Friday 24 July 2015

Waterfall Cottages

每每去旅行,若可以,我总不希望住在市区。在马来西亚,城市看厌了,到了像澳洲这样的广袤大地,我希望可以更加亲近大自然,于是,我找上了Waterfall Cottages

我们到达的那个傍晚

这小屋位于Margaret River市镇附近的森林,沿途非常幽静。屋主住在约几百米以外,我们入住时方圆几百米就只有我们。

Waterfall Cottages有多款住宿供选择,我选了family cottage。Family cottage小屋有间双人床的房间,假楼则有四张单人床,正好适合我们五人住。客厅两面都是诺大的落地玻璃,窗外清幽尽入眼帘,我爱死了!夜里寒冷还有个fireplace取暖(其实有暖气啦~,不过fireplace总是比较浪漫温暖)。
厨房虽小,但烹饪用具、餐具非常齐全,妈妈正好可以大展身手。我们有口福呢!
假楼简简单单的空间
 
假楼空间虽小,但我喜欢


让我的御用男模向你展示林间的味道
小屋外边是一大片草坪,后边是一小片树林,顺着草坪走下去有个小小蓄水池,再往外走就有个小瀑布了。反正你喜欢晨运、散步、慢跑、瑜伽、看书、打坐、摄影、素描……总有你喜欢的角落让你在大自然中做你喜欢的事儿。





我们每天早上在屋外吃早餐,微凉晨风中自有另一番味道。当晨光开始洒下,不知名的鸟儿和鹦鹉便会开始离巢觅食,我们在天南地北,它们也总会在一旁叽叽喳喳。

吃饱了我们总会特地给它们留一些面包屑片,看它们大快朵颐的雀跃模样。


在这儿,野生袋鼠可多着呢。我们总会在某个转角处碰见那些做日光浴的大家庭。有一晚,甚至有只袋鼠就在我们小屋门口约十尺处觅食,直到我们拿相机想要靠近它时才一跃而去。




不过,你要是不喜欢活在当下的平凡宁静,这里就不适合你了。这儿没有wifi、电话没有讯号、只有区区几个电视台。爱热闹、对现代科技上瘾的人来这儿必定抓狂发疯。

Monday 20 July 2015

A Day in Fremantle

Fremantle is a lovely place. It is the kind of place that I'd love to spend days doing nothing. 

The day we visited Fremantle, it was cold and wet, and we still love it. (Oh, by the way, Fremantle has sister city relationship with Seberang Perai, Malaysia since 1978). However, it was so wet that I didn't even have chance to bring out my camera. Luckily my phone camera quality is not bad. 

We started our day at Fremantle Market. Great place for breakfast and shopping. (Sorry, I'll start to flood this post with photos)


Our breakfast:







My cousin's stall. (Sorry. Just some insider's jokes)

Anyway, this stall is so colourful that my mum has to buy some fruits and veges here. I think we got some apples and tomatoes.
























Cheese stall named "Mouse Trap" :)

Look at their school!


While I accompanying my mum and aunt shopping, the guys went for another round of breakfast at the Cappuccino Strip. By the time we finished shopping, it was still raining so we decided not to explore the streets and old buildings but headed straight to Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour.




The atmosphere here was so great that we decided to have an unplanned lunch here. There were so many restaurants to choose from (mostly with sea view), and finally we picked Kailis Fish Market Cafe due to their proud advertisement of "Award Winning Fish & Chips". We got ourselves a seafood platter, a clam chowder, and 3 bottles of beer (total cost AUD64). The fish is fresh, soft inside and crisp outside. We love it!



Day Trip to Pinnacle

The normal route for Pinnacle Day Tour including Caversham Wildlife Park, The Lobster Shack, Nambung National Park and Lancelin. However, understanding our almost sloth-like travel style, I decided to schedule Caversham Wildlife Park on another day. So, our day trip looks like this instead: Hillarys Boat Harbour -->The Lobster Shack --> Nambung National Park --> Lancelin --> Perth

Since I decided to have lunch at The Lobster Shack, Cervantes, we needed a brief stop instead of driving straight to Cervantes. Hillarys Boat Harbour is a lovely choice. You can spend a whole day there, or you can simply just drop by and say hello to the deep blue Indian Ocean. We had fun exploring the neighborhood, and we love the sea breeze as a great start.




After Hillarys Boat Harbour, it was a long and slow drive (the speed limit was as low as 60km/hr sometimes) before hitting the highway. When I planned the Pinnacle trip, the fact that one has to travel north along the Indian Ocean Drive made me pretty excited. I was hoping for some excitement, at least half as mesmerizing as Pacific Coast Highway, or at least half as fun as the Great Ocean Road. Unfortunately, this stretch of Indian Ocean Drive (from Perth to Cervantes) is pretty boring. At least, you don't get to see Indian Ocean most of the time, until you are almost near Cervantes.

Some dreamy plants along the way

Glimpse of Indian Ocean when we almost reach Cervantes


We went straight to The Lobster Shack for lunch. I know this is touristy but where else to go for lunch near Nambung National Park? I'd rather impress my parents with lobsters :p
(Make sure you go early before the tour buses arrive. Normally Pinnacle tour include a few hours stop at Caversham Wildlife Park so plan your time properly. We were lucky that we reached just a few minutes before groups after groups of tourist come here for lobsters)



Very cute toilet door design

Their staffs are efficient

Satisfying lunch

After lunch, we immediately headed to Nambung National Park. It was a cloudy afternoon. I was quite disappointed because I dreamt of taking tons of photos here, with dramatic blue sky and desert.

Cloudy and moody


The road leading to no where?



The lone ranger

The "Golden Sand"

To our surprise, we were attacked by swarm of flies. We have heard of how scary it is during summer in Australia but I never expected to meet the swarm during May. It was so bad that my aunt and my parents refused to get out from the car at the end of the trip, and I have to basically wrap myself to minimize exposure of my skin (since bush flies love protein from our sweat, tears, saliva, mucus and blood). No wonder they are selling fly net hat everywhere.


To show you how scary are these flies, here's the photo of my dad walking in front of me:

See the flies on his back?

Anyway, the flies won't stop En and myself exploring. We love the fact that you can just drive into the desert and find spots without other tourist and have tons of fun.

The sky turned slightly blue (and with some help of photo editing) by the time we say goodbye


We ended our trip with sand surfing at Lancelin. We rented a surfing board at one of the convenient stall at the price of AUD10 for 2 hours (with AUD50 deposit), had some fun trying (while my aunt hid in the car due to the flies and my parents following us took some "pretend to surf" photos.


And this is how we ended our day trip to Pinnacle.


Read also: Greater Perth 6D6N Itinerary