Back to Perth

We break up the journey back to Perth with a stop off at Busselton Jetty. At 2km long, it’s the longest wooden pier in southern hemisphere and it houses an underwater observatory at the end. From here, you can get a view from 13 metres below the surface and watch as the fish swim past and the squid float over the sand. Harley managed to walk the entire 2km there and then, 45 minutes later, all the way back again, which was a pretty good effort for such little legs.

We stop for the night in Freemantle (Freo, to the locals. Want to learn to speak Australian? Shorten every word to one syllable and add a vowel to the end. And if someone asks you a question, start your reply with the word Look. And, of course, if someone thanks you for something, just reply No Worries.) which is known for it’s proliferation of live music acts. We’re staying the night in a room above Rosie O’Grady’s pub and after a pub-grub dinner, we hear a guitar rift floating through from the other bar. We’re treated to a middle-aged guy with a pretty good voice belting out lots of covers and also to treated to drinks from the locals standing at the bar. 9pm sees the security guard asking us to take the kids out of the bar, but Will’s man enough to put them to bed whilst I rock on downstairs. The locals insist on buying my drinks for the rest of the night, especially after one of them had dared to suggest that Will might not be all man for putting the kids to bed whilst I stayed in the bar. I don’t think he’d ever had an ear-bending like the one that I subsequently gave him for his ridiculous, chauvinistic comments.

Back in Perth, we stop off again for lunch at the Shag Bar (the Shag is a bird…), located right on the Swan estuary. Very windy but very beautiful. Fortified, we pop in on Charlotte (ex-Figgis, Matthew’s sister) and family and then we take ourselves off to the park which, not only affords the most beautiful hill-top view of the city, but also has a fantastic tree-top walk, made of glass and steel which literally swoops over the tops of the trees, 20 metres off the ground.

Our home for the night is the Northbridge Hotel which is currently throwing a couple of office parties. Not to worry, they’re not disturbing us. Will pops down to the bar to get some ice and suddenly the fire-alarm’s set off, right outside our room. Will’s downstairs and won’t be let back up and I’m stuck in a room on the fourth floor with two sleeping children who aren’t even waking up with the shrill wail of the alarm. So, shall I try to wake Ruby and carry Harley down or throw them both over my shoulders? I know you’re meant to leave all your possessions in the event of a fire, but I need to get the passports, car keys and a credit card at the very least. And then in walks Will who just passed an extremely drunk, extremely disorientated woman just outside our room as he went to reception. Odds on, it was her. But glad that reception were taking it so seriously. Thank goodness I didn’t have to walk out in the street in my floral, nylon nightie and hair curlers, with my cold cream facepack on (isn’t that how it always happens on the tv?).