Hope you are having a fabulous long Australia Day weekend Anna :)
I know people complain that there isn't a lot to do but I love this city! Admittedly, it may not be the best city to live in if you're single but with an open mind and actively looking for things to do, anything is possible.
Some reasons off the top of my head why I love this city. I'm not sure if they convince people to come to Perth for the first time though.
1. It's so easy to get around in your car. Apart from the roadworks, it's ridiculously convenient to drive anywhere.
2. It's sparkling clean.
3. Sandy white beaches and sparkling waters are a short half hour drive away.
4. The pride and maintenance of our parks, picnics and barbeque facilities especially Kings Park and South Perth.
5. People are friendly and smile at you wherever you go, but my favourite of course is when I'm going for a walk.
Of course there are a lot more but I have never appreciated the above more than anything else after living and travelling in various countries.
I'm curious to know what you love about Perth :)
Here is what I wore yesterday. I was on a mission to make it crazy.
Getting my green and gold on.
Christina brought these along. Best homemade cupcakes EVER! I had three and a half cookie monsters :) Figured I could have more than one if I reduce the calories by removing the eyes and mouth. Not a fan of marshmallows unfortunately.
Guess where one of them went?
We had fish and chips ready to eat by the foreshore to watch the fireworks, but we left before we even decided on a spot we were swamped by mosquitoes. So back to the apartment where dinner was eaten in comfort.
And what better way to celebrate this beautiful country by being in the outdoors and hiking the next morning. Alarm was set at 6am. Four hours of sleep did not stop me!
Exactly what that says
Deciding which way to go
Plenty of energy to expend. Must be the cupcakes.
Figured second time round it was easier to walk across it rather than craw.
Why does it always feel higher than you think?
Discovered and delighted by little shiny crystallised sap balls
Discovered and disgusted by clusters of caterpillars/grubs/wriggly furry somethings
On the way back to the car we saw a family of four kangaroos making their way through the carpark. Lucky us!
The week is nearly over and the long weekend is just around the corner. To think we were in Lancelin last week. The hilarity of it all was relived through your post. Your recount, photos AND videos captured what I missed. I am thoroughly ashamed (and amused!) about the videos and I've been told that it conjured some laughs for our readers so that is all that matters. Life is too short to be too serious yes? It's addictive though. I want more adventures and more experiences. I'm a greedy guts :)
Back to placid old Perth. This is what I made for lunch for Wednesday's drawing sesh with Christina.
I call it The Gazillion Veggie Thai Salad.
I read a couple of Thai crunchy salad recipes online and thought I'd increase the amount and variety of veggies because we love our veggies. Crunch, chomp, crunch. Yummy, but there was plenty of chopping involved.
In went:
beansprouts
snowpeas
carrots
capsicum
spinach
red cabbage
coriander
Thai basil
mint
spring onions
rice noodles
chicken
peanuts
and for the dressing:
lime
lemon
soy sauce
fish sauce
chilli flakes
sugar
white vinegar
I really love our drawing sessions. I'm embracing all this
free time to unleash my creativity and master drawing with pencils.I
don't know if I mentioned, but each Wednesday we aim to complete a
drawing.
First Wednesday I drew the orange as you've seen previously and Christina drew this wickedly delicious apple. Doesn't it look like it came straight from Snow White? Who would blame her for taking a bite of this apple.
Second Wednesday she drew this
In action
And I drew this Australian rodent
Rough outline
Getting there
Finished. A bit of instagramming touch up
And yesterday she drew this. I think she said it was a Kingfisher.
Before water
After water
Isn't it incredibly stunning the way the colours come alive when you
add water with a thin brush and glide the pencils over whilst it's still wet?
As for my drawing, it's incomplete and not ready to see the world yet.
Time for bed and a little wishful thinking... maybe one day we'll make millions as illustrators.
Nighty night!
Wowie! You've been very busy! Thank you for the double post!
I must say I love your skirts! I've walked in Miss Brown a few times (they have a shop in the City too!) However, I've never bought anything! I just enjoy walking through as I am drawn by the palette of colours that all the clothes are carefully organised into. I usually find one or two items that tickle my fancy, however, I always walk out empty handed. Your skirts are beautiful! Super jealous of your bargain, vintage find!
Just looking at your blog made me miss the weekend!
Thank you for being such a super elf and organising all the food, accommodation and transport! Your choice in food really hit the spot! I loved loved loved all the yummy vegetable snacks, the three olive dip, tomatoes... I just want to eat them again!
From my point of view, Friday just went on forever! I wanted to leave work as soon as I walked into the office and sat at my desk that morning. Your smses in the afternoon made me mentally 'check out' at around 3pm.
I was so excited about our mini get away and quite amused that I was actually 'on the way' for once! This was going to be our first time to Lancelin, located north of Perth.
Road Trip!
We know where we are headed to!
We made such great time while making use of the long summer days! Though we left my place at 6.30pm, we were able to enjoy the long warm evening, and avoid driving during night.
The long horizon
The sun peaking though the trees
Once we arrived at our accommodation we were both hungry! I can remember wanting to dive into the goodies that you had prepared for us!
Our room for the night
I too enjoyed the D & Ms. Nothing like a good chat on a road trip! It's amazing what good food, a relaxed atmosphere and MnM's cookies can do! I loved how we ended up moving the food from the table and squishing them all onto our spare bed where we just lazed on there and chatted about where we had been and where we plan to go. Not to mention a few moments of star gazing and seeing two shooting stars each! I must say we are very lucky!
