Vacation Mode

Music: In My Place by Coldplay

I've been on holiday mood since early Sept. Due to some changes at work, i have now been replaced and am currently undergoing training for another position. In other words, I have no work. How opportune that this happened a week before raya. So its been a relaxing month so far, and this will continue until next week as i'll be going for another trip in 3 days..

I guess this is would be a good time for me to upload some pictures of my trip to Perth back in April... 10 days of fun.. head to my fb if u want to see more pics.. heads up, this is gonna be a pretty long entry.. since im the mood to write..

Perth City skyline at dusk, view from Kings Park. It got quite chilly at night.

Cottlesloe Beach, overlooking the Indian Ocean, is about 15 minutes drive from Perth. The beach sand is super fine, and it was very windy at the time! Cottlesloe is a very quaint town, there are restaurants and bars opposite the road facing the ocean, with live music playing. Awesome place to chill and have a drink after work. The surrounding park was very clean, people were having picnic, and swimming at the beach.

At Rottnest Island. There are several ferries that go here, we took the one from Fremantle, the ferry ride took only 25 minutes. We headed out from my aunt's house quite late and wanted to catch the 9am ferry. We reached there exactly 9am but when we wanted to buy the tickets, we were told we can't park our car at that spot (only for waiting), the ticket lady told me to park my car at a designated parking lot first and come back to buy the ferry tickets, if it hadn't already sailed by then. So i had to repark the car while my cousin and aunt waited at the ticket counter. As soon as they saw me running from the car towards them, then only they bought the tickets, and the ferry took off straight away. I didnt even pay for the parking tickets and luckily we weren't fined haha. 

This animal is called quokka, which was how Rottnest Island got its name. The founders thought this is a rat at first. You can be fined up to 50,000 aud if caught feeding the quokkas by the island auhorities.

We decided to tour the whole island on a bicycle. There were many routes, we followed the one that took 1-2 hours. It was sunny and really hot, the island is full of steep hills so the cycling was quite demanding.. It was pretty tiring and we had quite a good workout. This is at one of the many lookout points.

Only one of the many beautiful sections of the island. The water was very clear, and cold too. At some parts, you can swim and snorkle. There are hostels if you decide to overnight on the island, complete with bbq area and all. Very nice getaway place for a short vacation if you live in Perth or its vicinity.

This homemade pavlova greeted us at home, made by my aunt which we specially requested her to make. Sedap gilaaaa i think one fine day i'll do this and bring it to umich punya pot luck gatherings.. hahaha. It was the perfect dessert after a tiring day at Rottnest, we ate indian briyani for dinner at the Fremantle market before coming home that night.

 The next day we started our 3-day road trip. Starting from Perth, we drove to Rockingham, then Mandurrah, which were both small towns. Next destination is Busselton where the famous 1.8km jetty is located (pic below). I was so excited to walk all the way to the end, which also has a underwater observatory.. unfortunately the jetty was closed for 18 months for repair and upgrading works.. its been closed since 2009.. so we were only allowed to walk about 200 meters in.. there were some people who were fishing on some sections of the jetty, which was normal really. But the interesting thing was that they actually 'siang' the fishes that they caught there and then!

After Busselton, we drove to Bunbury and then Margaret River (the wine region), where we checked into a backpackers inn at Surfer's Point, 20 minutes from MR. As the name suggests, this is a surfers paradise. The waves are huge, although it can't be seen in this picture, which is at one of the lookout points.

On the way to Augusta, we drove through a Karri forest, a tall open forest of eucalyptus (kayu putih) trees. These forests only exists in Southwest Australia, and its very wangi, imagine driving through a nicely scented forest. It was really magical, none of the pictures we took do justice. But i imagine the forest would be really scary at night. We stopped by a small area to take pictures. We left the car door open, suddenly the door closed by itself! There was no wind at all, my aunt who was in the car at the time straight away got out of the car and join my cousin and I who were taking pictures some few feet away from the car. Cuak gak la masa tuh hahaha.

