Perth What to Expect
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Perth, Western Australia, Australia
My coach towards South Australia was due to pick me up from the station at a little after seven this morning, so, being a man, I left everything until the very last moment and had to get up at the crack of dawn to pack my suitcases. Of course, the only place open for breakfast at this time of the morning was McDonalds, and so at six o'clock I was wheeling my luggage into a deserted restaurant and making the mistake of trying to make smalltalk with the spotty-faced teenager behind the counter:
"I've seen three McDonalds on the way over here," I said casually, "It seems you have something of a monopoly."
She blinked at me twice, perhaps trying to work out what I had just ordered - because conversation is clearly a foreign concept to these people: "What's Monpolopy?" she finally wanted to know.
Now, I know what you're going to say. At this point, I probably should have just shut up and ordered breakfast - but instead, I decided to refer her to the world famous board game that's been around since the beginning of time and is probably even known to tribes in darkest Africa who have never seen another human being. My server stared at me blankly for what seemed and age, before informing me that she'd never heard of a game called Monploppy. The coach station wasn't open, which often seems to be the case when people are waiting for coaches. Instead, I waited outside in the morning mist in the company of Teddy Tramp and Percy Pervert who were asleep on an adjoining bench. The coach was fashionably late, and even when it did arrive I had to wait around some more while the driver unlocked the station and went in to have his breakfast in the warm - all I had available was a single vending machine which was covered in dust and appeared to contain products which haven't generally been on sale since the 70s. When I finally got to board the coach with the handful of other early morning travellers who obviously knew the system better than me and had arrived at exactly the moment the driver opened the doors, it felt as though I had been waiting in the cold for a month. I've never been so glad of heating in my life, although coach captains in Australia do seem to have an annoying habit of playing with the air conditioning throughout the journey so that one moment you are toasty warm and the next you've got icicles hanging from the end of your nose. Near to the small town of Corrigin we passed by a working dogs cemetery where more than seventy sheepdogs and tracking dogs are buried. Over the entrance there was a huge statue of a working dog which made the place look kind of weird, and far from thinking how sweet it was that farmers cared so much for their sheepdogs, it kind of reminded me of Stephen King's Pet Cemetery. The fact that you drive for miles before suddenly coming across this oddity in the middle of nowhere just makes it feel even more eerie. I was certainly glad we weren't passing through in the middle of the night. On the way to our major stop at Hyden, we called at a place called Hippo's Yawn. This is a series of rock formations and cliff-faces which, if you really strain your imagination to the limits and squint a lot, could possibly pass for a Tortoise lying on its back, a Donkey and a Hippo in a perpetual state of yawning. Members of our party stood around nodding thoughtfully, pointing in awe and telling each other how amazing it was, even though it was quite obvious that none of them had been able to see a thing until they were actually told what they were looking for - in the same way that once somebody has told you that Bohemian Rhapsody contains the lyrics "Beelzebub has a devil for a sideboard", you can never hear anything else again. I got the impression that I wasn't the only one who couldn't see the Tortoise or the Donkey at all, but nobody wanted to look stupid in front of their friends. There's a chance that we would've had a better view had we been able to get closer but apparently there is a constant problem with people painting graffiti on the rocks, and sandblasting makes the rock faces look even less like what they're supposed to be, so the whole area is fenced off and you have to squint from a distance. I'm pretty sure that a fence isn't going to stop the sort of graffiti artists who are willing to hang upside down from motorway bridges, thirty feet above death by concrete, just to paint a rude word for oncoming motorists - but nobody seems to have thought of this. Graffiti of a different sort was to be seen at Bates Cave. It was quite a struggle clambering across the rocks to get in, but inside we found a whole wall of Aboriginal cave paintings and handprints and huddled around like small children as our guide explained their origins and told us the story of Mulka the Terrible. This is a legend told to Aboriginal children, probably along the lines of the western bogeyman and obviously intended to stop them wandering outside at night. It involves a devil creature called Mulka, born to a woman who was in love with a member of a forbidden warrior tribe. Mulka was born cross-eyed, was cast out by his tribe and took his revenge by becoming a monster who hunted and ate the local children. Bates Cave, also known as Mulka cave, is supposed to be where he lived and legend has it that the handprints on the wall are his. It's very easy to find yourself thinking "What a horrible thing to tell small children", but this would be quite hypocritical considering that nearly all Western nursery rhymes involve children falling out of trees, having their heads cut off with choppers, or dropping down dead from the plague! By the side of the road in Hyden can be found a bizarre collection of metal art - it seems that the locals have collected up any old scraps or discarded junk and welded it all together into metal cows, horses, cars, people, anything else