Week 12 - Perth - Manderley Gits

My dearest readers

Unfortunately we all knew this post would come. This officially is the last blog about our traveling experiences around the world. After twelve weeks of flying, sailing, diving, hiking, camping, swimming, shopping, visiting, but most importantly enjoying ourselves, we now find ourselves ready to go back home.

In a way I’m glad this journey has come to an end. We have experienced it all, and enjoyed every minute of it! But after a three-month travel, one starts to miss their family and friends (to be honest, most of all I miss the good old spaghetti my granny makes, so I know what the first thing will be when I get back home).  

It’s weird actually. We all try to hang on to our last moments here so badly for a few seconds, just so that in the end it can hurt a little more to let it all go. We have had this unbelievably amazing experience with an unbelievably amazing group of friends. I wouldn’t have wanted this any other way, and I’m sure we all take some amazing memories and souvenirs back home, where all of our lives will go their own way again.

As we were sitting in the taxi, heading to the airport, we couldn’t help but singing the song ‘leaving on a jet plane’ by John Denver, until the taxi driver (not so friendly) asked us to stop because we were giving a migraine headache. But well, it didn’t stop the fun, because we acted as if we didn’t quite understand what he was talking about, so we kept on singing (sorry mister taxi driver, we’ll never do it again).

Unfortunately, you know they say Karma’s a b*tch. Well, we got our share of karma when we arrived at the airport. First, Els’ and my suitcase were too heavy to get on the plane, so we had to pay extra. But, well, when your suitcase is heavy, it means that there is a lot of stuff in the suitcase. This means that you have bought a lot of stuff, which leads to empty wallets. Yes, my dear bloggers, we didn’t have enough money to pay the fine. We had to go beg for money with the other travellers in the airport (we even sang leaving on a jet plane again) before we were able to pay the fine. This lead to an extreme delay, which forced us to run through the airport and through security.

But karma hit again, because Jeroen wouldn’t stop beeping through the metal detectors! He had to strip until he only wore his underpants and socks for the security to find out there was some sort of metal detail attached to his sock. Yes, we were quite the party crowd over there ;-)

Our airport journey continued with Anne falling down the escalator, which caused her knee to start bleeding enormously. She literally had to limp to the right gate.

Fortunately our luck started to change. Since our flight was delayed (yes yes that’s a bad thing but wait for it) we were able to arrive at the gate in time and Annelien found a seat next to an extremely handsome guy. Anne has limped her way to the stewards and (once again) an extremely handsome steward is taking care of her leg as we speak. It seems like everything is getting okay in the end, right?

So, dear readers, the time has come to say goodbye. Goodbye to Perth, to our journey and to the amazing experiences. And now we’re leaving on a jet plane. We don’t know when we’ll be back again. But our next stop, that’s HOME!

Lots of peace, love and teary goodbyes

Manderley

Source:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLBKOcUbHR0

Week 12 - Perth - Emily Van Torre

Dear kangaroos, oh I mean bloggers!

I’m sorry, since we’ve arrived in Perth, all I see is kangaroos! Don’t get me wrong, those animals are beyond cute, but I think I’ve seen enough of them for a while.

Poor Anne, I felt so sorry for her. Remember when she wrote about the whole spider situation? She had the shock of her life when she found out the spider was crawling on her. That’s why she actually had some trouble falling asleep the night after it had happened. So I had a drink with her that night at the hotel’s bar and after that, oh man, she actually fell asleep ON the bar! At least, she slept…

Today was our third fulfilling day in the wonderful Perth.
As we were still tired due to our sleepless night in the wilderness, we decided to go on a bus tour so our legs would get a little rest.

The first stop was Barrack Street Jetty.  We worked our way up in the Swan Bell Tower where we had an amazing view over the Swan River. The tower is an extraordinary building  built in glass with a set of 18 bells. Twelve of those bells come from  the St Martin-in-the-Fields church in London, which was a gift to Perth.

The next stop was the Perth Town Hall. The town hall is built on the highest top of the city. There’s always a lot to do in the

town hall: parties, receptions, weddings,… As you can see: Perth is a lively town! The bus driver gave us an hour to wander through the shopping mall of Murray St. I got the chance to buy a dress, souvenirs for my family (who I began to miss…) and a few bottles of water. Then we jumped on the bus again to go to our next stop: the Burswood Entertainment Complex.

