Perth, Rottnest and the little quokkas

We know that the kids have got used to the long drives when Charlotte asked if it was a long day in the car and when I replied 224kms, she celebrated and said "yay, a really short day!!".  She won't be able to complain about the drive to Torquay.

We made it to Perth in time to set up and then go and enjoy the sunshine (27 degrees today) at Kings Park.  We had a play in the Rio Tinto Natures playground and then viewed the city from the Kings Park Bridge walk.  We loved Kings Park.

We needed a quiet day for the kids the next day, so we headed down to Cottesloe for the best breakfast at Beaches Cafe and let the kids have a play at the playgound at the beach.  They had a ball!  We got back to caravan park in the afternoon and found another jumping pillow, playground and also a huge pool (including an awesome spa which we couldn't remove the kids from).  We were very happy with the caravan park - we even had friendly wildlife that were very well fed.

We got up the next morning and jumped on the ferry out to Rottnest Island.  We had the perfect day (29 degrees and sunny) to go to the island.  We hired some bikes and started to explore Rottnest.  Charlotte was enjoying being back on a bike.  We stopped for some lunch at a park when we were joined by a little Quokka.  Will was very taken by the little rodents - who were very tame. 

We moved onto a little bay where we had a swim and Will made more sandcastles.  Very surprised to still be swimming in Perth in mid September, but if Perth was to produce 3 perfect days to convince Mel to move there, these were the three days!!

We stopped at the bakery on the way back to the ferry where we bumped into more little Quokkas.  Will wanted to keep one.  We jumped onto the ferry and Charlotte entertained a table full of Japanese tourist by counting to them in Japanese.  They were very impressed.

We stopped at Little Creatures in Freo on the way home and enjoyed a cleansing ale and cider.  The kids loved the big sand pit.

The last day for the family in Perth was again spent down at Cottesloe.  Mel and I caught up with previous work colleagues will the kids played at the park.  The kids had a swim back at the caravan park while Mel packed the bags for the flight back to Melbourne.  The kids are very excited to get back to Melbourne.

The next morning I dropped the family off at the airport...forgetting one very important bag....the backpack with all the food, colouring books, the ipad etc which was supposed to entertain the kids for the long flight back to Melbourne.  I left a stressed Mel and excited kids at the airport and went to do some business in Perth. 

I visited the Perth Arena with the millions of Tri-Fixx screws holding it together....what a fantastic project!!