This is at Cape Leeuwin, the southern westerly tip of mainland Australia, about 20 minutes drive from Augusta. The sunset was so beautiful and we stayed till dark despite the cold wind. This point is one of the three points where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet. That night at our backpackers lodge, I spent 20 minutes in the cold staring at the sky, which was really clear. We were far away from big city lights, and I could see sooooo many stars, and of course it looked different from what we can see from Malaysia. But the most wonderful thing was that, I think that I actually saw the Milky Way. The cluster of starts were concentrated and formed a very visible but not so thin line across the sky. I dont know much about stars and galaxies though so I might be wrong. But it was surreal lah, I've never seen anything like it in Malaysia or US. It was so beautiful. If I lived there, I would probably be staring at the sky every night! 

 Next day on the road. This is one of the many wineries and vineyards all over the Margaret River region.

Next stop is Pemberton, where we went to checkout the Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree, which is originally a fire lookout tree. The steps are made of metal spikes hammered into the trunk, and very dangerous to climb! You can easily slip and fall to the ground, mati pun boleh I think.

This tree is 75 meters high, I only climbed not even 5 meters and dah gayat gila. If you see properly, there is someone at the middle platform, the lady is actually putting her hands out and waving to us down there. She took less then 2 minutes to climb up to that high. Her husband was already at the top of the tree, took him less than 5 minutes to climb all the way up.Crazy!!

This is Point D'Entrecasteaux at Windy Harbor, our next destination. The cliff was really high, towards the mainland is a lush of green trees. Awesome view.

Point D'Entrecasteaux is one of the points where the Southern meets the Indian Ocean. If you look closely at this picture below, you can see a demarcation of the oceans, Indian on the right, Southern on the left. Notice the different hues of blue? Even the sky is clearly demarcated by the presence and absence of the clouds. I read about this before, but I didn't think I'd actually see it with my own eyes! I stood there staring at this for at least 10 minutes..  It was unbelievable.

Next stop is the Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk at the Walpole-Nornalup National Park. Its a 40 meter canopy walk as high as 60 meters. The steel pylons actually swayed with the trees, the frequency of the forest, if you will. It wasn't scary like suspension bridges though.

Below the tree top walk is a pathway that goes around a few Tingle trees which were burnt by bush fires before. Here I am sitting under one of the biggest Tingle tree there, inside the trunk it is literally black like ash.

 This is one of my favorite places during the road trip, the Gap and Natural Bridge at Torndirrup National Park, in Albany. This path reminds me of the Yellow Brick Road to Emerald City. The place was so beautiful especially since we reached there around 1 hour before sunset, the lighting made the place glow like gold. The rocks were nothing like I've seen before, it felt like I was in Mars or someplace not on earth.

This the The Gap. Cuak gila ok to stand there to take this picture. The waves was super high and it was very windy, one wrong step or imbalance, if you're not careful, boleh je terjatuh kat bawah tu, boleh mati.

The Natural Bridge. There's no pathway to actually go walk on the bridge. Its too dangerous. As the waves hit the stones, it will eventually erode and collapse to become the new Gap. 

On the way to our backpackers place in Albany, we stopped by the Albany Wind Farm. It was a pleasant surprise because I didn't read about this anywhere when I was researching for the trip. The wind turbine was so close I was literally standing next to it, just separated by fences. The wind farm supplied power to half of the Albany township, and there are plans to build more turbines to increase the capacity of the farm.

The next morning before leaving Albany, we went to the beach really early.. people were walking their dogs, jogging on the beach, and some crazy people were even surfing! I say crazy because it was damned cold at the time! It felt like very homely beach.

Our cute rented car. Nissan Micra which I nicknamed Froggy (because of the jutting head lights).