The complex was huge! It has – I quote – a casino, seven restaurants, eight bars, a nightclub, two international hotels , a world class golf course, a Convention Centre, Theatre and the Burswood Dome. Our group was so enthusiastic about this complex and Els, our own party animal, insisted that we would come back tonight to party here. We all instantly agreed. After all you just live once, right?

We moved on to the Botanic Gardens where we wandered for over two hours and we were amazed by the exquisite fauna and flora. No wonder this park is visited by more than 6 million people each year! We rested at the Women’s Memorial Fountains and then we searched a nice restaurant to have dinner.

Just like we planned, we went back to the hotel to freshen ourselves up and then we headed towards the Entertainment Complex again. As you can guess, we had a marvelous night (without kangaroos)!

Write to you soon!

Xoxo Emily

http://www.citysightseeingperth.com/Attractions/barrack-street-jetty.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Bells

Week 12- Annelien Pattyn - Perth, Australia

Good morning everyone!

First of all, I must say that I’ve slept very well after the experiences which Anne has already written about. Actually, it were two tough days in the Australian Golden Outback with sleepless nights. For this reason, we have slept a little longer today than normally. Now, it’s 11 AM and we have agreed to brunch at 12 AM.  So, I still have enough time to write something concerning what’s on our planning today.

The weather is very fine, but what else did you expected? Perth is blessed with a wonderful Mediterranean climate, which brings an abundance of sunshine and warm temperatures nearly all year round. Actually, there is no bad time to visit Western Australia, although summer can be quite hot and winter a bit on the rainy side. One thing is sure: the ‘thing’ you always can count on in Perth is the sun. On average, the city enjoys over 300 days of sunshine each year, which greatly enhances all the outdoor activities and…that’s exactly what’s on our planning today: “outdoor activities with a passionate following for all things related to the ocean”. There are 19 beaches right in the metropolitan Perth area, so the beach feeling is never far from our mind ;-).

This afternoon, we’ve planned to go surfing. It’s a sport that’s a huge part of most local people.  Hopefully, there also will be other tourists otherwise we will seem a little ridiculous I think J. If we aren’t able to continue standing on our surfboard (big chance!), we still have the choice of diving and snorkeling. I know we did that already in Solomon Islands, but it was so amazing that it's a pleasure to do it once again! We won’t have to go far to find colorful reefs and old shipwrecks.

After surfing, diving or whatever… We probably will have a drink. Almost every place in the town has outdoor seating which will gives us distinctively a fun atmosphere.

Sorry guys, I have to leave you for today… but I’ll write to you soon!

Love,

Annelien

http://www.essentialtravel.co.uk/guides/australia/perth-weather.htm

http://www.essentialtravel.co.uk/guides/australia/perth.htm

Week 12-Annelien Pattyn-Perth, Australia

Good morning everyone!

First of all, I must say that I’ve slept very well after the experiences which Anne has already written about. Actually, it were two tough days in the Australian Golden Outback with sleepless nights. For this reason, we have slept a little longer today than normally. Now, it’s 11 AM and we have agreed to brunch at 12 AM.  So, I still have enough time to write something concerning what’s on our planning today.

The weather is very fine, but what else did you expected? Perth is blessed with a wonderful Mediterranean climate, which brings an abundance of sunshine and warm temperatures nearly all year round. Actually, there is no bad time to visit Western Australia, although summer can be quite hot and winter a bit on the rainy side. One thing is sure: the ‘thing’ you always can count on in Perth is the sun. On average, the city enjoys over 300 days of sunshine each year, which greatly enhances all the outdoor activities and…that’s exactly what’s on our planning today: “outdoor activities with a passionate following for all things related to the ocean”. There are 19 beaches right in the metropolitan Perth area, so the beach feeling is never far from our mind ;-).

This afternoon, we’ve planned to go surfing. It’s a sport that’s a huge part of most local people.  Hopefully, there also will be other tourists otherwise we will seem a little ridiculous I think J. If we aren’t able to continue standing on our surfboard (big chance!), we still have the choice of diving and snorkeling. I know we did that already in Solomon Islands, but it was so amazing that it's a pleasure to do it once again! We won’t have to go far to find colorful reefs and old shipwrecks.

