30 Oct 2012 - Perth Trip Summary Video (in "Gangnam Style")

I am currently busy sorting out the thousands of photos and videos from our Perth trip last week.  It will take me a while to do up a full Trip video.  In the meantime, I have completed a Trip Summary Video.  In the past few trips, I have been using the "Visa Commercial" theme for such video.  This time round, it has to be the "Gangnam Style" which has swept the whole world by storm.  Hope you will enjoy it!  :-)

27 Oct 2012 - Day 9: Good to be home

Our flight back to Singapore was very early (7:40am).  We checked out at about 6:10am and both Jerlene and Javier were still sleeping.  By the time we reached the airport, it was about 6:45am.  We were late and had to rush through the custom and to the gate.  Initially we were pretty worried because there was a long queue at the custom.  When we reached the gate, we were able to board the plane directly.

After the bad experience Javier had during the flight to Perth, he kept saying he did not want to board the plane.  During takeoff, he refused to sit by himself.  As such, I had to ask for a child restraint for him to sit with me.  When we were in the air, he slowly got comfortable and forgot about the bad experience.

By about 1:30pm, we touched down at Changi airport.  We had lunch at the airport before taking a cab home.

It's nice to be back home.  This marked the end of our holiday.

26 Oct 2012 - Day 8: Harbour Town shopping and Bell Tower by night

We will be driving back to Perth today.  Initially we went to nearby Greenough town to find the famous leaning tree but could not find it.  Along the way, we saw many haystacks in the field.

After about 5hours drive, we finally reached Perth city.  Before going to our hotel, we went straight to Harbour Town for lunch, followed by some shopping.

Such a coincidence, I got back the exact same room in Pan Pacific Hotel as the one which we stayed during the first two days of our trip.

In the evening, we went to city area for dinner and did some last minute shopping.

Before heading back to our room, we went to Bell Tower and took some night shots.

We had finally come to the end of our trip.  In summary, it was very tiring because of all the long drives.  However, we managed to complete more than 90% of what we had planned.  As for Jerlene and Javier, when I asked them what were the most memorable activities in this trip, the following are their ranking.
1) Feeding kangeroos
2) Playing sand on beaches
3) Playing in playgrounds
Except for the 1st activity, the other two can be done at most places.  Haha......probably next trip I can save some $$ as we can just go nearby countries as long as there are playgrounds and beaches.......

25 Oct 2012 - Day 7: Northampton historic town and Geraldton Lighthouse

After about 3 hours drive from Denham, we reached a historic town, Northampton.  It is a quiet small town with several churches and an old railway that no longer in use.

From Northampton, it's another 2 hours drive before we reached Geraldton.  We first went to lighthouse monument by St Georges Beach before going to town for our lunch.

 After lunch, we drove to a nearby lighthouse at Point Moore.

We have visited many lighthouses in the past and one common observation is that it's always very windy in that area.  In the below video, you can see that it's like a mini sand storm by the beach.  In order not to have sand gets into our eyes, we can only face one direction, and moved like crabs....haha.....

Our accommodation for tonight was where we stayed four nights ago, Best Western Hospitality Inn Geraldton.  After we checked in, we decided to go by the coast to have a last look of Geraldton.  Then it's playground time.

There was also a Yellow Submarine and a statue of Hero of Batavia nearby.

We bought some food back to our room and rest for the day.

25 Oct 2012 - Day 7: Shark Bay Eagle Bluff and Little Lagoon

We woke up early today to start a long drive to Geraldton.  After checking out from Oceanside Village, we went to a nearby super mart to stock our supply of dried food.

Before leaving Shark Bay World Heritage region, we went to Eagle Bluff lookout and had a superb view of the surrounding.

The boardwalk here provides an excellent vantage point from which to view some of Shark Bay's unique World Heritage features.  Shark Bay has the biggest seagrass meadows in the world, a key reason for World Heritage listing.  We were able to look at the seagrass in deeper water where its darker colour distinguishes it from sandy areas.  Endangered animal species are another World Heritage treasure, eg. dugong feeding on seagrass just offshore.  We did not see any dugong but we spotted a few stingrays.

Then we passed by a lagoon before heading out from the World Heritage drive.

24 Oct 2012 - Day 6: Denham and Ocean Park

Monkey Mia is the turning point of our trip.  What I meant is that Monkey Mia is the furthest we went for this trip.  From today onward, we will be turning back and driving towards Perth city.  As I had a long drive yesterday, I planned to stay around Shark Bay region today.  From Monkey Mia, we drove to Denham, which is just 20 mins away.  The moment we went on the highway, we saw a few little black dots on the road in a distance.  As we got closer, we realized they were Emus crossing the road.  Jerlene was so afraid that I will knock them down and kept asking to STOP!

Then we passed by Little Lagoon before reaching Denham.

Denham is the nearest town to Monkey Mia.  It's a small and quiet town by the coast.

After we checked in to our accommodation at Oceanside Village, we went to a nearby cafe for lunch.  Across the road, Jerlene and Javier saw a playground.  I know what they were thinking but told them that I will bring them there after we visit the Ocean Park.

Ocean Park is about 20mins drive from Denham.  It is an eco-friendly and interactive aquarium that is located on the pristine shores of the Shark Bay World Heritage Marine Park.

Shark Bay World Heritage Marine Park is renowned for its incredible diversity and is home to sea turtles, dolphins, whales, dugongs, a variety of small marine life and sea grasses.

The main highlight of Ocean Park is the Shark Feeding session.  This is our first time coming so close to sharks.  There were quite a number of lemon sharks swimming around but the "boss" in the shark pool was a tiger shark.

Ocean Park is a pretty small place and we complete it within an hour.  Jerlene and Javier kept saying they were tired and wanted to go back to our room.  However, I knew that their main intention was to go back to the playground.

As promised, I drove back to the playground and they had so much fun there.

We spent more than an hour in the playground.  When we went back to our accommodation, Jerlene and Javier continued to have picnic in the living room.

Just outside of our room, I was able to have a very nice view of the sunset.  It was very windy.  I tried to take a video of the sunset but I just could not keep my hand still.  Fortunately, I managed to get a few nice shots.

24 Oct 2012 - Day 6: Monkey Mia Dolphins

The reason why I planned such a long drive from Perth to Monkey Mia for this trip was for the wild dolphin feeding that happened here in Monkey Mia every morning.  As such, no matter how tired we are or how early we need to wake up, we cannot miss the highlight of our trip.  By 7:30am, there was already a long stretch of people lining up along the shore, waiting for the wild dolphins to arrive.

After waited for about 30mins, we still did not see any sign of dolphins.  According to some websites, it mentioned that out of 365 days in a year, there is only an average of 7-8 days when the dolphins do not appear.  At that point in time, we really hope we were not so unfortunate.  Out of sudden, we heard someone shouted:"There"!  Everyone automatically looked at the direction where he's pointing to.  And yes, there they come.  At least 4-5 of them.  Within minutes, the dolphins were just a few body length from us.

Only a few lucky ones got selected to hand feed the dolphin.  This is the first time we got so close to wild dolphins.

Throughout the session, Jerlene and Javier did not show much interest.  In fact, they spent most of the time playing sand on the beach while I was busy taking pictures of the dolphins.

After the dolphin feeding session ended, Tracy, Jerlene and Javier were back to their shell picking exercise.

We spent quite sometimes on the beach as that's what I've promised to Jerlene and Javier yesterday.  Great to see that the kids were enjoying themselves.