The blog is going to try an change in format. We (i.e. Eddie) has learned how to post photographs, so we’re going to include a few of those – recognizing that looking at someone else’s vacation pictures is not always exciting, we figure if you’re reading this you won’t mind a photo or two. We’re also going to do some postings based on activities / events rather than simple chronological recitations.
That having been said, our activity for Saturday (January 31) was a day trip through Pinnacle Travel to the Margaret River area. This is south of Perth on the western Australia coast. It started being developed as a wine region about 40 years ago, and now has a significant number of wineries here.
The bus was great. A big “greyhound” type by Volvo, it was very comfortable and had a unique feature – a television up front over the aisle, so that everyone could have a driver’s-eye view of the road. Most of the time, of course, it showed little of interest, but I can see how it would be very handy for allowing a sudden and spontaneous intake of breath by everyone on the bus if some little critter suddenly made an unsuccessful dash across the road.
We had an hour and a half on the bus and the driver gave us the usual tidbits of information. There are 1.5 million residents in Perth, but only 350,000 in the entire rest of the state of Western Australia – even less dense than, Utah, Nevada or New Mexico, once you cut out the big cities there.
The highway south out of town had an interesting feature. Originally, it’d had two bus lanes down the center median to bring commuters in from outlying places about an hour away. That’s now been replaced with light rail service. Lots of “park and ride” lots around. Think about that – you could climb on a train and go to Charlotte from Hickory without having to drive yourself. Internet is available on the trains, too, from what I gathered. If only we could become so civilized.
The time we’re here is at the end of the school summer vacation. Last Monday was “Australia Day”, their equivalent of our July 4 holiday. The result is that we’re doing this tour on roughly the Saturday after Labor Day weekend, meaning that crowds are way down.
The terrain here is about like I’m used to in Western Oklahoma. Some of it flat like toward the panhandle, but as we went along and got closer to the coast there were short trees and scrub, along with some more varied terrain. Think Kiowa County. For those not familiar with Oklahoma – please forgive my references. Even after 9 years I don’t understand North Carolina’s intricacies well enough to do specific equivalents.
Even the soil is very sandy with red clay overtones, much like western Oklahoma. Some things are universal – in the heat of the day, the cows find the one tree in the field and stand in the shade. It’s very hot.
We stopped about an hour into the trip for “morning tea”. Fortunately, they also sold coffee although at the little Quick Trip we were at the kid who waited on us, about 12, looked incredulous when we asked what a “Large White Mug” was. Turns out, it’s a large coffee with steamed milk in it.
The rest of the trip was somewhat inauspicious, with one exception – I never could get used to the fact that every time we rounded a corner my heart would suddenly skip because people were in the wrong lane coming at us. There’s good reason that we don’t drive in foreign countries.
