited over, including Deb who was also on the Thailand escapade. Morten has had a pizza oven for Christmas and proceeds to make lots of delicious pizza! Then the rain starts. The noise of the frogs and cicadas in the garden is so loud! I thought that I had left the rain behind in Bali! Summer is apparently the wettest time of the year in Queensland but it is also very hot and humid, reminding me a bit of Bali.
The next day is hot and we go for a walk in Bongaree with Leesa’s daughter and granddaughter and after they leave we spend most of the rest of the day in the pool keeping cool. Suddenly Leesa says that there are some kangaroos outside the fence so we go for a quick look. They look a bit frightened so we don’t go too near as one of them has a baby in her pouch. That is seriously the nearest I have ever been to a wild kangaroo and wearing only my swimming costume too!
I have been trying to work out how to get to see Deb from Disruptive Publishers who helped me with “Lockdown Stories” and one of the other authors, Rita-Marie, who contributed to the book but the public transport system up here is not easy. In the end Deb and Rita-Marie drive to see me and we go for a coffee nearby. It is great to meet them in the flesh after spending so many on-line coaching sessions with them in the middle of the night. Leesa is busy working and completing her PhD so is pretty busy and can’t really take any time off this week. Morten is also working but he is usually home late afternoon and cooks the evening meal. It is great to finally meet him in person too. At the ned of the day, Leesa takes me to a pharmacy as my ulcers are still not healing and I am given some steroid treatment, which I hope will finally help.
The next day the other Deb kindly drives up to Bribie to collect me and we head off to see the city of Brisbane. On the way I see a sign which says, “dingo for hire”. I am puzzled by this and wonder why anyone would want to hire a wild dog. I ask Deb and she explains it is an earthmoving machine! When we get to the city, to be honest, I can barely recognise anything. In 2005, I was here with my daughter and I remember we stumbled upon a rockabilly event and met some people who drove us up to Mount Coot-tha to look at the views. Deb thought that had possibly been a bit risky as people go up there for other reasons at night! The other thing I remember about Brisbane is the manmade beach, which is still here. The waterfront has changed enormously and we walk along to admire the area. I love the big screens which are showing the tennis with deck chairs and cushions to watch from. There are many skyscrapers, including the Infinity tower and The Star Casino, which only opened in August 2024. We head across the bridge so that we can go up to the sky deck to see the views from the other side of the river. Set right in the heart of the Queens Wharf Precinct, the Star Casino has a number of bars and restaurants but not all of them are open at lunchtime. What a place to have lunch! We find somewhere with a biggish queue but an amazing view. After this we take the City Kat, a fantastic way to see the city from the water, if a little hot on the upper deck. We go underneath the Story Bridge, the eighty-four-year old, heritage listed steel cantilever bridge which spans the Brisbane River. Unfortunately, it now has a significant amount of rust and corrosion which needs enormous investment to put right so it might not last another eighty-four years. After this we head back to the Queen Street Mall and Brisbane Arcade, a heritage listed arcade, which boasts a tea shop called Room with Roses, specialising in serving High Tea, but it is closed. After a quick coffee at a cool bar called Brew, we head back to Bribie just in time to catch the amazing sunset at Bongaree Beach.
The next day I go back into the city to see a few more things before I need to fly later this afternoon to the city of Newcastle to stay with Prue and Rob, who I met last summer in Croatia. I get a lift with Leesa to her workplace and catch a bus into the city. I am getting my bearings but this day is the hottest so far so I decide that the Cultural Centre will be a good place to pass some time and will be air conditioned, but nothing is open this early. I end up in the gallery of Modern Art and find it a bit disappointing. I go to the Museum of Brisbane, but it is full of noisy school children as it is still the summer holiday here. I watch a bit of tennis on the big screens but am way too hot. I cross backwards and forwards over the river and locate Fish Lane, famed for its eclectic mix of bar and restaurants and three “tiny doors” by an artist called Mace Robertson. These doors are part of a series found throughout the city and inside the Gallery of Modern Art, although I didn’t spot them there. Finally, it is time to head back to the bus and Leesa’s workplace to drive to the airport to catch my flight to Newcastle. Little do I know the drama that was ahead of me!
It has been a really hot day and I am pleased to get inside the airport. I text Prue at 8.17pm to tell her that we are about to take off and I should be there in an hour. Off goes the phone. The hour passes uneventfully until we suddenly hit a great deal of turbulence and we start to drop and jolt quite alarmingly. There is some screaming and the little child in the seat in front of me is sick. We are told to fasten our seatbelts and the crew do the same. We circle and plunge up and down for about fifteen minutes. I can see forks of lightning outside the window and shut my eyes. One of the crew is heard to say, “We’ve just been struck by lightning”. I feel a bit scared. The pilot announces that he is circling and trying to land but there are extremely strong winds. After about fifteen minutes he announces that it is not safe to land, there is no electricity down there and no Wifi so we will be returning to Brisbane. An hour later that is just what we do. We land and it all seems calm here weather wise except I am not sure what we are supposed to do now. We are instructed to go to the baggage reclaim area where we will be told what is happening. There are big queues at the Jetstar desk and someone tells me that we need to queue to get a voucher to say that we have been delayed in order to make a claim later and a flight time for tomorrow. We are also told that we need to find our own accommodation. I am not sure how I am going to go about that as my phone is not really working very well. I attach myself to an Australian woman who tells me that she has just been in Brisbane for the day on business and doesn’t know any hotels nearby. We decide to get into a taxi together and find somewhere. She calls several hotels and they are all fully booked. We are driving further and further away from the airport and the meter is ticking. The driver is very helpful but doesn’t really have any idea about where we can stay. Eventually we strike lucky and a hotel called Eatonfields has rooms for 200 dollars. We book two rooms and arrive there at just after 11pm. My new friend picks up the bill for the taxi as she says that it may be easier for her to claim it back than for me. Of course the restaurant is closed and there is no food available but there is a big comfy bed. This is not quite how I had envisaged my evening to pan out. I text Prue and find that she has had a scary time being in the car waiting for me at the airport, with 100 mph winds gusting around her, tree branches flying everywhere and traffic lights all out but she will return the next morning if I get there.
