Howdy mates! That's how the Aussies greet each other and other people, and that's how I greet you in this post, because this post happened in Australia, or the land down under.
It was sometime in April 2008 that we traveled to Perth, Australia. The city of Perth is the capital and largest city in Western Australia. Perth was just our starting point, and we traveled south to visit a lot of towns in that part of the country. So join me again as I share beautiful photos of that trip.
We only stayed in Perth for one day and we visited Perth Zoo before we drove down south.
The city of Perth as seen from the coast is very nice. The contrast of buildings and the blue ocean is just nice.
At Perth zoo we saw various animals and it was fun seeing animals I don't usually see in other zoos.
I think this is a big heron.
These are hippos. What I liked about the zoo is that the animals are not 'caged' and their habitats resemble their natural habitat to have as 'normal' a life as possible in the zoo.
A porcupine is a rodential mammal that has a coat of spines that it releases when it is threatened as a defense mechanism.
There were also penguins, and they built a special place for them to resemble their natural habitat as much as possible.
The giraffes were roaming freely in their enclosure, enabling them to enjoy munching on the leaves from the nearby trees.
The meerkat is also another animal we don't get to see often. It belongs to the mongoose family and they are the size of squirrels.
I am not sure how old is this tortoise. Judging by its size, it's still pretty young, I think.
The cheetah is the fastest running animal on earth. It was just relaxing in its enclosure though.
After some time in the zoo, we took our rental car and drove down south for the coastal areas. We rented a house while we were there, because there were no hotels where we were. Rental houses were the norm.
Not sure why I don't have a picture of our rental house, but it was located on a hill in a town called Eagle Bay, and it has this view. :-) Yup! I got to enjoy this view every morning when I woke up before we went gallivanting. This beautiful beach is 5 minutes walk downhill from the house.
We visited a different place everyday, and this is a beach in Yallingup. It was the beginning of autumn when we were there, and yes, their autumn is in April. When the rest of the world is having cold weather, Australia is enjoying summer. Imagine celebrating Christmas in the summer. That's what they do in Australia.
You can almost always find a children's park near the beaches. Usually there are swings and such, so families can always go and enjoy.
This is also Yallingup. It has very big rocks that we climbed and took pictures on.
I look so tanned in this picture. Every day life for me a few years back included at least an adventure at the beach for at least half an hour, or out and about in parks, hence the tan. :-)
It was fun climbing the rocks, and they were easy to climb too, which was good.
During this trip I was using a Casio EX-Z1080 digital camera, so the quality of the pictures sometimes are not very clear.
During our time there I don't think I ever went into the water. Since it was already the start of autumn the water was already quite cold, so I just climbed the rocks or took pictures.
We also went to Augusta which is the southernmost town in Australia, and in the restaurant where we had lunch, there was a sign that says 'last eating house before the Antarctic'. That's how far we were at.
In Augusta is where the Blackwood River meets the sea at Flinders Bay, and while we were there, a sting ray came to the beach and we took pictures of it. This was a cool thing to see!
On another day we went to Margaret River which is another town near Augusta, and there we visited Lake Cave. There were very nice stalactites and stalagmites inside. This formation is called suspended table, which weighs several tonnes and is indeed suspended from the ground.
These stalactites took thousands of years to form apparently. There was a stalactite that they marked just to monitor the growth and it was already 10 years and it only grew by a few centimeters. Lake Cave is the most 'actively-dripping' cave in the southwest.
The town of Margaret River installed stairs and lighting inside the cave to make the cave easily accesible to the public, which was very nice.
We stayed in the cave for more than an hour, and we went in with a guide explaining the formations and things about the cave.
I also did not want to miss a photo op with a kangaroo up close, a representative animal of Australia. This was just a baby kangaroo, and in roads where there might be kangaroos in the area, there are signs that warn you to go slow so they won't get hit when they cross the road.
Here is a koala, another animal that represents Australia. They looked so cuddly, but they kept hiding in the tree so this was the only picture near enough that I could take of it.
Here's a picture of the marsupial without me blocking the view and the barbed wire netting. This was in a farm where we could feed the animals.
This was me feeding the horses. We had buckets of carrots to feed them and they kept following us until we turned the buckets upside down to show that they were empty.
I had to make sure the emu did not steal my ice cream, ha ha!
These are parakeets, which are small-medium sized parrot species. Not sure if they could also be trained to talk like parrots though.
Ducks or geese? I think geese. We had fun feeding them all.
There was even a donkey! The only other place where I saw a donkey was in Israel.
Another highlight of the trip was the time we went to Busselton to visit the Busselton Jetty Observatory. Busselton Jetty is the longest jetty in the world, stretching for almost 2 kilometers out to sea.
We walked the whole length of the jetty to see the creatures of the sea from the observatory.
My camera did not do justice to the view, but the lower you go down the observatory, the more you see creatures of the sea. Corals and planktons, and whatever else you call them started growing on the pillars of the observatory.
It was so cool to see so many fish deep down in the sea without getting wet. And there were a lot of fish, big and small.
We went lower and lower in the observatory to see the different creatures that live in the sea.
This is a picture of the beach at the start of the jetty. Very picturesque, eh?
These are eucalyptus trees. In autumn, instead of the leaves falling, these trees shed their barks to get ready for winter.
We also went hiking one time just to have an idea of the topography. So it's rocks and sand and sea and mountains.
Quite a lot of soil erosion also happen but Australia does a lot to preserve their land and animals. Nothing goes in, and nothing goes out, in terms of plants and animals. If one needs to bring in animals, they need to be quarantined for a period of time before they are allowed to go out.
