Perth and "The Valley of Taste"

On Saturday we continued our westward journey and travelled another 3,725 km from Alice to Perth. This means that in the space of 4 days we travelled around 7,000 km by plane, coach and 4WD (plus about 15 km on foot!!). It's amazing to think that's all in one country, it's the equivalent of driving from London to Edinburgh and back 5 and a bit times!! It was the fourth day in a row that we'd been up before sunrise too, I thought this was meant to be a holiday?!!

The reception staff at the Heavitree Lodge had been pretty useless most of the time we were there and they proved in perfectly on Saturday morning. I had booked our airport shuttle bus through them on Friday evening but they forgot to send a fax through so the bus never arrived to pick us up, meaning we had to wait even longer for a taxi to turn up. Luckily we still arrived with enough time to get our flight and they paid for it for us which is fair enough because it was their fault. Our flight was nice and easy, we flew over Uluru which was really great to see from the only angle we hadn't already seen on our walk! We were even on the correct side of the plane to see it from.

When we arrived in Perth (in the rain!) we checked into our new hostel, the Perth City YHA. It is our first YHA experience and we were pleasantly surprised, it's very nice and not too expensive. We were pretty tired so didn't want to do anything major, instead finding the nearest cinema and crashing out in front of the newly released 'Indiana Jones'! A nice chilled start to Perth.

Sunday saw us head off on the 30 minute train ride to the local town of Fremantle, or Freo as the locals call it (why must the Australians shorten EVERYTHING? They don't even call the MCG its full name, they call it 'The G'!! Seriously, if anyone knows please let me in on that one!!), which is a harbour side town with lots of fishing boats still working from there. On the weekends they run markets here so we spent most of the day just wandering around enjoying the town, the stalls and the fresh local produce. When we were down by the waterfront there were lots of people standing by the waters edge obviously all watching something. Not being ones to turn down a free show we headed down to see what was going on and it turned out that there were a few dolphins just frolicking in the water a matter of metres from the shore!

Monday was a nice, sunny day which we enjoyed whilst not doing anything in particular. We strolled around the city and headed for King's Park, to get to it we had to climb 300 or so steps but it was worth it. From the top there is a great view of the city and the Swan River which was made even better by the sun being out. We spent a while in the park just relaxing, reading and chatting before heading to an outlet shopping centre, 'Harbour Town'. There were lots of shops here and quite a few sales, not wanting to miss out I ended up buying 3 polo shirts for $15, bargain!

One of the main things Western Australia is famous for is its superb wines and this was what we had in mind for Tuesday. We booked ourselves onto a cruise and Swan Valley tour. The day was beautiful , really warm and only a few clouds, perfect for a morning cruise up the river towards "The Valley of Taste". We left at 9.45 and started our day with tea, coffee, muffins and great views of the city before the wine was brought out at about 10.30. After 'modelling' one of the 4 bottles for everyone on the boat we got a short class in wine tasting, learning the 6 S's.

1. Size (what the wine looks like)
2. Swirl
3. Sniff
4. Sip
5. Swish (around in your mouth)
6. Swallow (you could spit if you want but where's the fun in that?)

Once we'd tried these 4 wines we were definitely getting into the spirit of things and ready to visit some wineries.

When we got off the boat we were met by our jolly guide, Gerry who took us off to four family run wineries. First stop was 'Garbin Estate Wines' where we tried about 12 different wines. This was great as I now know which wines are my favourite. In the whites, Chenin Blanc and Verdelho were my favourite grapes and from the reds the Cabernet-Merlot was beautiful. At least in restaurants now I can have some idea of what to choose rather than just asking for 'House White'! Leaving here we walked through the vineyards to the largest producer of sparkling wine in Australia, 'Jane Brook Estate Wines' where we had a lovely lunch platter with cheeses, hams, veg and oven baked fresh bread. We had time to sample a couple more wines here including the unusual white port. After a brief visit to a nougat factory we went to 'Jarrah Ridge Wines' where we had some of the best Port I've ever tasted. We bought 2 bottles at a special cellar door price it was that good. Our last winery was the 'Edgecombe Bros Winery' where we tried a few more wines and had a cheese platter. This wasn't an amazingly special winery but I'm not going to complain! Our last stop was a brief one at the 'Margaret River Chocolate Company' with some free tastings here too.
The whole day was great fun and pretty good value at $120 each (around 60 pounds). I'm very glad we went and sampled the local produce and I even learnt a little bit about wine!

This morning we took ourselves off to Australias oldest working Mint, Perth Mint, and saw a gold pouring demonstration as well as lots of samples of gold nuggets, bars, bullions and coins! It was pretty cool to see all that gold, we even got to see what our weight in gold is at today's market price. Next time someone says that I'm "worth my weight in gold" (which doesn't happen very often!) I can tell them that is around $3,200,000, almost a million dollars more expensive than Megan. I was very happy with this until she said that she could just feed me up and trade me in for a nice little sum!!

Tomorrow we're off to Fremantle again for a 'nice seafood dinner' (that quote is for you Adam. . . . . ) and a night-time tour of the Fremantle Prison, Saturday we're going to a science exhibition and then after that we only have 2 days left in Australia!! NOOOOOOO!!!!