After surfing, diving or whatever… We probably will have a drink. Almost every place in the town has outdoor seating which will gives us distinctively a fun atmosphere.

Sorry guys, I have to leave you for today… but I’ll write to you soon!

Love,

Annelien

http://www.essentialtravel.co.uk/guides/australia/perth-weather.htm

http://www.essentialtravel.co.uk/guides/australia/perth.htm

Week 12- Anne Hallez- Perth, Australia

Our last but not least stop is the beautiful Australia. From the blue of the Solom Islands we went to the rich gold that Australia brings. In every place that we've been to in the past, we were surrounded by hotels, all you can eat restaurants and a lot of luxury. Because we agreed to really discover new things we decided to turn things around a little. We would go to the Australian Golden Outback with nothing but tents, easy to make food and a couple of sleeping bags. For the next two days we would trade in luxury for simplicity.This way, we would really get to know the land down under.

So after arriving at the hotel after leaving the airport of Perth, we left everything electrical at home and left with the only things that were necessary to survive these few days. There's a little place east of Perth, called 'Kalgoorlie'. It actually took me until now to realize that the place wasn't called 'Kangarooly' but fortunately no one noticed. To make sure we would actually survive these two days in the wilderness, a local Australian guy accompanied us. After an hour train ride from Perth to Kalgoorie, a jeep, or what I normally call 'safari-car' was waiting for us. We drove a while trough miles and miles of sand and finally arrived at a little place where we were supposed to put our tents.

We arrived really late in the day and decided to make sure that everything was ready for a good night of sleep. We learned how to build tents, how to protect us from wild animals and how to make a fire. When our guide told us that making a fire is really important to ward of any dangerous animals, I started to get really afraid that we would suddenly be attacked by a wild minx or a lion or two. There are too many scary movies about people camping in the woods and getting attacked by scary people or giant animals. We weren't in the woods of course but that thought didn't seem to sooth me at all. Since then I knew that I probably wouldn't get my well deserved sleep tonight. 

It was starting to get dark and we decided to make a fire that was big enough to make our supper and protect us from any danger that would come our way. I was so grateful then that our guide was smart enough to bring wood to make a decent fire.While we were sitting by the fire, our 'Aussie' taught us a few typical Australian words. We learned that the word for 'afternoon' was 'arvo', a 'bloke' is a guy, a 'barbie' is a barbecue and that good day is pronounced g'day here. I immediately felt like I was in the middle of the outback version of the TV show called 'home and away'. The accents were right but the background was totally different. In a way it was nice to see a different side of what Australia has to offer.

After a cozy night by the fire it was time to head back to our tents to get a good night of sleep. As I predicted, that wasn't the case at all. I woke up by sounds of what I thought were laughing hyenas and I felt like I had to stay a awake in order to protect myself from any danger. I had been up so late that I didn't even realize I had fell asleep until I woke up by the feeling of something tickling my arm. I opened my eyes gently and what I saw then, woke me up immediately. There was a giant spider the size of my hand, crawling around in my tent. I screamed so loud that I woke up every body else. Luckily our guide was brave enough to rescue me from the spider. I was forever in his debt.

After waking up thoroughly by this wonderful surprise (sense the sarcasm)  our guide told us that we were about to go on an animal safari. I was thrilled when I heard about this because we would get the see the animals in the safe distance of our safari car. But I have to say, after having rescued me from the giant spider, I trusted the guy with my life. I can't even begin to describe what we saw at the safari. I saw birds in every color, lions that were laying around like they were more lazy than any human could every be and finally some wild kangaroo's jumping around like they didn't have a care in the world. These were animals I actually wanted to be around.
We cruised trough the outback for a while but then decided that we were too exhausted to go any further. We called it a day, packed up our bags and went back to our hotel.

I don't know about you, but I'm planning to go to sleep and dream about kangaroo's, koala's and other cute Australian animals.

G'night (I'm belive I'm already becoming a true Australian)

Love, Anne


sources:
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth_%28Australi%C3%AB%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth,_Western_Australia
http://www.cityofperth.wa.gov.au/
http://www.westernaustralia.com/en/Destinations/Australias_Golden_Outback/Pages/Australias_Golden_Outback.aspx
http://www.australiasgoldenoutback.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outback
http://library.thinkquest.org/28994/auswords.html