As promised it’s time for me to share what we did on our holiday last week.
But since 68 % of readers of this blog and 87 % of The Edublogger readers (the other blog I author) don’t live in Australia I thought it’s appropriate to start with some background on where I live so you understand where I went on holidays. If you’re interested — here’s comparison of % visitors by country, for top 20, for both blogs using Google Analytics statistics.
Please note I’ve uploaded the photos directly to this post to make it easier for readers who read my posts from work because Barry reminded me that many school districts block Flickr. I haven’t added the videos however I’m happy to upload the videos directly to my blog that I have on Flickr (shows the fish and the kangeroos) — just let me know.
About Western Australia
It’s a long way from anywhere!
But it’s the largest state in Australia even though some from the Eastern States of Australia consider our State a “backward” civilisation due to Perth’s (our capital city) isolation. I should also add it’s the wealthy State of Australia due to massive mining and resource boom. The image on the right shows a size comparison of Australia with USA and UK (click on image to enlarge).
A widely-held belief is Perth is “the world’s most
isolated capital city” because the closest major capital to Perth is Adelaide (2,800 km away) which takes three hours by commercial flight. Unfortunately Honolulu in Hawaii is more isolated (nearest capital city of Majuro in the Marshall Islands is 3,673 km away). I’m thinking Honolulu sounds nice 🙂 .
Western Australia is composed of distinct geographical regions each with their own unique climate, features and tourist attractions. It would take me forever to talk about the wonders of each region so click on areas on this map to learn more — I’m based in Perth.
Our Holiday In Relation To Perth
Our holiday was spent in the South West of our State in the Busselton, Dunsborough and Margaret River region (250 km south of Perth). This is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the State due to it’s fabulous beaches, surf areas, vineyards, tuart forests and fine foods. It feels like every km you travel in this region there is another vineyard or more fine foods to eat topped off with a swim at the beach.
Here are some of the highlights:
Favourite Tourist Attraction
Definitely Underwater Observatory that they’ve built to the seafloor at the end of the Busselton jetty. As you walk down the Underwater Observatory, 8 metres to the ocean floor, you see the different marine life, in their natural environment, that exists at each level.
The Busselton jetty is the longest wooden jetty in the Southern Hemisphere stretching 1.841 kms into the ocean. Construction commenced in 1853 and it was used for commercial shipping from 1865 to 1971.
It’s a lovely walk out to the Underwater Observatory (1.8
km) but not so much fun walking back in a thunderstorm in the rain (click on the photo of us walking back to see how far from shore we are).
Classic Moments
Always helps if you’re clear in providing directions.
Here is my hubby’s great instructions for locating him when I arrived after driving for 3 1/2 hours:
We are in Dunsborough at coffee shop (no idea of it’s name) near bakery in main drag.
I’m not sure anyone could interpret those directions?
Especially since there was several bakeries, coffee shops and main drags in Dunsborough and I’d never been there before.
Although I should be grateful– he could have always given me a map link like this so I ended up in the ocean 
.
Meanwhile you have my excellent directions:
Just keep going straight and it will take us to Cape Naturalist Lighthouse.
Well I got that one totally wrong and we ended up at Yallingup totally missing the Lighthouse
Honestly I thought the map showed the road we were on as a straight road that went to the lighthouse .
Favourite Moment
Has to be spotting the huge mobs of kangaroos (mob is the term used for a large group of kangaroos) in farmer’s paddocks next to the road.
Unfortunately I scared the first mob by yelling too loudly when we got out of the car but managed to video the mob I saw the next day. The farmers definitely wouldn’t have liked them in their fields.
While these kangaroos look lovely — you definitely don’t want to hit them with a car especially if you don’t have a roo bar. This is why I was very quiet filming them on the second day as there were probably more than 50 of them right next to a really busy road. Here is my video if you want to watch them.
Funniest Moment
We went away on holidays with several family groups.
Just about everyday the men would go fishing, for 3+ hours, and return home empty handed (I believe that is called conservation?). Sorry they did catch one fish in 7 days 🙂 .
They were hunting the Australian Salmon (Arripis trutta) which any seafood lover will tell you is a poor tasting fish. Commercial catch is mostly canned.
Finally in frustration on the second last day I took my hubby fishing to show him how it’s done. Here’s a photo of the fish I caught — which taste much nicer 🙂 . He also commented how much more fun it was fishing with me.
Although I think it’s much easier to grab fish out of the tanks at my work 🙂
Craziest Moment
Couldn’t sleep first night managing to wake hubby who then walked through cabin and when switched on lights blew them all out for the entire cabin. So with no lights (i.e. unable to get up to read) and not able to sleep I hide my PDA under my blankets (to keep light from waking my hubby) and played on the Internet.
Frustrating Moment
My hubby was responsible for booking the holiday accommodation. He went under guidance of our friend who organised the holiday and has been to the particular location about 5 times.
All I shall say on the matter is my hubby is never, ever, ever booking accommodation ever again!
Our cabin was falling 
down and not very nice inside. Our other friends (not the ones who gave hubby guidance) stayed at the same location, just one cabin behind us, in a lovely brick cabin with fantastic furniture and paid $100 more.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Definitely did a lot more than I covered in this post — which is way tooooo long. Here are the photos on Flickr that includes all the videos and lots more sights.
Sue Waters 
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