In which the parentals come to town.

So I was signed with a contract now... but after training I had no idea how long it would take before I actually got sent out to a job. That meant that the only thing I could do was wait... so wait I did. They said it would be two weeks but three weeks later... anyway during this time I was able to have some relief as my parentals came to AUS. I had been thinking that I'd not be here, that they would come when I wouldn't be away but luckily for me things worked out and I was there to meet them. It was a bit surreal to be meeting people from back home here. In a way this whole time here has been like another world separated from being back home, so for them to make an appearance really made the world feel closer, even though they were on holiday and I was still suffering from a lack of an end in sight.

The first thing we did was meet at the hotel they were staying and walk up St Geogre's Terrace. Remember that at this point they'd been without sleep for a long time and after travelling they were quite the tired. We headed towards King's Park but stopped off at a bench and talked some, about a lot of things. 

Here we are posing on a bench for the first time together.

 

We talked about what I've been up to here in Perth, where I've been and what I've seen. I talked about how long distance with Lucy has been hard but not in the sense that it was hard to keep it going and its something you can do if you know it won't last forever. I was describing how much of the western suburbs I've seen, I realised that I got around there a whole lot.

Anyway as I said they were tired and headed back to the hotel for more sleep. The next day we went to visit King's Park. Its a rather large park but most of it is bushland ,which compared to cotswald forests, is dry and boring (personal opinion). Just moved to the comfortable chair, energy to continue writing just gained considerably. So we went to King's Park. We took the free bus there and I worried my parents enough for them to ask if it was free, just like all the other tourists :P I mean its pretty weird to get on for free when its all you've ever known as it would be for a lot of things, like getting on the plane, to Barrow Island, with a bottle in your bag. We walked up the park approach road and they took some pictures of the cool view down to Perth.

 Attaining the Park road.

 

As the park is on a hill you can get a nice view down across the CBD. On that note, they asked twice what CBD stood for. Due to cities here being so sprawled here you don't refer to the centre as town, especially seeing as the shops in the suburbs are richer and in greater, but the banks are there and so that's where the tall buildings are; CBD – central building district.

In the park we looked at the flower displays and the more maintained area of the park. I showed them the English oak, which can't exist unless they give it a set watering timetable. There are many odd things to see here. In a normal environment you get a set number of plants that repeat themselves but here its plants from all over the country and you get two or three of each and then you don't see them again.

Further into the park we walked through the bush land and saw how dry it all is. Perth's geology is that the rocks underneath are a dune system extending from the coast all the way inland to the hills, this covers the whole city including Midland. The dunes can reach heights of about 100m O_O and that means the soil is very sandy or actually sand. Then we went spider hunting on the way out of the park, but because of the time of year there really weren't many spiders at all and much less than when I went spider hunting myself.

The following day we visited Fremantle. It was quite surreal, that train ride. When I came to Perth first I got on the same train and it rolled down and at every station I wondered at the sights from out the train window and knew nothing of what the station names meant. This time however I was an expert... having delivered pamphlets to above of the suburbs on the route except Fremantle itself it was an odd experience to compare the two trips.

 Pretty scenic picture of Fremantle station, not the awesome artist placed seagull.

In Fremantle we discovered that the tourist shops don't open every day. We looked at the ships and the shops in town and bought a subway you. I'm not sure if I blogged about how much subway I ate eat... anyway it was a lot O_O. We decided to walk from Fremantle station to North Fremantle station to soak up what we could of the area and just maybe the ticket would be cheaper... it wasn't -_- and then on the way back we got insanely squished on the train as everyone was heading to and AFL game at Subiaco Oval. There were so many people on the train that we couldn't fit a single more person on.

The next day we went for a mooch around South Perth. We headed into town and booked tickets for the next day to see Rottnest Island. On our walking down to South Perth across the freeway bridge, which has five lanes on each side, we wandered into the sleeping Sunday attitudes of the area. There was nothing going on, no cars and no peps about. But I took us down to find Judd street and by the freeway we took some pictures and felt a little self conscious, still I think it was worth it.

 Judd Street!! Note the freeway behind.

