So, yes….as I mentioned the only slight snag with our BnB was that we didn’t have a car and options for eating out locally were very limited. Pete had explained that there was a good Italian Restaurant just 6 mins walk away but other than that we’d need to go into Kalamunda which was a 20 mins walk. Unfortunately, the latter was out of the question.
On our first night we decided to walk down to the Italian very slowly as it was still very hot at 5-30. We got there and the place looked shut. I popped downstairs and found their pizza takeaway place. The guy in there confirmed that the restaurant wasn’t open today and they had a problem with their pizza maker. Hopeless.
We had no choice but to get an Uber into Kalamunda and head to the Kalamunda Hotel, which Cate had recommended. This was a really local place full of families enjoying time together. It was very traditional and obviously had quite a history too. Jane and I weren’t all that hungry so we decided to share our meal and it was delicious.
When it came time to leave, Jane ordered us another Uber but it kept saying that the driver was 10 mins away and then after 7mins , they’d cancel. This happened twice and then eventually the wait time became 22 mins. Crikey, this wasn’t looking good. We were outside by now and asked the nice waitress who’d served us, whether there was a local taxi firm. There was but they came from down in the city and never gave an expected arrival time! All of this fuss for a 4 mins drive…
Enter scene left our heroes….Brad and his girlfriend Olivia, who had been chatting to the waitress and overheard our predicament. Brad piped up with ‘where do you need to get to Ladies?’ When we told him he said, with a broad smile, he could drop us off. It turned out he was a supplier to the hotel so the waitress vouched for him👍
We piled into the car with Brad and Olivia and off we went. They were absolutely lovely and turns out Brad’s family came to Australia on the 3rd boat of the colonisation of Swan River. Meanwhile, Olivia was telling Jane that her family were £10 poms who came over from Manchester, needing to evade the Mafia!! It was like a living history lesson. They dropped us off at the gate and we said our farewells, what a kind thing to do.
The next night we decided to risk walking to the Italian again. It is a lovely walk down there through an avenue of beautiful native trees. The meal and service was fabulous and on the way back we could see the most amazing sunset, over the city and down towards to the sea. We enjoyed the food so much that we went back again the following night after our big day out.
Indeed, our big day out. On our final day at Rosebridge House we decided to hire a car again and visit a couple of different parts of Perth. We picked up the car from Thrifty at the airport at about 9-30 and our first stop was Caversham Wildlife Park which is not too far away. It’s a wonderful place to see Australian wildlife and we had a great day. By 10am it was already incredibly hot and I was worried about us walking around this place. However, luckily there was plenty of shade and some places were vaguely air conditioned. They’re well organised and we particularly enjoyed the ‘Meet the Animals’ bit, photo with a Wombat (Neil), the Penguin feeding time, the Quokkas, the huge number of koalas but especially the baby one and the kangaroo walkthrough (possibly too many of one thing there….) . One of our favourites was the incredible Tasmanian Devil, who put on a little show for us once he’d woken up that is. He ran actively around his enclosure exploring every little bit as if he’d never seen it before. He climbed a tree and had a bath and his incredible ears shone bright red in the sunshine.
In between meeting all the animals we kept going back to the cafe area to cool off with more water and iced peach tea. It wasn’t until later that I saw just how red my face had got from the heat. All of the volunteers running this place were incredibly friendly and jolly and it was an excellent day out, where we stayed much longer than the 1:30 hours that coach trips are allowed.
Next we were supposed to be visiting the Swan River Valley. This is a wine growing region and I thought we’d be able to visit the vineyards and winery’s to have a look and maybe there would be some nice shops. However, it’s not really like that and because it was now so late (approaching 4pm) everything was starting to close. We popped into one winery ‘Sitella’ and the vines did look beautiful but it was too late to go into the Cellar Door. As we were still a bit frazzled and glad to be in the air conditioned car, we weren’t inclined to stop again and decided to just complete the circuit and call it a day.
We dropped the car off at the airport again and called an Uber to take us home. We had to meet him over at the airport terminal which was a bit of a pain in the heat but hey ho. He drove us nearly back to our place when I suddenly realised that I’d left my iPad in the hire car. It wasn’t in my bag and I remembered leaving it in the boot and something had gone ‘bump’ at one point. Obviously, it had fallen down the back. The Uber driver turned around and we headed back. I tried to phone Thrifty but they wanted me to email and said they’d get back to me within 7 years. I was very stressed, worried that they’d hire the car out again. We decided to try ‘Find My Device’ and sure enough my IPad came up on the map. However my worst fear was confirmed as my iPad was on the move. It appeared to be getting further away at first, oh no……now what….we pressed on and suddenly it looked as if we were following the car with my IPad in it! At this point Jane checked her back pack and guess what she found…..Oh yes, I had!!! We asked the Uber driver to turn around once more. Poor man. I felt hugely relieved that it now looked like it was only my pencil crayons that had fallen on the floor.
It had been a rather expensive day at the park but over a glass of wine at our now favourite Italian Restaurant, Jane and I agreed that the Tasmanian Devil’s ears alone were worth it.
Where shall we go to next? 