Hello Family and Friends!
I hope you are all enjoying February, had a nice Valentine’s
Day and (for those of you in the US) President’s Day!
Matt arrived back in Perth on February 6th. We
had a pretty busy week and managed to explore some places in Perth and nearby
that we had never visited before.
On Friday we headed to Fremantle, arguably Matt’s favorite
area of Perth, because he had a hankering for fish and chips. I’d never
actually had fish and chips down on the Freo docks, and was happy to try it.
First we wandered around Freo and Matt had his haircut at a barbershop. We
walked down to the docks and ordered food at Cicerello’s. It was beautiful out
and the food was very good. Hard to beat fresh fried fish eaten right over the
water!
Once we were sufficiently stuffed, we walked over to the
nearby Shipwreck Galleries, run by the Museum of Western Australia. The
galleries were free to tour, with a suggested donation. They were full of
recovered pottery, coins, hardware, food jars, jewelry, and other interesting
paraphernalia from over 400 years of shipwrecks along the west coast of
Australia. For me, the most interesting part of the Galleries was everything
relating to the Batavia. For those of you who read my last blog and have good
memories, you will recall that on a tour I took up the west coast we stopped in
the Bay of Batavia and learned all about the shipwreck, mutiny, and barbarism
that followed. I have shut down that blog, but here is a link to a short video
about the shipwreck and recovery: http://www.nfsa.gov.au/digitallearning/heritage/batavia.html
It was fun for me to see the recovered shipwreck, recovered
goods and the skeleton of a victim of the shipwreck, having learned about it
last year.
After the museums we showered up and got ready for an early
Valentine’s dinner at a Japanese restaurant right down the street from the
house. It was a lovely evening, the food was good: Japanese served tapas style,
but pretty expensive so I don’t think we will be rushing back.
On Saturday we headed over to Matt’s friend/co-worker
Agata’s apartment to swim and hang out with some of Matt’s other co-workers. I
got to see Ethan and Louise, who I know from being here before, and meet more
of Matt’s co-workers, which was great. That evening we were adventurous and
made a first attempt at making pizza on the BBQ. It was an adventure, though we
ate it all, we are hoping practice makes perfect!
On Sunday we headed into downtown Perth and did a little
shopping at the Harbourtown outlet mall. Next we toured the main Museum of
Western Australia. I thought Matt had to get in there and see the largest gold
nugget ever mined in WA!
We also looked at the taxidermy section and mineral/geology
area. After a quick walk through the Chinese New Year Market and lunch, we
headed home to get a picnic ready for Moonlight Cinema in King’s Park. It was
Matt’s first time ever watching a movie outside. I think we did pretty well. We
took a cooler with guac and salsa, crackers, cheese, zucchini muffins (which I
will never make again…no thanks Australian cookbook…) beer, and peanut m&ms
since it was a movie after all!
We saw Jack Reacher, and since we remembered
the bug spray, it was a really fun evening. It is also cheaper than seeing a
movie at the theater here, so we may have to go again.
Matt had planned a Valentine’s surprise for me and told me
to pack an overnight bag. Monday we took off and drove south into the Peel
region, just southwest of Perth. He had booked a night for us at the Peel Manor
House (built in the 80’s and meant to look old – oh, Australia!) near Secret
Harbour. Once we were in the general area on Monday, we visited Peel Estate
Winery, which was charming and quaint, very different from wineries we visited
in Margaret River. We checked in, and then headed to Secret Harbour for a late
lunch. That evening we wandered the Manor House’s garden and enjoyed the truly
massive room and a little time to ourselves.
We had a very nice dinner in the
Manor House dining room. On Tuesday we stopped at Stakehill Wines, another tiny
boutique winery. I was excited to try their fruity wines, such as passionfruit,
and Matt was interested in their chili wines, which turned out to be amazing.
Nice wines which then leave a perfect little burn in your throat. One variety
is even bottled with little bird’s eye chilies inside! We headed to Rockingham
for a nice lunch, even though it was really, really hot, overlooking the water.
After that we drove back to Perth and took advantage of cheap Tuesday at the
cinema to see Zero Dark Thirty. I liked it, as did Matt. For us, best picture
at the Oscars is between that and Argo. We will watch Monday morning here to
find out who wins!
Wednesday morning Matt left at 5 AM with our roommate Vince
to go fly to work. Unfortunately, Vince’s Jeep broke down on the way to the
airport. They missed their flight and were forced to take a day of vacation.
The plus side was I got another day with Matt before he flew out Thursday! We mostly ran errands and
chilled out, tired from our busy week.
On Friday night I went with our other roommate Jack to a
Perth Wildcats basketball game in the recently completed Perth Arena. It was
fun, lots of dance team dancing, fireworks, cheers, etc. Most of the players
are American too, so that is kind of funny. Perth beat the Townsville Crocs,
and Matt and I are planning to attend the last game of the season in a few
weeks against the New Zealand Breakers, the top ranked team right now, so it
should be a fun evening!
Lest you think all is perfect in the land of Oz, I am
currently at war with pantry moths (or Indian Meal moths). We discovered a
long-forgotten box of taco shells wriggling with pantry moth larvae before
leaving for the Peel Region. I chucked that box as well as some others that
were obviously infested, but it wasn’t until we were back and I was working on
it Wednesday that I realized how bad the infestation was. We have storage
containers for all of our food now, and a trap set up to catch the males and prevent
another generation. It isn’t a terrible illness or anything like that, and
hunting the adults with a flyswatter in the evening is kind of fun, but I
thought I would include one of the less appealing aspects of living in such a
warm climate. All of you facing snowmageddon and bundled up indoors shouldn’t feel too envious.
Happy Birthday wishes to Matt's sister Nicky on the 22nd!
Stay warm and thanks for reading!
(More photos from the week are on my Picassa page):
https://picasaweb.google.com/117680624136413564992/MuseumsMoviesPeelManorHouse
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