All in all, it was a very eventful week, and I have a lot of good memories in the laidback atmosphere in this part of the country. Hoping to visit other parts very soon! :-)
For more travel articles, click here.
It was sometime in April 2008 that we traveled to Perth, Australia. The city of Perth is the capital and largest city in Western Australia. Perth was just our starting point, and we traveled south to visit a lot of towns in that part of the country. So join me again as I share beautiful photos of that trip.
We only stayed in Perth for one day and we visited Perth Zoo before we drove down south.
The city of Perth as seen from the coast is very nice. The contrast of buildings and the blue ocean is just nice.
At Perth zoo we saw various animals and it was fun seeing animals I don't usually see in other zoos.
I think this is a big heron.
These are hippos. What I liked about the zoo is that the animals are not 'caged' and their habitats resemble their natural habitat to have as 'normal' a life as possible in the zoo.
A porcupine is a rodential mammal that has a coat of spines that it releases when it is threatened as a defense mechanism.
There were also penguins, and they built a special place for them to resemble their natural habitat as much as possible.
The giraffes were roaming freely in their enclosure, enabling them to enjoy munching on the leaves from the nearby trees.
The meerkat is also another animal we don't get to see often. It belongs to the mongoose family and they are the size of squirrels.
I am not sure how old is this tortoise. Judging by its size, it's still pretty young, I think.
The cheetah is the fastest running animal on earth. It was just relaxing in its enclosure though.
After some time in the zoo, we took our rental car and drove down south for the coastal areas. We rented a house while we were there, because there were no hotels where we were. Rental houses were the norm.
Not sure why I don't have a picture of our rental house, but it was located on a hill in a town called Eagle Bay, and it has this view. :-) Yup! I got to enjoy this view every morning when I woke up before we went gallivanting. This beautiful beach is 5 minutes walk downhill from the house.
We visited a different place everyday, and this is a beach in Yallingup. It was the beginning of autumn when we were there, and yes, their autumn is in April. When the rest of the world is having cold weather, Australia is enjoying summer. Imagine celebrating Christmas in the summer. That's what they do in Australia.
You can almost always find a children's park near the beaches. Usually there are swings and such, so families can always go and enjoy.
This is also Yallingup. It has very big rocks that we climbed and took pictures on.
I look so tanned in this picture. Every day life for me a few years back included at least an adventure at the beach for at least half an hour, or out and about in parks, hence the tan. :-)
It was fun climbing the rocks, and they were easy to climb too, which was good.
We also went to Augusta which is the southernmost town in Australia, and in the restaurant where we had lunch, there was a sign that says 'last eating house before the Antarctic'. That's how far we were at.
In Augusta is where the Blackwood River meets the sea at Flinders Bay, and while we were there, a sting ray came to the beach and we took pictures of it. This was a cool thing to see!
On another day we went to Margaret River which is another town near Augusta, and there we visited Lake Cave. There were very nice stalactites and stalagmites inside. This formation is called suspended table, which weighs several tonnes and is indeed suspended from the ground.
These stalactites took thousands of years to form apparently. There was a stalactite that they marked just to monitor the growth and it was already 10 years and it only grew by a few centimeters. Lake Cave is the most 'actively-dripping' cave in the southwest.
The town of Margaret River installed stairs and lighting inside the cave to make the cave easily accesible to the public, which was very nice.
We stayed in the cave for more than an hour, and we went in with a guide explaining the formations and things about the cave.
I also did not want to miss a photo op with a kangaroo up close, a representative animal of Australia. This was just a baby kangaroo, and in roads where there might be kangaroos in the area, there are signs that warn you to go slow so they won't get hit when they cross the road.
Here is a koala, another animal that represents Australia. They looked so cuddly, but they kept hiding in the tree so this was the only picture near enough that I could take of it.
Here's a picture of the marsupial without me blocking the view and the barbed wire netting. This was in a farm where we could feed the animals.
This was me feeding the horses. We had buckets of carrots to feed them and they kept following us until we turned the buckets upside down to show that they were empty.
I had to make sure the emu did not steal my ice cream, ha ha!
These are parakeets, which are small-medium sized parrot species. Not sure if they could also be trained to talk like parrots though.
Ducks or geese? I think geese. We had fun feeding them all.
There was even a donkey! The only other place where I saw a donkey was in Israel.
Another highlight of the trip was the time we went to Busselton to visit the Busselton Jetty Observatory. Busselton Jetty is the longest jetty in the world, stretching for almost 2 kilometers out to sea.
We walked the whole length of the jetty to see the creatures of the sea from the observatory.
My camera did not do justice to the view, but the lower you go down the observatory, the more you see creatures of the sea. Corals and planktons, and whatever else you call them started growing on the pillars of the observatory.
It was so cool to see so many fish deep down in the sea without getting wet. And there were a lot of fish, big and small.
We went lower and lower in the observatory to see the different creatures that live in the sea.
This is a picture of the beach at the start of the jetty. Very picturesque, eh?
These are eucalyptus trees. In autumn, instead of the leaves falling, these trees shed their barks to get ready for winter.
We also went hiking one time just to have an idea of the topography. So it's rocks and sand and sea and mountains.
Quite a lot of soil erosion also happen but Australia does a lot to preserve their land and animals. Nothing goes in, and nothing goes out, in terms of plants and animals. If one needs to bring in animals, they need to be quarantined for a period of time before they are allowed to go out.
All in all, it was a very eventful week, and I have a lot of good memories in the laidback atmosphere in this part of the country. Hoping to visit other parts very soon! :-)
For more travel articles, click here.
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