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Perth, coastal areas, Western Australia

Day 1: 2 May 2009

We picked up a hire car from the airport and after fighting with car seats and arranging and re-arranging 9 cases to fit in the rear of the 4x4 we were on our way. Destination - Sorrento Beach Resort. Imagine Fawlty Towers and you wont be far out. It would appear that the room rate had more to do with the size and location that style and luxury. Given the length of flights we didnt care, we just wanted our beds. Now as I am sure you will all be aware, time differences do strange things to sleeping patterns. That is, of course, unless your name is Marcus Turner. While Matt and Georgia were playing Nintendo DS and I was at least trying to sleep Master T slept and slept and slept for 14 hours!

Next day it was time to investigate the area. It was beautiful! The beaches are incredibly clean (as is pretty much everywhere in Western Australia). The weather was a lovely 28 degrees. Not at all humid. Perfect.


We crossed the road from our hotel to Hillary's Boat Harbour. It's like Freeport with class and fabulous restaurants, a man made beach for kids with a large playground and an area with water slides, trampolines and mini-golf. Matt (and the kids) were in heaven!

On one day we went to the aquarium at Hillary's Boat Harbour. It wasnt the largest we have ever been to but was very good and had a petting area for the kids to touch the skate and a few other fishy varieties. We drove all over wanting to see as much as we could in the 2 weeks we had. Cottesloe Beach, Mindarie, Fremantle, you name it,we went there!

Perth is devided into NOR (north of river) and SOR (south of river).Sorrento is north so we decided to have a trip south. Whilst it is very nice, I didn't care much for SOR,it just didnt feel the same as NOR. Although we did go to Secret Harbour and when the kids were on a park there I spotted a beautiful bird
. I followed it only to find it hanging out with about 200 of it's mates. They were huge parrots! The first wild parrots any of us had ever scene and having some sort of parrot party!

We took a trip on a boat to Rottnest Island. Home of the quokkas - they are the cutest little creatures. See above pic. We hired some bikes and Matt drew the short straw and had a trailor on the back of his bike with the kids in. This would normally be fine (recalling holidays at Centre Parcs) however, it was 30 degrees, with no wind and we hadnt anticipated the island being quite so hilly on the 12k ride! He felt a little better when we had a picnic lunch on a small pier on a deserted beach cove with crystle blue water.

Next adventure - Margaret River!

The Flights Down Under

Well, we were a little concerned about the length of time the flights (7 and 11 hours) however our fears proved unfounded. Emirates did everything they could to entertain kids and parents alike with their ICE Entertainment system (over 100 movies, which start when you want them to) and many computer games. It isn't every day you can challenge seat 36D to an in-flight game of Poker or Backgammon.

On the first flight Marcus fell asleep before we even left Manchester. Georgia settled down to 101 Dalmatians, with a Kit Kat, some M & Ms and a packet of Hula Hoops. Emirates were out to impress, obviously in the knowledge that if the kids are happy the parents are delighted! The rest of the flight was unremarkable which equates to a pretty great journey. The staff were attentive and even gave Matt extra wine for complimenting their service.

We landed in Dubai at 12:15 am local time (21:15 GMT), feeling fairly refreshed, no major toilet incidents (and the kids were okay too). Dubai International Airport has to be seen to be believed... like the Crewe of the Airport world. There must have been 50 flights within the 2 hour window we were there. Shopping was amazing, gold everywhere, with deals to make Mr T envious (the one from the A-Team not Matt).

After a brief 2 hour stop-over, we set upon our 11 hour haul to Perth which sounds awful, however, all of us were asleep within half an hour of take off and none of us woke up properly for 7 hours, leaving only another 4 hours to entertain ourselves and the kids. Matt was convinced that Louis Theroux was sat in the seat behind him, which provided some on board hilarity as I think he looked more like Uncle Noel. Fortunately Matt didn't pluck up the courage to ask for either an autograph or a photo.

We landed at Perth half an hour ahead of schedule at 16:30 local time (9:30 am UK). After a swine flu quarantine and 4 separate queues we finally got to the hire car at about 18:15. A short 30 min drive to Sorrento Beach Resort and we had arrived at our destination.

Madhouse

Blog posts will follow - just saying bye to everyone (in some cases for the 3rd time!).

Will keep everyone posted with news and pics.

Bye for now.