I also laugh at our irrational fretting about the bed, and you recalling your experience with bed bugs on your Contiki Tour. After that, what was once an inviting bed, turned into a bed where you and I wrapped ourselves in sarongs in order to avoid ducking under the blankets. Luckily it was the ideal summer night. Not too hot and not too cold.
The next morning I awoke at 5.30am with my throat killing me. I tried to stay quiet so that I wouldn't wake miss sleeping beauty next to me, however, you woke up soon after and were gung-ho for a morning walk!
You also humoured my 'barefeet' running/walking trial and so off we went, on barefoot, to find the ocean.
Morning photo!
Our accommodation
Hrmmmm MnM cookieeeeee
Once we returned from our morning walk we ate our breakfast (the left overs of Friday night) packed up and started our day. After asking the receptionist, we knew that we had to make our way to 'Special 7' to pick up sand boards for some sand boarding!
Our map!
We were bubbling with excitement about our adventure! I was pleased that you were also happy to do the sand boarding early as the weather forecast was for a hot one!
Us excited! I loooove this photo!
Though it was a short drive, we still made the most of the car ride there; especially once you put on your cool Arabic tunessss...
Haha! I think we did a pretty good job keeping a dead straight face. I was about to burst out laughing any minute!
When we arrived at the dunes our adventure started! And so did the wind and heat!
At the entry to the dunes
You and the crazy winds that picked up the sand
At the top!
Going down!
Well... not really going down... but I must say it was just as fun as going down, perhaps a little funnier!
Here we are actually going down:
We didn't get a lot of smooth rides, and the video we got of me was the only smooth one. After trying different parts of the dunes with no success of achieving a smooth ride down, (due to not using the wax, as you had mentioned earlier) we ended up just taking fun snaps at the top. Here's a few pics:
Summer Sandy Babe
Climbing up a sandy "mountain"
Sandboarding!
After all the hard work walking up those sand dunes in the sun, our two hour time limit was up! And just when we realised that using wax was what we needed to make the boards fly!
However, we were hot and I know that I needed a drink and a break from the sand flying in my eyes!
After returning the boards and getting some yummy icy poles, we made it to the beach for a quick dip in the ocean and to finish off our food for lunch.
Nothing like a picnic after a morning filled with exercise!
Oh GOD! I slept with my mouth open?!?!? HAHAHA! Oh no! I guess Chinny's video was true then! I can't have them saying I sleep with my mouth open and now you, and continue to deny it! Well I definitely appreciate that you still love me despite me sleeping with my mouth open, drooling everywhere! =D
I'm wondering if you were going to post about Lancelin. I'm keen to see the photos on your camera and the videos of us going down the sand dunes. Anyway. here is my recollection of Lancelin :)
Lancelin was a mini holiday that was very much needed. As much as I love Perth, the wanderlust globetrotter part of me desperately needed to be revitalised. I miss having adventures and and since I can't afford a holiday, a trip to Lancelin was a perfect alternative for a cheap getaway. Who says travel can't be fun AND cheap?
I picked Anna up on Friday afternoon and we checked in for Friday night at Lancelin Lodge which is also a hostel, but we booked a twin room so we had some privacy.
Packing our Anna-and-Chia-picnic dinner
Less than two hours drive from Perth. All ready for our romantic getaway. Haha!
Nothing like D & Ms with your best friend all night long. That is D for dirty and M for mortifying. The night sky was spectacular and for the first time I witnessed not only my first shooting star, but a few too!
The next morning we went for a walk at about 6. It was a little chilly but it started to warm up by the time we came back.
Mummy long legs
Early morning walk/jog to the jetty and back. Good thing we are both early risers and morning people.
Lancelin jetty
Sneaky shot whilst Anna was busy packing.
After we checked out at 10am from Lancelin Lodge, we went to the store to hire our sandboards.
Long walk up
We are incredibly blessed to be living less than 2 hours drive away from this!
Giving our legs a rest on the boards
Basking in the sun not by choice. It doesn't look like it was hot, but we were slathered with sunscreen, sweat and sand and walking up the sand dunes felt like one step forward, fifty steps back.
Pretending to look as if we were going down the dunes. Quite an accurate depiction. I'm the one screaming unnecessarily and Anna is calm and looking quite the pro.
I presumed after an hour we would've had enough, however despite the heat, we carried on up and down the sand dunes determined to make the perfect ride down. We did not find out until much too late that we were suppose to use the dam wax chalk (contrary to what the man at the store told us!) and we couldn't get a smooth descent. It was such a struggle getting up again that we were going to give up. Thank goodness Anna has a gungho attitude and we persisted though we were ingesting cups of sand through our mouth/ears/nose and crisping in the sun. Finally we got a couple of good descents and decided to end on a high. By then it was past noon and our two hour rental was up and it became a crowded and difficult to dodge the people that were on the dunes.
It was a relief to return the sandboards and sit outside the deli having not one, but TWO popsicles. This is how we do it.
With our Lifesavers.
With our Paddle Pop Cyclones. This was our favourite!
We took a short dip into the beach to wash off all the sand. The water was really cold so we didn't stay for long. We found the perfect bench and nibbled away.
Our picnic lunch of leftovers near the beach.
And just like that it was time to go back to Perth. I really felt like the 'man' in our relationship when I drove back with Anna dozing away. Mouth wide open. Tongue on the side. Drooling. Snoring. If only I was irresponsible enough to take a photo of her whilst I was driving....