Then we headed to an IGA and bought some juice, this shop at least is open on a Sunday. Then we decided to go for the long walk all the way around the river to the next bridge and head back to the hotel. This a grass area with little ponds and birds. There is a good cycle path running along this route and its all nice and scenic. I took some photos.

Ducks, a plenty.

 More arty scenic photo.

The next trip we went on was to Rottnest Island. It was so late by the time I was going to head to bed and so early to be there for the ferry the next day I decided to stay the night there. In the morning we headed on down to the ferry landing and waiting for the boat. Its a small boat but still it had three levels. We set course from Perth city and headed down the river, zigzagging all over the place to avoid the sand bars and this gave us a good view of the shore line housing which is pretty neat. All the houses along the river side are highly sought after and so the houses are rich and expensive and modern and, well you can imagine. We sailed past a house which the person over the speaker said was the richest house to sell in Australia... and I realised that I had delivered a pamphlet there, because I have pretty much been everywhere O_O.

We sailed into Fremantle at the end of the river and docked to let people get on there. Then we sailed out across the sea, it was a lot more rough (well of course) and I felt kinda sea sick by the end of it. 

There was a US aircraft carrier moored off the coast for ANZAC day.

We had also hired bikes for the trip around the island, its the recommended thing to do seeing as the size of the place. We got our bikes after waiting and headed off into the island, stopping straight away at the little shopping kinda place. The prices here were an obvious explosional increase. I'm kind of tired of not just having money I can throw wildly at things like this, but then again who can ?_? They have a subway here and awesomely its the only Subway in Australia that does pizza. They will turn your chosen sub into a pizza... I think that's an amazing idea and something that could really catch on. In a normal subway you can make any sub a wrap instead but I haven't because I can see that being such a mess, its already a mess enough to eat a sub -_-

The beaches on Rottnest island are impressive as, and the fact that there are no cars (I say no cars, there may be no cars but there are still a few buses and services vehicles) it really adds an affect that you feel closer to nature. The geology is recent holocene sandy limestone clayly stuffs and its bleach white. The water there is ver.clear and you can see down to the reefs. 

 Posing while looking out across a typical beach on Rottnest.

 Rottnest Island, a map of.

 

The people there were day trippers like ourselves so that meant everyone we came across had a certain attitude but I suppose you're not really allowed to get at that. We cycled around the south half and saw the rats. These aren't rats but a marsupials and when the Dutch first discovered and named the island they thought they were rats and named it rat island, because that's what you do when you name things; you don't think about the consequences. Anyway they're like mini kangaroos. In order to pick up speed they will bound away hopping with both feet, but to scurry a little bit they put one in front of the other. Also you have to be careful. I think most of them are shy but if you go to a spot they know you'll feed them they will just associate you with fatty food and nibble your finger if you don't have any. But on the whole they are rather fluffy.

Next on the ride we ended up at Oliver Hill which has a giant gun battery. The battery can fire off into the surrounding sea and despite being a single gun I get the feeling its a lot easier to hit a ship than it is to hit a single gun nested somewhere on an island. Needless to say the gun looks massive.

The gun gun on Oliver Hill.

 Typical salt rimmed pools on Rottnest.

We rode on back towards the ferry and gave some guys the wrong directions and then we got back to the ferry. On the return trip there was wine sampling and ever the lover of freebies that I am we got some. I remembered how much I love roseh wine o_o.

 Arty shot of Perth at night, I really like the angle and the lighting.

 

The last day we went to Cottesloe to admire the beaches of Perth. I had a massive rant about how little there was on sale in the supermarkets here for lunch and added to that the depression of still not going out to my first job. 

 Stopping for noms at Cottesloe, the beach is the fourth wall.

We walked along the beach and admired the intense green parrot bird things as they amass in the evening. It does get immensely noisy when they all swarm into the trees.

I may be getting muddled up here but I think the day after this the parentals headed on. They were to get the Indian-Pacific across AUS to see the east coast. While I did after all come here to work it will be a shame if I don't get to see some NSW before I head home, so I'll think about it.

Heading to the train station.

 Mr Cat shows off my giant elastic band ball I accumulated from the Pamphleteers. It took them half an hour to break down.