28/12

23/12
The fourth and last day it was yet again the two of us and the guide from the first day. Another pair was to have
joined us, but she had been ill during the night, so they went to the hospital instead for a checkup.
By the way, it is time to introduce our guide. His name is David Bomba, and he also the owner of his own small tour
company 'OutOfSight' - see www.outofsighttours.com. If you ever come to the Albany area and need a tour guide, look him
up. He also does trekking tours if you are that way inclined. We were very satisfied.
That day's tour was two national parks, this time inland. The first was dry, but still with a lot of green. We drove
a 42 km stretch of dirt track, didn't see another person or car. The second was a big forrest, with the main attraction
being a tree growing though a big rock. The nature was as usual fantastic. We ended the tour at another winery and
bought a bottle of very nice riesling, which we shared with our meal (chicken burger in the hotel room).

24/12
Up early to get to the airport. Too early as we were there at 6.40 and they did not open till 07.00. We hadn't had
any breakfast yet, and the cafeteria was closed, but the did serve a decent breakfast on the plane. We had 2.5 hour
stopover in Perth, but even so managed to be called when the plane was ready. They did not show 'go to gate' on the
board, so Willy thought that there were plenty of time. But we made it.
The hotel resort in Exmouth is something. And the room is just great, the bathtub is also a spa. The downside is that
it is located somewhat outside of town and there is nothing around here. And then again, we took a taxi into town later
that day, and there wasn't anything there either. Just a small center with two supermarkets. There was a shop which
sold booze and those sodas with vodka, rum etc, but no beers. For that Willy had to walk a mile, or at least what felt
like a mile in the heat. It is very hot here. On our taxi ride back to the hotel we saw emus walking in the street, as
if they owned it. This was the the first time we saw this bird outside a zoo.
We had a really nice dinner in the hotel's restaurant.
25/12
Relax, read a bit, quilt a bit, basically just feet up. Everything was closed and no tours were running.
26/12
Same as yesterday.
27/12
Willy went diving. He had two very nice dives, with lots of fish, plus a seasnake and a small shark. The visibility
was a bit diminished because a cyclone had just passed by a bit north of here, but the water was quite shallow, just
down to 14 meters, so plenty of light.
28/12
Nothing lined up for today, just get our flight to Perth confirmed, and get the blog updated. And a bit of feet up.

Merry Xmas and a happy New Year

From both of us to all of you....

22/12

We have been without internet for a while, so there is a lot of ground to cover...

We are now in South-West Australia.
The flight from Singapore to Perth was uneventful. We got to our room and that is where our exitement dropped. It was
a very small room and thus also a very small bed. But we are good friends, so no problem. Then the light fixture in the
ceiling was cracked, and there were no bed lamps.
We went for a walk in the city centre. It was getting to 18.00 and the shops were closing - and so was the city
centre.... We had expected restaurants and bars to stay open, but no, everything shut down. And it felt cold too, after
SG, so we went back to the hotel.
We send an email to our travel agency, asking them to find us another hotel when we come back to Perth.
We had dinner across the road at Miss Maude, which is a Sweedish (inspired) restaurant. Very nice.
Then we found that not only was the bed small, it was also very soft, so every move of one person was felt by the
other. And then the A/C was placed in the window frame on level with the bed and it was noisy. Not as bad as the one in
our first appartment in SG, but still. So we did not sleep well that night.
In the morning we walked over to another area called North-Bridge, because there is a museum with a display of
contemporay aboriginal art. In front of the museum was an exhibition of photos 'the Earth from above', which was very
interesting. The aboriginal art was ok too, but we found the museum to be a weird mixture of new and old in the same
room.
The city centre was now quite lively and the temperature had gone up as well. So we walked around for a couple of
hours. The park by the river is quite nice, though mostly just a big lawn. But no parrots! At our first trip to
Australia they were everywhere.
There was an answer from the travel agency, they had fund us another hotel for when we are back in Perth.
So the 2nd day in Perth was a definite improvement.

Friday we found our bus to Albany. We had to wait 15 minutes for the taxi, so it was good that we had plenty of time.
It was a 6 hour trip, with one 25 minutes stop after 2 hours. The hotel is actually a motel on the edge of town, about
3 kms from the center. And the rom is big, compared with the one in Perth. The weather is nice, though a bit windy. We
went for a walk in the area around the motel. There we saw the first parrots this time. The parrots were grey with a
red breast and head. The houses in this area looks almost like a lot of Danish houses. We are close to Denmark by the
way. And guess what, there is no highrise in the horizon..