Bluff Knoll at the Stirling Range National Park, about 2 hours drive from Albany. One year ago, I'd never imagine that climbing a 1095 meter peak would be the highlight of my vacation trip! I guess I was hyped up about climbing Mount Kinabalu at the time kot, so this served as a training sort of. This is the highest peak in the Southwest of Western Australia. That knoll you see on the right is not the peak, the actual peak is the one on the left of it.

Vegetation change. Half way through the climb. We were crazy to only bring one 600ml bottle to share between the 2 of us (my aunt waited at the car). But a mother with her 2 kids who were also climbing kindly gave us some water, they brought like 2 gallons of water i think. 

This is after circling the big knoll that wasn't the actual peak. This small knoll is also not the peak. We were tricked 3 times before we reached the real peak. No wonder this place is called Bluff Knoll.

The view from the top. The climb to the peak took us 1 hour 55 minutes. And about 1 hour 15 minutes to climb down. We hung around and cam whored at the peak for about 30 minutes. I'd stay longer if it weren't for my aunt waiting for us down below. We were the second group to climb that morning, so we met a lot of other groups climbing up while we were climbing down. I remember thinking to myself, if i lived in Albany, I would probably be climbing Bluff Knoll at least twice a month! Its not that hard and would be a good exercise and weekend activity/ritual, and most importantly, the weather was comfortable.

 After Bluff Knoll, it was a 5-hour drive back to Perth. We chose to take the 120 highway as it was one of the scenic drives. At some parts it felt like I was driving to Africa. Stopped at a small cowboy town called Wagin for some scones and tea for an hour, gossiped like crazy! My legs were sore from the climb so I asked my cousin to take over since I've been driving non stop anyway for the past few days.

 The next day we booked a one day tour. First stop was the Caversham Wildlife Park, aka the Zoo. When we reached there, it was raining very heavily.. but only for about 10 minutes. I thought it was gonna be a long rain so I was whining about it.. and then one of the Zoo rangers came up to me and asked.. where are you from? "Malaysia".. He then said, heyy the rain is even heavier and torrential over there and you're complaining about this one? "ooppss"... Then he asked summore, which part of malaysia are you from? "KL"... to which he said.. be more specific.. PJ? Subang? Bangsar? and I laughed like crazy.. "PJ PJ". So anyway, I simply love the kangaroos! I love it when they jump jump hop hop lol. One of the roos wanted to eat my hand even when I was out of pellets.. gila rakus.. but its okay since they're so freakin cute. We were the last ones to leave the kangaroo area.

This female wombat is actually sleeping. Look closely and you'll notice she's actually doing her business while taking her nap! We were not allowed to touch her above the waist (what waist? so fat like that) because she might be cranky if woken up and could be a wee bit dangerous.

Super cute koala! The fur like carpet.. Since koalas are nocturnal creatures, we were lucky that this one (and 4 others) were not sleeping at the time.. again we were the last ones to leave the area, we were almost locked in haha. They're sooo cute i can't leave them alone.. rasa nak peluk buat bantal tidur je...

This is another wind farm on the way to Cervantes. I think its the Emu Wind Farm, there were two farms side by side, their turbines were separated by the colors, the other ones are grey. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited to see another wind farm during the trip hahaha. Side story: on the tour bus there was this Australian guy from Brisbane who was traveling alone. He made friends with us 3 ladies. One time he asked me, why are you traveling alone? I made a confused look, since he knew there were 3 of us together. He then rephrased his question.. where are your husbands? Hahahahahhahah!! I lol-ed like crazy.. Then told him we were all not married.. he must be shocked.. Then sometime later i asked him back.. why are YOU traveling alone? hahaha... he said he liked to travel alone and do it all the time.. he also said me and my aunt and cousin are fun and not boring like a group of japanese who also on the tour bus. hahaha..

