Our least exciting day do far as we left our accommodation in Busselton (Inn the Tuarts) and headed back to Perth for our overnight flight to Auckland. The B&B is worth a mention as the landlady is incredibly opinionated (she almost scolded us for called the Busselton Jetty a pier) and it one of those places that send you a mail afterwards asking for a five star trip advisor review (its not worth it). But the wierdest thing was that the rooms has a full itinerary of every item in the room, running to some 2-3 pages! I wasn’t sure whether we were supposed to tick everything off or maybe order something. Weird!
Kangaroos
What really made this stay memorable was the chance to see a fair number of Kangaroos in the wild. The picture here was taken about 10 minutes’ walk from the B&B and we were surprised to see so many in one place.
From Busselton we headed up through Bunbury where we did not stop at all and then on through Mandurah where we stopped to look at a nature reserve (we were pressing on so did not really make a note of the reserve although it was pretty impressive).
Rockingham
From Mandurah on to Rockingham where we stopped for some lunch. Rockingham is home to a lot of Brits and I can’t help but feel that it’s now a bit like Southend with sunshine. The beaches are quite spectacular however.
Continuing our whistle-stop tour of all things south of Perth we made a final stop in
Fremantle
Fremantle for a quick look around the shops before heading onto Perth Airport.
We took a 787-9 to Auckland (my first time in one of those new planes) which was very modern and very quiet.
Overall then in our 8 days in Australia we covered about 1,700 km and I am left we a couple of major impressions.
Firstly, the far south is incredibly beautiful with some really nice towns, people and scenery. Definitely very liveable.
Secondly, there is an enormous amount of fairly major construction work underway in and around Perth with a number of new housing estates planned and major works underway both at the waterfront in Perth and on the airport and surrounding infrastructure. I imagine in 5 years’ time Perth will look very different to how it does today.
Finally, the flies! They are everywhere and the only way to avoid them is to stand in a very strong wind which seems to unsettle them. Insect repellant has no effect so it’s just a question of keep you mouth closed and work on your “Aussie salute” (brushing flies away).