you can think of. Unfortunately, we whizzed past on the way into town rather than stopping for a good look - but this resulted in several people spinning around in their seats and pointing out of the back window, nobody knowing quite what to make of it. The main attraction in Hyden, however, is Wave Rock - a fifteen metre section of the larger Hyden Rock, shaped like a giant wave. It is one of the most amazing natural phenomenon I've seen in my life, and standing underneath it and looking up really does create the feeling of being a surfer just as a wave is about to crash down upon you. The first instinct is to assume that it must've been carved out by the sea at some point millions of years ago when the ocean came this far inland - but this simply isn't true, although the guides don't rush to tell you this in case the true story should detract from the mystery of the place. The shape of Wave Rock is simply the result of millions of years of erosion and the shape was probably carved out of the granite from below as the surrounding softer ground wore away to reveal it. The entire face of the rock is streaked with multicoloured strips of algae and darker granite stripes which give it a certain otherworldly feel. It was even possible to scramble up the side of Wave Rock and walk along the flat top, looking down upon it from above. This is something which is rare in Australia as many natural sites are covered in danger signs, fenced off or considered sacred to the local Aborigines - in which case you keep your distance out of respect. After touring the Rock we were driven to the Wave Rock tourist centre, a big glass restaurant and souvenir shop where a meal and Australian Billy tea and Damper bread had been laid on for us. Billy tea is Aboriginal tea boiled in a traditional Aboriginal cooking pot called a Billy Can over a campfire - as immortalised in the unofficial National Anthem of Australia, Waltzing Mathilda. Damper Bread was the original Aboriginal bread made using items found in the bush such as seeds and roots. There was also a wildlife centre and museum at the Wave Rock site, but visiting would have cut down on my time at the rock so I gave it a miss.
You can read my complete travel journals at www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer and www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer2
"I've seen three McDonalds on the way over here," I said casually, "It seems you have something of a monopoly."
She blinked at me twice, perhaps trying to work out what I had just ordered - because conversation is clearly a foreign concept to these people: "What's Monpolopy?" she finally wanted to know.
Now, I know what you're going to say. At this point, I probably should have just shut up and ordered breakfast - but instead, I decided to refer her to the world famous board game that's been around since the beginning of time and is probably even known to tribes in darkest Africa who have never seen another human being. My server stared at me blankly for what seemed and age, before informing me that she'd never heard of a game called Monploppy. The coach station wasn't open, which often seems to be the case when people are waiting for coaches. Instead, I waited outside in the morning mist in the company of Teddy Tramp and Percy Pervert who were asleep on an adjoining bench. The coach was fashionably late, and even when it did arrive I had to wait around some more while the driver unlocked the station and went in to have his breakfast in the warm - all I had available was a single vending machine which was covered in dust and appeared to contain products which haven't generally been on sale since the 70s. When I finally got to board the coach with the handful of other early morning travellers who obviously knew the system better than me and had arrived at exactly the moment the driver opened the doors, it felt as though I had been waiting in the cold for a month. I've never been so glad of heating in my life, although coach captains in Australia do seem to have an annoying habit of playing with the air conditioning throughout the journey so that one moment you are toasty warm and the next you've got icicles hanging from the end of your nose. Near to the small town of Corrigin we passed by a working dogs cemetery where more than seventy sheepdogs and tracking dogs are buried. Over the entrance there was a huge statue of a working dog which made the place look kind of weird, and far from thinking how sweet it was that farmers cared so much for their sheepdogs, it kind of reminded me of Stephen King's Pet Cemetery. The fact that you drive for miles before suddenly coming across this oddity in the middle of nowhere just makes it feel even more eerie. I was certainly glad we weren't passing through in the middle of the night. On the way to our major stop at Hyden, we called at a place called Hippo's Yawn. This is a series of rock formations and cliff-faces which, if you really strain your imagination to the limits and squint a lot, could possibly pass for a Tortoise lying on its back, a Donkey and a Hippo in a perpetual state of yawning. Members of our party stood around nodding thoughtfully, pointing in awe and telling each other how amazing it was, even though it was quite obvious that none of them had been able to see a thing until they were actually told what they were looking for - in the same way that once somebody has told you that Bohemian Rhapsody contains the lyrics "Beelzebub has a devil for a sideboard", you can never hear anything else again. I got the impression that I wasn't the only one who couldn't see the Tortoise or the Donkey at all, but nobody wanted to look stupid in front of their friends. There's a chance that we would've had a better view had we been able to get closer but apparently there is a constant problem with people painting graffiti on the rocks, and sandblasting makes the rock faces look even less like what they're