Thursday morning we left The Noble Grape, our B&B, and headed up to Perth. It was my last day of homemade chocolate muffins and fresh fruit and excellent coffee for breakfast, but I think I'll survive. I'm always torn about staying at bed and breakfast places--often the lodging is nicer and more interesting than an equivalent cost hotel, the hosts have lots of local information, and then there's the usually very tasty breakfast. But. The owners usually are very friendly, chatty people and I end up feeling like I am a bad guest because I'm not necessarily in the mood to chat with strangers over breakfast.

Google directions sent us on the 'back country roads' route as far as we can tell. Speaking of directions, apparently Australians like to navigate by highway names (eg. Busselton Highway) instead of the numbers, so that's what the Google directions print even though most signs display the numbers, not the names. Jon says that since I work on Maps now, I should improve directions . :)

Anyways, driving down country roads on a sunny day was lovely. Many were tree-lined with impossibly green pastures full of sheep and cows. There were fields covered in small yellow and white flowers. Occasionally tall, brown stems with orange blooms stood guard along the road, along with grape vines just starting to put out tiny, pale green leaves.

We were pleasantly stunned when we arrived in Perth--it must have been about 80F and sunny. It was our first big city in two weeks. We're staying near the city center (CBD), so the roads were a maze of one-way streets, and to be honest, Google directions failed us a bit. It put us close to our hotel but not exactly on the right street. We found our way eventually with no car accidents or arguments. We were happy.

I suspect Perth is most like San Diego. Perth is a big but not huge city. It's not humid and gets about 300 days of sunshine every year. They have a 'free transit zone' in the city center where you can ride the buses and special CAT buses (that stupidly only run until 6:20p) for free. They have a big partially outdoor mall and pedestrian zone there as well. You can visit the tourist sites but also get good coffee and avoid driving. There's a really large public park, Kings Park, at the edge of the FTZ. I approve. German iced coffee is popular here, too--the kind with ice cream and whipped cream. If you ask they'll make it American style. I've more or less given up caffeine, but I can't resist the coffee here. The flat whites and iced coffee are smooth and rich, and every coffee shop has simple syrup to sweeten cold drinks; you just need to ask for it.

We spent the afternoon at Kings Park. Unfortunately the bus that is supposed to take you to the center of the park was detoured at the edge of the park. It made for more walking than we planned, so we didn't make it to the botanic garden part, but the rest of the park was pretty enough that I didn't mind. We saw a tree trunk covered in large thorns (so unfriendly!), a vast lawn of perfectly short, green, soft grass that at first I thought it was a better version of astroturf, a long stand of white gum trees, the last remaining blooming flowers including one called 'kangaroo's paw', and lots and lots of birds and war memorials. We saw parrots--the kind with the green backs and red, blue, and yellow fronts. They were just hanging out, calling to each other. I was busy trying to find them in the palm trees when Jon told me to turn around. There were two sitting on a branch about 10 feet away from us. Wow. We saw lots of other birds, too, including this large black, crow-like ones that were repeatedly dive-bombed by little brown and white birds. The park is on the edge of the water and has an excellent view of the downtown. Sitting on a bench looking out at the water in the late afternoon is a fine, fine way to spend a late spring afternoon.

We went to a Thai restaurant for dinner, Viet Royal, that was fairly near to our hotel. It was a typical Thai food experience: tasty food, large portions, low key restaurant. We successfully asked about their peanut sauce (no wheat or soy sauce), so we had spring rolls with a sweet chili sauce and then pork and vegetables in peanut sauce with rice. Yum. I never get tired of eating Thai food.

We went to sleep early because Friday we caught a ferry to Rottnest Island--more on that later. It's Saturday morning now, and Fremantle is calling us!

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