We have now been 3 days i Albany. There really isn't much to say about Albany itself, it is rather small and after
6pm it is pretty dead.
The first tour was just the two of us and a guide. Highlight of that day was the Tree-top walk in Walpole national
park. It started to rain heavily just before we arrived, so it was a cool(and cold)and wet tour. But it kept other
visitors away, so we had it mostly to our self. It was fantastic, the walk being constructed so that the rise was
gentle, but still the highest point was about 40 meters above the ground. And the whole structure swayed when you
walked on it. The guide said that it was constructed to do that, and we decided to believe him. After the treetops we
walked around on the ground. The trees are really amazing. Some are hollowed out by fire, but still alive.
The next day we went on a river boat tour. The weather was cold, especially out in the sound, but we had a
fascinating tour, where we saw a lot. The skipper hand-fed a stingray, which was approx 1.5 meter across. There was
Percy the dancing pelican (it turned around itself) which is actually a female, but they did not know that when they
named it. The skipper picked up mussels and let (had) us try mussels cooked in only their own juice. A white-breasted
sea-hawk catching fish thrown to it. There was wine tasting, followed by tea and dampers. And all along the skipper
commented the scenery and told stories about the area. Very entertaining and highly recommendable.

The third day it was again the two of us and the guide from the first day. We did Albany itself (just a drive-
through), and then we did some of the surrounding areas. It is a fantastic nature that they've got here. The coastline
is absolutely breath-taking. And the plantlife is also great. It is hard to imagine that there nowadays only are 7% of
the orginal species of vegetation left, compared with the vegetation at the time of the first settlements. We could
have done without the flies though. The small ones are annoying - the big ones bite!

14/12

No avoiding it, our tour here is definitely drawing to a close. Friday we did a fare-well beer party for Willy's colleagues. 12-15 people showed up, and we had a very cozy evening sitting outside Harris's Bar, most drinking beer and some just soft drinks, depending on their preferences.

Saturday evening we went out to the East Cost with a british couple, he is one of Willy's colleagues in Switzerland, to enjoy some sea food. Back at the hotel, we went to the bar for a good-night drink. The bar also seems to serve as the local dancing parlour, it is amazing to see people doing ball-room dancing - and they look very serious abut it. We just find it fun to watch. In our opinion certainly much more fun than watching the big TV screen showing some boring English Premier League football game.  

Sunday was spent mostly doing the chores, we had to do the washing so that we have some clean clothes for our Australia trip. And in any case it was raining, so we wouldn't have ventured out anyway. Only late afternoon did we go out. We took the bus to Orchard Road to see the Christmas lights. One mall advertised snow with their Christmas tree, and we just had to see that. It turned out to be foam, but the kids had fun playing in it, and then they didn't have to put on warm clothes.

Negotiating the sidewalk on Orchard Road during our return walk to Beach Road was difficult even though the sidewalks are very wide. Several groups was entertaining, some singing and others did an acrobatic show - and there is all the Christmas decorations. So there were a lot of people taking pictures of one another next to the decorations. It seems that everybody was out and about. A strech that normaly takes 15 minutes to walk took over 1 hour!

And it is still warm, though wet, so we also decided to take the bus back, instead of walking as we normally have done.

And Jane finally found proof that SwissPost is indeed operating in S'pore.

 

08/12

We are sitting by the pool. But that only is because we have to abandon the room for a while for the cleaners, otherwise we would have stayed put. It is (reletively) cold and raining. And it is a holiday, so Willy is home too. Shared misery. So it was a good thing that we went out both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday we went to see the Haw Par Villa. It is really a theme park created by the founder of Tiger Balsam. He got very rich and wanted to return something to society, which of course is good and more rich people should do likewise, but maybe find a different expression. There was a number of tableus depicting some ancient stories. And a grotto with tableaus depicting, very graphically, the 10 stages of hell. Personally I think that the punishments were a bit severe. And at the end of the journey, the soul gets a cup of tea with some ingredient which makes them forget everything - so that they will do it all over again?  

Sunday we went to the big ?? bird park. The first exibition we saw was penguins. They were inside a house, and it all looked a bit sad. We certainly felt sorry for the poor things.But otherwise it was good. There were a lot of big enclosues with various birds, like different species of birds of paradise. Just strange that they have these wonderfull colors and are supposed to be real show-offs, and then they hide when we approached. There was this very big enclosure with a lot of smaller parrots. And we saw lizzards in the treetops. Big, but hard to spot as they were green.