The Flight and First Day in Joondalup (Perth)

Friday, March 23, 2007

It's time to head for Auckland and our flights to Perth. Since we have to be at the airport by 3:30 a.m. on Saturday, we booked a motel close to the airport. We were able to arrange to leave the rental car at the motel for pick up by the rental company and take the shuttle to the airport only 5 min. away. We had a simple dinner next to the motel and retired very early in order to get a decent night's sleep. Well, we didn't sleep very well thinking about getting up at 3:00. Everything went well checking in and boarding the plane. They served a decent hot breakfast and we tried to doze a bit. The flight was about 3 1/2 hrs. and I watched "Dreamgirls" which was very entertaining. Our plane arrived on time in Melbourne in the rain. We stood in line quite a while to have our documents checked and then we had to pick up our luggage and there was a problem because there were a lot of international flights arriving at the same time. We waited 45 minutes just to get our luggage and ours was about the last to arrive - nerve racking, to say the least. Fortunately, since we had nothing to declare (darn, I had to leave the nice seashells I found on the beach behind because I would have had to declare them). Luckily, we were waved through without an inspection. There was no easy way to check our baggage through. We had to haul it to domestic departures and check in with Qantas again - standing in line. Oh well, we still made our connection to Perth in time. This was a 4 hour flight and they served a nice lunch and showed a movie which turned out to be "Dreamgirls". Oh well, I tried to sleep but since it was now late morning, I wasn't able to but I had a good book to read.

Our plane arrived on time in Perth but there were no gates open so our plane sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes. At baggage claim we found our home exchangers' daughter, Kym, there to pick us up. We really appreciated this because by now we felt a little like zombies. The ride to Joondalup was less than 1/2 hour. The house was very nice and we quickly settled in. We were too tired to go out and buy groceries but our hosts very kindly left a meal in the freezer for our first night and a nice bottle of wine. We stayed up as long as we could which wasn't very long. On top of the time zone changes (3 hrs) we had an additional hour to deal with because this night was the end of daylight savings time. I fell dead asleep on the sofa watching TV at something like 7:00. We woke up and went to bed probably around 8:00. Unfortunately, we were wide awake at 4:30 a.m. Well, at least we got 8 hours of sleep. After breakfast, which our hosts also kindly provided, we took a walk around the neighborhood. Joondalup is a northern suburb of Perth - about 15 miles north of the city center. It's very close to the beach and relatively new. The streets and walks and green areas are very clean and pleasant. The architecture of the area looks sort of English. After our walk we made out our grocery list and jumped in the car to go shopping. We easily found our way to the nearby mall and guess what, all the stores here are closed on Sundays. So, while we were there, we checked out the commuter train station for schedules, fares, etc. While we were reading the signs a woman in a security uniform asked if she could help us. She gave us all the information we needed and we found that the train is a great way to go and very inexpensive. There is also a local free bus to tour around Joondalup. We asked her if there were any restaurants nearby and she directed us to an area down the street that had a lot of restaurants and thankfully, most were open on Sundays. She particularly recommended Paddy Malone's, owned by friends of hers. We headed there and had a very English dinner called "Sunday Roast" consisting of roast beef, carrots, peas, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and gravy. It was all delicious.

The weather was lovely - not a cloud in the sky and warming up quickly to something that felt like 80 degrees with no humidity - a lot like San Miguel.

Our good friend Ed in Kansas City has a daughter living in the Perth area. She and her partner run an establishment in the Swan Valley - only about 1/2 hr from here. They call it "Chapel Farm" and it is a restaurant and event facility - they cater a lot of weddings and other parties there. They've been working on adding overnight accommodations and are having their grand opening on Tuesday. We were invited and since it is at night, we thought we would drive out there today so we were familiar with the area. I got directions from Myra and Google Maps and off we went. It turned out to be quite easy to find and Myra gave us a quick tour of their charming facilities. They were getting ready for a wedding to be held that evening. So, we headed down the road to take a look at some of the wineries which Swan Valley is famous for. We stopped at the Houghton Winery which John had read something about. The facilities were beautiful and the wines we sampled - just a few since John needed to keep his wits about him driving - were very nice and reasonably priced, we thought. We bought a White Burgundy, a Chardonnay Verdelho and a Merlot for later consumption. We decided that we would be back to this area so just made a nearby stop at a rum distillery. Who would have thought that we would find a rum distillery here - but I sampled a couple of rums - one was 51% alcohol. They were made from cane sugar and surprising good. We purchased a pint of the standard 37.5% rum and headed for home.

Last Days in Pauanui

Wednesday and Thursday we didn’t do a whole lot. It would have meant more driving for John to explore other parts of Coromandel Peninsula so instead we did some walking locally. There is a small wetlands area in Pauanui with a pleasant “boardwalk” which we did and also on the beach on the Pacific – just absolutely gorgeous – wide and very fine white sand. This time of the year it was almost totally deserted – just a few hardy souls actually in the water – we were not among them.

On Thursday I decided to take the hike up Pauanui Mountain – not really a mountain but that’s what they call it. The sign said it was 1 ½ hrs to the top. but someone else heading up ahead of me said it wasn’t really that long. The sign also said “only for experienced, fit walkers”. I decided I was up to it and I really wanted to get up there for the view so up I went. It started out pretty easy but got quite steep and rocky the farther I went. Unfortunately, I did not have hiking shoes/boots – just running shoes with somewhat worn out tread. I got up to a point where there was a great view and decided to turn around there because my traction just wasn’t good enough for the trail – darn! I did get some nice pictures, though with a view of all of Pauanui and the beautiful beach. Back at the trail head there were a couple of short walks along the beach to a stony cove which was quite beautiful – so I did that. I had just enough time to walk on the deserted beach then before John returned to pick me up. You’ll be able to see the pictures I took on my web albums page.

Friday we headed to Auckland to return our rental car and spend part of the night in a motel – we have to be at the airport by 3:30 a.m. for our 5:35 a.m. departure to Melbourne and Perth. Ugh!