Christmas with Mum – Part 1

14^th December to 22^nd December

Don’t worry mum…we’ll be there to pick you up. 😊

And we were, at 10:40pm on the 15^th December.  I had booked seven days at the Banksia Tourist Park in Hazelmere, a powered site or us and a cabin for mum. Being eleven minutes from the airport and under thirty minutes to Perth, this was a great base. We spent the first day just relaxing and chewing the fat. We also had the opportunity to meet the neighbours.

We spent a lovely couple of hours on the Swan River on a twilight cruise operated by the Little Ferry Co. It’s an Edwardian styled, electric ferry with a capacity of 11 passengers, and is a great opportunity for small groups to enjoy a private cruise. There was myself, Peter, mum, an old friend of mine (I can call her old as she is only 7 days younger than me, and…I have known her for over 30 years) one of her good friends (Ann) and Ann’s mum, (Rose). With our captain, JP at the helm, we left from Elizabeth Quay, headed up the Swan River and had a great time.

After a relaxing start to the holiday…we got into it. We spent a day wandering around the city, exploring the shops and doing some last-minute Christmas shopping.

The following day we rode the Hop On, Hop Off double decker bus. This took us all around the inner city suburbs, including Kings Park, the Optus Stadium, over the Swan River and the Botanical Gardens. This was a great way to see the area. The round trip was two hours, so it was quite extensive, and as the name infers you can hop off wherever you want, then hop back on the next bus; they run every hour.

Then another day of shopping. We visited one of the biggest Westfield shopping centers in the area and braved the Christmas chaos. By then we were shopped out and were in need of a day off. (Being a tourist is hard work). 😎 Besides, we needed to be refreshed before our big day out to Rottnest Island.

You may or may not know much about Quokkas. They are Rottnest’s very own icon and I think Australia’s most photographed marsupial. The Quokkas even have their own website where people can post selfies with them. Here are ours.

The Quokkas are mostly nocturnal, so it is best to see them early morning/evening, that’s why we were on the 07:30 ferry. Saying that, it seems some little Quokkas have evolved to take advantage of us tourists. Hang on to your tucker guys!  😉

Quokkas are of course, wild animals. As such the usual rules apply. Don’t touch them, don’t feed them, don’t get too close to them. What became obviously clear to us, was that those rules do not apply to the Quokkas, (nor to mum for that matter). Those little buggers (the Quokkas, not mum) can do whatever they want, including stealing, yes stealing, my breakfast.

Now I want to make it clear that I did not feed him, it’s hard to tell from the photos, but I really was trying to get it back off him. We were just sitting at the table when this little cutie jumped up between me and mum. We thought, Oh, how lovely. Next thing I knew he grabbed my cheese and bacon scroll and tried to take off with it. He fought long and hard for this treat, and in the end he did manage to tear some off.

To add insult to injury, when he had finished his breakfast, he deliberately knocked my coffee cup over with his little furry butt, and drank what had spilled out! Once he was finished, he just turned tail and left us.

So, it seems the rules don’t apply to the Quokkas. They can take food. Get really close to us, and, shock horror…touch us.  Seriously though, he was super cute, and we all loved our little encounter with Ned.

After our Quokka experience, it was time to explore the rest of the island.

And that brings us pretty much to the end of the first week. We had a lay day after Rottnest, this allowed us to rest, re-organise, do the washing and get ready for the drive down to the Margaret River Region, where we’d be spending the next fourteen days.

See you out there somewhere

On tow and on the go!