Nearby Cervantes, we went to see the Pinnacles Desert at the Nambung National Park. These are limestones.. how they are formed is probably too long and complicated for me to tell, as if i remember even haha. Just wiki if you're interested. The desert was quite big, and it was surrounded by green vegetation, which is really an anomaly. Amazing. Continuation to side story: My cousin and I as usual were cam whoring like crazy so my aunt went back to the meeting point first and by the time we were there, everybody in the tour have already made their way to the bus, so the Brisbane guy stayed behind with my aunt to wait for me and my cousin. And then we walked back to the bus together. But my cousin and I decided to walk a few paces behind my aunt and Brisbane guy.. and we were taking their pictures from behind walking together and we were giggling like high school girls. Then the Brisbane guy glanced back to see us, and then said to my aunt... these two are up to no good! hahahahha.. he wasn't oblivious to what we were doing, tapi layan je laaa budak2 ni kan.. hahahaha.

Then we did some sand surfing!! I don't have pictures of me coming down the dune, only a video.. and I came down like super fast! I waxed my surf board like crazy so that I can do a fast one, sampai tergolek2.. it was fun man. Then we were taken on a 4wd drive around the sand dunes.. 

The next day was my much awaited trip to the East Perth Control Center at the Western Power office. EPCC is similar to control center where I work, WP is their electricity utility. I was greeted by a fellow Malaysian working there, we met with their boss and some other Malaysians working there, ada la 3 orang.. they gave me a visitors presentation, i was really into it. We compared a lot of things between them and TNB, especially operations-wise. After that they let me go into the control room and I chit chatted with the guy who was on shift then, whose job description is exactly the same is mine, more or less. I didn't realise the time flew by very fast and suddenly it was 12.30pm and i had to go.. this pic below is the only proof that I went for a visit there.. another highlight of my trip.. 

After my short visit to EPCC, i met up with my aunts and cousins at the masjid for Friday prayers. The last time I went to one was when I was in Ann Arbor. Somehow only in Malaysia that women don't go to Friday prayers. Logistics maybe, masjid tak muat. 

Then we went to my cousin's house, and she has this border collie and his name is Bundy (somehow Ted Bundy comes to mind). He looked scary but he's quite friendly actually. He wanted to play and we threw tennis balls for him to catch.. can jump really high... 

In the same house also lives this super adorable cat (forgot her name) and she lives harmoniously with Bundy. 

In front of the house garage with my cousins, the husband, my aunts.

During this trip, I was roped into doing jump shots, terpengaruh dengan my cousin hahaha. This was at the porch of my aunt's house, after we came back from lepaking at the playground nearby.

The view from my aunt's house. Reminds me of Wisteria Lane.. and Cougar Town. Very nice neighborhood.. But very quiet at night.

My cousin's son Logan. His favorite words then were.. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" a few days ago we skyped with my aunt and Logan was there also talking to us.. aahh i miss this cheeky little guy.. 

A trip around Perth City.. the Red Bull Air race was on at the time. We went to take some shots and then left to go shopping. Here with my cousin Imran, Logan's uncle. 

Also that same day was Uncle Yusof, Imran's dad, Logan's grand dad, birthday.. My aunt made a lemon meringue pie. A wonderful occasion as we came to the finals days of our vacation.

The maps we used throughout the 10 days. The road trip was about 2200km in total. Looking at the map of Australia, we only covered a super duper small area of the whole continent. All the way throughout the trip, all I could think of was Allah is great. Same feeling like when I went to NZ. As the trip was mostly nature oriented, its inevitable to not be reminded of God seeing amazing all the places we visited. The only thing I regret was that we didn't have time to go to Wave Rock. Actually we did, but we chose to stay in Perth and spend the day with the relatives instead. I have a feeling I'll be going to Perth again sometime in the future, and when the time comes, I'll make sure I set foot to Wave Rock. 

Damn that was tiring.. Hope you had fun reading it. Thanks for your time! 

Selamat Hari Raya & Maaf Zahir Batin.