It has been a very hectic last few weeks, so there is a lot to catch up with on the blog front.
Sunday 9th September
Rupan was supervising at the University of Western Australia's Temporal bone dissection course. Later that evening Francis Lee and his girlfriend cooked up a feast at his flat. Probably the best pork belly we have had! We even got leftovers to take home - yum!
Saturday 15th September
The following weekend we headed to Rottnest for the day. We started the day with a tasty pie from the Rottnest Bakery and were joined by a hungry Peacock. There are so many beaches on Rottnest so we decided to visit the ones we had not been to. Although it was a warm sunny day, the water was still a little bit chilly for swimming but we did dip our toes in ... Brr.
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| Peacock at the Bakery |
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| City of York Bay |
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| Gin Clear Waters at Margaret Cove |
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| Nice Basket - Near Strickland Bay |
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| Little Salmon Bay |
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| Rupan at Porpoise Bay |
After an "energetic" ride around Rottnest we had worked an appetite! We decided to continue our exploration of Perth's Suburbs and eateries so we got on the train to Subiaco and headed for the Subiaco Hotel for diner.
Friday the 21st of September
We had an early birthday celebration for Steve and headed to Harvest - a local restaurant in North Fremantle. The next evening Rupan had to head back to the UK for a couple of interviews leaving Steve home alone in Australia.
Meanwhile, back in Australia..... Steve celebrated his 45th Birthday (2nd October) with a trip to Rottnest - only $36 return! What a bargain! Steve was the first off the ferry and headed straight for the West End. It was very quiet without a "Rupan" but not as much fun! He could however do some birding in peace. He even spotted seals and whales at Cathedral Rocks.
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| If you look closely you can see the seals waving! |
Friday 5th October
Rupan arrived back to Perth and we all headed south for the ASOHNS conference in Mandurah which is about an hour south of Perth. After cocktails on Friday evening we enjoyed Tapas at 'Taste and Graze'. On returning to the hotel Steve was most disappointed to find the bar was calling last orders at 10:30 because it wasn't busy enough to stay open! (And to really turn the knife they would not serve wine by the bottle or pints!)
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| Check out the matching jumper and handbag! |
Saturday 6th October
Whilst Rupan was at the conference all day, Steve headed out explored the lakes around Mandurah and Yalgorup National Park - where you can a walk along a boardwalk and view thrombolites. These tiny microorganisms have been around for 3,500 million years!
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| The Boardwalk and thrombolites (the lumpy bits) |
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| Harvey Estuary |
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| Lake Clifton |
Not to be out witted by the hotel, Steve stopped off at a bottle shop for a carton of beer and a few bottles of wine before returning to the hotel. If the bar won't open, we'll open our own!
After an enjoyable Conference dinner and much wine it was time for us to host the "The After Party". Much merriment and booze were had, we even got Anton cycling up and down the hall!
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| The conference gang |
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| The balcony after the 'After Party' |
Thursday 11th October 2012
We had wanted to go star gazing whilst up on one of our northern trips but the weather had been a bit poor, however we found that Perth has it's own Observatory.
The Observatory is way up in the hills East of Perth. Steve met Rupan from work and we drove up to Kalamunda where we stopped for a meal at The Last Drop Inn before continuing into the hills to the Observatory.
There was a bit of cloud cover but after a tour and a presentation we headed out to the viewing area. There were a number of scopes all calibrated to view different stars and constellations. We spotted the Scorpius Constellation with Antares, Mars, The M7 Constellation and the binary stars of Alpha Centauri.
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| The old scope |
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| The Bolt |
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| Rupan in scope camouflage |
Friday 12th October 2012
Our time in Australia is coming to an end, time to say our goodbyes - let the leaving celebrations commence!
Round One - Resturant Amuse. Amuse is Perth's best fine dining restaurant. There were many courses - lots of foam, powders and smoke! All were very tasty apart from the the beetroot desert - only in Australia!
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| One of the yummy courses |
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| The fully fed gang |
Sunday 14th October 2012
It's whale watching season - yay (September to November)! We just missed this when we arrived last year - wow that seems a long while ago! We headed out of Fremantle Harbour just after ten, the weather was a bit poor and it was a bit choppy out past the harbour head - everyone was given tin foil lined sick bags - I suppose that's to keep it warm! We sat on the top deck - where we could look down on the deck below and laugh at the people getting soaked as the waves broke over the stern!
As we passed Rottnest Island we began to see some Humpback whales. There was a frisky male that kept breaching and a pod of about three whales that came within thirty meters. It was very difficult to video and take photos as the boat was rocking so much but it was a great couple hours.
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| Steve in his whale watching outfit |
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| A whale fin |
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| Squirty whales |
Once back at port we headed off to Little Creatures for a Steve's Last Sunday Session - Round Two. We were joined by Kylie, Erin, Zenia and Grace for pizza and beer. We must have been there for some time as the table next to us had three different groups come and go!
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| The gang at Creatures |