I sleep well surprisingly after all the drama and join my friend for breakfast. Again, she kindly offers to pay for mine as she says she can claim it back and she has organised for a driver from her work to take us to the airport. An amiable chap called Peter drives us back to the airport and we take off again. We manage to land although the landing is a bit bumpy and there is still no Wifi at the airport. It dawns on me that I will be unable to call Prue to tell her I am here and I don’t have their address. She suddenly appears like an angel and tells me that she is parked outside. The weather is appalling with strong winds and torrential rain. It is so lovely to see her though.
All of our plans go on hold as the weather will not allow us to set a foot outside so we spend the day, eating, catching up and relaxing in the hot tub. We do much the same the next day and bemoan the fact that we can’t see the magnificent view of the lake from their deck or even go outside to sit on it. That evening we are picked up by a minibus and head to a place called Club Macquarie to see a band called Rock Rhapsody, a local band who play classic rock covers and wear crotch hugging trousers. There is much merriment and wild dancing before we call it a night as there will be another early start in the morning and Rob will drive me to the airport before he plays golf, weather permitting.
The plane leaves and all is good. It is very hot back in Brisbane. Deb picks me up at the airport and we head for Mount Tamborine, where Darren the other “Bamboo Legend” will be as he owns a property here and has been home for Christmas. Darren texts and says he is going to buy a couple of chooks for lunch. I have no idea what they are but should have worked out that he means chickens. Darren has owned this land for a while and recently built a house on it. In true Darren style it is amazingly decorated. He has such a creative flair. The views are fantastic and we sit on his big verandah, which was all but destroyed a year ago in a gale which caused a lot of damage and brought trees down on the roof. After lunch of “chooks” and salads we go to feed the little ponies Darren owns and then opt for a walk in the National Park, despite the ominous storm clouds gathering. We are hardly there for five minutes when the rain starts but luckily it is not torrential. That will be later!
In the evening, we sit on the verandah and play a crazy card game which has us in hoots of laughter. We all met in 2017 on our volunteering adventure but whenever we meet up it feels as if no time at all has passed. I love these guys. It is just such a shame that Jackie in Vancouver is not with us, but she is in spirit as we involve her in the game vicariously. The rain begins in earnest and the wind is howling. We batten down the hatches and close the blinds but is quite fierce and a big vase of flowers crashes to the ground. What is it about this weather following me around? Darren whisks up some bowls of Asian broth in what seems like a second. No end to his talents! There is much hilarity and eventually we go inside as even for an Australian summer it is getting quite chilly.
At about 4am the kookaburras start to make a noise. Darren had warned us about this. Impossible to sleep through but somehow I slip back to sleep with my head under the pillow. We all get up at different times and have a leisurely breakfast on the verandah. The rain has miraculously cleared. We drink tea and coffee and discuss ideas for a future trip together and we seem to land on India. It is difficult to find a spot somewhere which we can all access relatively easily from all of the corners of the world. We’ll see how that pans out.
Leesa, Morten and I a head back to Bribie and spend the afternoon at a hotel Sandstone Park as it is Leesa’s daughter’s birthday tomorrow and most of her family congregate, so I get to meet some more of her children and grandchildren.
I have two days left to chill and spend the next day around the area in the extreme heat. The temperature is climbing steadily this week and is in the late thirties. Not a drop of rain in sight.
It is my last day and I have booked a taxi to take me to the airport to begin that long twenty-one-hour journey back to the UK, with a brief stop for a couple of hours in Singapore. I reflect on the experiences I have had. There are always highs and lows on any trip. My purpose of blogging has always been to see how I fare when “travelling the world with my invisible friend,” part of the title of my upcoming book. This time it was not really Crohn’s that troubled me but simply a virus which everyone seemed to have and of course Bali belly, which can affect anyone. I guess more of a problem for me is my poor immune system and that took a battering which is why everything took so long to fight off. I was not ill enough for my plans to be changed, except that it was a struggle in the early days of the trip in Bali when I completely lost my voice.
The most brilliant part for me has been reconnecting with people who I have previously met on my travels around the world and also making some new friends, who I feel sure I will see again. It has also reminded me how much I love Australia. One of the things I love the most, aside from the beautiful scenery and wildlife is the people. There is such a unique warmth to Australians and a friendliness which means that you meet people wherever you go and they make conversation, whether you are on a bus, in a shop or just walking down the street. As a girl from the Midlands who talks to everyone this is just up my street! They are always willing to offer advice, help you out of a sticky situation and they have such a great sense of humour. I’ll never forget the kindness of the woman I met after the disastrous flight who paid for the taxi fare and my breakfast. It wasn’t about the money, it was just the effortless kindness in the way that she helped a complete stranger, as if we were old friends. Last but not least, my good friends all across Australia, who opened up their homes, fed me and were proud to show me aspects of their beautiful country I hadn’t seen before. (Ok, in the case of Newcastle, it was the hot tub more than the city). To everyone I have met on this particular journey, both old friends and new, thank you for your kindness and your generosity and the moments we have shared, whether big or small. From the strangers I met to the familiar faces who are so special, each person has made this long-awaited trip unforgettable. I will be back. No doubt about that!
