Western Australia - Perth

AUSTRALIA

I went to Australia on the Saturday after school finished.  My family and I went there for 12 days.

It was lots of fun!  The weather was pretty good, we had some rainy days and some fine days but no super hot, can't do anything days.

NIGHT #1: We left Christchurch airport for our lunch time flight. The flight was about 6 and a bit hours long, I watched 3 movies: Pan, An Unexpected Journey and another one, I can't remember what it was called.  When we got to Perth, it was 5:30pm, in New Zealand, it would have been 10:30pm.

DAY #1: Today we went on Uncle Brett's boat, we went really fast and we saw loads of jellyfish, and as well going on the boat, Mum, Keira and I (Dad would be coming in 3 days time.) were trying to get used to the Australian timings, 4 hours earlier than you in NZ.

We had a night walk before dinner.

SELFIE!

ICE-CREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Uncle Brett's boat.

This is how the boats are stored - picked up on a forklift and put into a multi level rack

DAY #2: We all went to Perth Zoo today, it was so cool!

How did you get over here?

 I'm tired......

Photo bomb!

It was super fun at Perth Zoo, loads of animals, and the zoo keepers let the kangaroos roam free so we saw some of those. The koalas are so cute!  There's one spot just for orangutans, giant poles with little nests and platforms for them. And there are 2-3 of them on each pole.

Did you know: a baby echidna is called a puggle?

If you ever get the chance to go to Perth, go to the zoo.

DAY #3

Today we went to Adventure World, with Dad today, he'd arrived the night before.

When we got there, I went straight over to... THE ABYSS. (as shown above, this is the best roller coaster EVER!!!!!) It is 27 secs long and you go upside-down 4 times.  I loved going upside down, you almost fall out of your seat!

I went on the Abyss 7 times,  AWESOME!

I also went on:  on the Black Widow twice.

the Kraken (a massive waterslide) twice.  The buccaneer boat 4-5 times. And some other water slides!  I had an awesome day!

DAY #4

Today, I had a day in Perth city with my family.  We took the train from Freemantle.  We spent a lot of time in Kings Park which was really cool.  We went to a chocolate shop, I got a butterscotch and tiramisu chocolate.  We had fish and chips for tea at Cottesloe Beach and met an old friend of Mum's there who she used to work with in England before I was born.

DAY #5

Today we went to Margaret River! It took 3 hours to get there, with no music!  :(  We will have four nights at Gracetown near Margaret River.

DAY #6

Today we went to two beaches.  One of them had really sticky sand and it was hard to get it off your feet!  Mum and Dad had a wine tasting.

DAY #7

Today we went to the Jewel Cave!  We being: Mum, Dad, Keira, my cousin Jazz and I.

It was so cool!

Here is a list of all the kinds of cave rock formations we saw: straws, flowstone, cave-coral, helictites, stalactites, stalagmites, pendulites, columns, shawls and raftmites.

STUFF THAT'S COOL!

There was one shawl in the cave called the bacon rasher because of the tannins in the rock, and when you shone a light over it, it was see-through.

When all got to one platform, there was a red laser line showing where the water was once up to, when men first found the cave, they explored some of it in boats.

The deepest part that you can go to in the cave is 42m below the ground.

The straws looked so cool, here's a photo, not my own photo.

These are hollow and the water drips down through the center, the people who looked after the cave kept a record on one straw, it had grown 3 centimeters of a thousand years+

This is the bacon rasher.

this is the karri forest formation, the way the water dripped has caused the rock to form like this, cool eh?

You can't see this quite clearly but it shows all of the different formations in the cave.

These are stalactites, they stick tight to the roof.

Cape Leeuwin

After we'd been to the Jewel Cave we drove down to Cape Leeuwin and met Uncle Brett, Auntie Chelsea and Amelie.  Cape Leeuwin is where the Indian and the Southern oceans meet.

DAY #8

Today we went to the ANZAC dawn service in Margaret River.

It rained.  The whole time. So annoying.

It felt like a long time.  And guess what?

New Zealand got no mention except for our national anthem, and, because of the rain, the speakers made it all blotchy.  But he same thing happened during the Australian national anthem, so that made it fair.

After the long dawn service the weather got better and we had a lovely beach day.

After the beach, we went to a bird sanctuary. It was so cool, but I wished that the birds could have more space. But these birds had been hurt and were being rehabilitated.

This is Ivy the owl.

DAY #9

Today we all went back to Perth,  but guess what, when we were checking something nasty was found under the bath-mat, a.......    SCORPION!!! But Jazzy just put a cup on top of it, got a piece of paper,  slide that under the cup and took it out-side, flung the scorpion into a bush and walked back inside.    Lovely.

On the way back to Perth, we stopped at a reptile house.  There was a really big snake in one of the enclosures.  There was a nother snake that flicked its tail so realistic like a worm that birds would come down and SNAP, it would gobble them up, its head was right next to its tail but hidden in undergrowth.

This is me with a Simmons python around my neck, it is only when these guys get longer than 3 meters that they are considered dangerous.

Snake facts.

They can't see in colour.

If you don't move, they think you're a tree or bush and so won't attack.

Snakes don't have ears but can sense vibrations through the ground with an organ in the roof of their mouth called the Jacobson's organ.

DAY #10

Today was a home day for Keira and I.  Mum and Dad went on a day cruise up the Swan River and Jas and Amelie were back at school and Uncle Brett was at work so... Keira and I got to help Auntie Chelsea with her dogs.

Auntie Chelsea is a dog groomer, so she washes them and trims their coats.

We picked up the days dogs after kids had gone to school.  One of them was a fat chiwawa called Casey, and the other one was a poodle thing called Fletcher.

It was fun, especially when washing them, you cover them in shampoo and then wash them off them cover them in conditioner. Then you whas them and blowdry them, that part takes forever, especially on Fletcher because he had long fur.

It was a good day, I really enjoyed it!

DAY #11

AQWA!!!  Aquarium of Western Australia

This is the best aquarium you could possibly go to, if I explained the whole thing to would take forever so here are some photos for you instead!  :)

Postcard of AQWA

There are little holes in the wall with special fish in them

SHARK!!!!

Tunnel of awesomeness!

STINGRAY!

Can you spot Keira?

No, she is not inside the tank!

Here are some photos from the internet.

A little viewing widow

One of the mini tanks.

Puffer-fish!  The chefs that prepare the puffer fish delicacy in Japan have to train for two to three years before they go into the trade, and they have to eat the fish they prepared before they go!  There is a one in 10 chance that you will

be poisoned and die. The poison is in their stomach and can kill n 17 minutes.

DAY #12

Today Mum, Keira and I went to the local Freemantle markets. I got a jumper with a montage of Australia  on it, and Mum bought Keira and I an aboriginal message stone each.  They have a dragonfly on them, really pretty.

We all went to a pizza place for dinner that night.  Very good pizza, and the best ice-cream for pudding.  While eating ice-cream we played on one of those soccer boards called foozeball, me playing goalie, sometimes I scored a goal from my end of the pitch.

Then we flew back home that night, after 4 hours of waiting at the airport, I fell off my seat at one point for no reason at all. Our flight was at 11:55pm.

I had hardly any sleep, maybe, 1.5 hours out 5.5hrs.  When we got home, it was 10:30am.

We had to try and stay awake during the day to help get back in to time difference. Easier said than done, especially at six 'o' clock.

But, all and all, Australia was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!