supposed to be, so the whole area is fenced off and you have to squint from a distance. I'm pretty sure that a fence isn't going to stop the sort of graffiti artists who are willing to hang upside down from motorway bridges, thirty feet above death by concrete, just to paint a rude word for oncoming motorists - but nobody seems to have thought of this. Graffiti of a different sort was to be seen at Bates Cave. It was quite a struggle clambering across the rocks to get in, but inside we found a whole wall of Aboriginal cave paintings and handprints and huddled around like small children as our guide explained their origins and told us the story of Mulka the Terrible. This is a legend told to Aboriginal children, probably along the lines of the western bogeyman and obviously intended to stop them wandering outside at night. It involves a devil creature called Mulka, born to a woman who was in love with a member of a forbidden warrior tribe. Mulka was born cross-eyed, was cast out by his tribe and took his revenge by becoming a monster who hunted and ate the local children. Bates Cave, also known as Mulka cave, is supposed to be where he lived and legend has it that the handprints on the wall are his. It's very easy to find yourself thinking "What a horrible thing to tell small children", but this would be quite hypocritical considering that nearly all Western nursery rhymes involve children falling out of trees, having their heads cut off with choppers, or dropping down dead from the plague! By the side of the road in Hyden can be found a bizarre collection of metal art - it seems that the locals have collected up any old scraps or discarded junk and welded it all together into metal cows, horses, cars, people, anything else you can think of. Unfortunately, we whizzed past on the way into town rather than stopping for a good look - but this resulted in several people spinning around in their seats and pointing out of the back window, nobody knowing quite what to make of it. The main attraction in Hyden, however, is Wave Rock - a fifteen metre section of the larger Hyden Rock, shaped like a giant wave. It is one of the most amazing natural phenomenon I've seen in my life, and standing underneath it and looking up really does create the feeling of being a surfer just as a wave is about to crash down upon you. The first instinct is to assume that it must've been carved out by the sea at some point millions of years ago when the ocean came this far inland - but this simply isn't true, although the guides don't rush to tell you this in case the true story should detract from the mystery of the place. The shape of Wave Rock is simply the result of millions of years of erosion and the shape was probably carved out of the granite from below as the surrounding softer ground wore away to reveal it. The entire face of the rock is streaked with multicoloured strips of algae and darker granite stripes which give it a certain otherworldly feel. It was even possible to scramble up the side of Wave Rock and walk along the flat top, looking down upon it from above. This is something which is rare in Australia as many natural sites are covered in danger signs, fenced off or considered sacred to the local Aborigines - in which case you keep your distance out of respect. After touring the Rock we were driven to the Wave Rock tourist centre, a big glass restaurant and souvenir shop where a meal and Australian Billy tea and Damper bread had been laid on for us. Billy tea is Aboriginal tea boiled in a traditional Aboriginal cooking pot called a Billy Can over a campfire - as immortalised in the unofficial National Anthem of Australia, Waltzing Mathilda. Damper Bread was the original Aboriginal bread made using items found in the bush such as seeds and roots. There was also a wildlife centre and museum at the Wave Rock site, but visiting would have cut down on my time at the rock so I gave it a miss.
You can read my complete travel journals at www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer and www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer2
Good tip?
(0)
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Caversham Wildlife Park
U can cuddle a Wombat, observe shy Possums, feed the Kangaroos, see the Tasmanian Devils and ride the Camels...........
Good tip?
(+1)
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Trip to Rottnest is nice. Great views of Perth Harbour on the way out.
Good tip?
(0)
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
If you ever go to Perth you should head down to the marina where you can take many day trips to Fremantle or up the Black Swan river. It's also great if you want to get some amazing pics of the city!
Good tip?
(0)
Attadale, Western Australia, Australia
posh subburb of fremantle
Good tip?
(0)
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Fantastic city reomend to anyone
Good tip?
(0)
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Caversham Wildlife Park
U can cuddle a Wombat, observe shy Possums, feed the Kangaroos, see the Tasmanian Devils and ride the Camels...........
Good tip?
(+1)
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Trip to Rottnest is nice. Great views of Perth Harbour on the way out.
Good tip?
(0)
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
If you ever go to Perth you should head down to the marina where you can take many day trips to Fremantle or up the Black Swan river. It's also great if you want to get some amazing pics of the city!
Good tip?
(0)
Attadale, Western Australia, Australia
posh subburb of fremantle
Good tip?
(0)
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Fantastic city reomend to anyone
Good tip?
(0)
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
L'océan Indien est d'un bleu turquoise foncé tellement beau qu'il nous fait oublier qu'il y vit les plus gros requins au monde!!!
Good tip?
(0)
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