Singapore, Malaysia and Bangkok

A short, but unfortunately overnight, flight from Perth saw us booking into a hotel in Singapore (not Raffles) before breakfast.  We spent two days wandering the city, enjoying the enforced meals out, browsing the various Arabic, Indian and Chinese markets, but shopping was off limits as our luggage had come in at just 1 kg below our allowance!

Fairly arbitarily, we chose to take a bus to Malacca for a day or two en route to Kuala Lumpur.  However, we enjoyed the beautiful 'UNESCO World Heritage' town, and in particular our lovely hotel in old Chinatown, so much that we stayed there for all 5 days until our flight out of KL to Bangkok. Much of Malacca's charm lies in its history as an important trading post and its successive colonial occupation by the Arabs, Portugese, Dutch and British.  Along with the native Malays, throw in a touch of Indian and Chinese influence, and the variety of food was endless. 

In between all the eating and relaxing, we found a little time for tourism including a boat trip on the river and 'Duck boat' ride through the town and out into the Malacca Straits. The only wildlife of interest were several very large monitor lizards, which the girls instantly identified, having watched Bear Grylls catch, roast and eat one the night before on TV.

With two happy girls, we embarked on the final leg of our holiday - Bangkok.  We only had one full day in the city and despite the perpetual rain we managed to fit in a temple or two, a local market, a unique playground called a 'jellyfish' and even a Thai massage for Tony.

 

The End of the Road - or Almost!

After nearly 10,000 miles of trouble free motoring around Australia, our car gave up the ghost just 70 miles from our final destination of Perth!  

But less of our recent woes and back a week or so.   We spent a couple of days at Mandurah, just south of Perth, visiting Ellen's aunt and uncle, who had a couple of other short notice visitors, Ellen's parents.

Having advertised the car in Perth and received lots of interest, we decided to delay the sale until a few days before our flight out and make use of our last week with a tour of the SW corner of Australia.  The Cape Naturaliste and Margaret River area offered more lovely coastline, but surprised us with it's gentle rolling farmland and green vineyards. 

After rounding the most south westerly point in Australia, we enjoyed a couple of days in the karri forests near Pemberton, home to these very tall trees, plus some pretty parrots and lorikeets.   Francesca was most put out that she couldn't join us in climbing the 200' spiral ladder to the top of one of the trees.

 

Enroute back to Perth we visited Ellen's cousin in Bunbury and took the girls to see the local dolphins.   This far south, the water was bitterly cold and Francesca emerged shivering after 5 minutes, whilst Liberty just about dipped her toes in.

Little did we know as we frolicked in the ocean that the car had but a few more miles left in her.   It being a Saturday afternoon, we had little hope of finding a mechanic, but we were lucky to find ourselves near Mandurah again and spent the weekend with Ellen's relatives.  Our breakdown cover was a godsend but some telephone enquiries soon revealed the worst and the car was towed to a wrecker on the Monday morning, with a blown head gasket.

We finally got to Perth in a hire car and spent our last couple of days in Australia visiting friends and relatives and seeing a little bit of the city.  We flew out last Friday for 10 days in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, before returning to the UK next Sunday.

Coral Bay, Kalbarri and The Pinnacles

It seems a long time since we were snorkelling off Coral Bay, but it was only 4 weeks ago. There were some lovely beaches and fabulous coral gardens filled with fish and the occasional turtle.  Whilst Francesca and Tony swam far out to sea, Liberty contented herself to look for sting rays in the shallows.

 













Heading South towards Kalbarri National Park, we detoured to Shark Bay for an overnight stay at Hamelin Station - a half million acre sheep farm near the Hamelin Pool Stromatalites. These are a very rare colony of ancient organisms similar to the first life forms on earth. There are only a couple of places in the world in which they survive, and one of these is the protected, super-salinated waters of Shark Bay. 

We have to agree with the girls that it was a long way to come to look at some underwater rocks, but the peninsular and coastline were lovely, not to mention the beautiful and pristine camping facilities on the farm -  so we stayed an extra day to visit the UNESCO World Heritage area. First stop was Shell Beach, made up entirely of Hamelin cockle shells, followed by other stops along the coastline and lunch in Denham. On the way home, we explored one of the lovely beaches to find loads of sea creatures in the shallow waters - sharks, rays and a turtle. The girls were most interested in collecting shells and brought home whole skirtfuls to lay out around the tent.

 

 

Pressing on southbound, we spent a couple of days in the Kalbarri National Park, admiring the gorges, coastline and wildlife.

 

South of Kalbarri we hit our first big town after 2500 miles of driving from Darwin. Geraldton is home to the HMAS Sydney Memorial, commemorating the 645 Australians that died in the WWII battle with the Kormoran, in which both ships sank. The cathedral of St Francis Xavier made us feel as if we were back in Mexico momentarily, and the "leaning trees of Greenough" are testament to the strong westerlies that blow off the Indian Ocean.

Our final destination before Perth was the Pinnacles in the Nambung National Park, a collection of limestone pillars jutting out of the surrounding sandy desert.  We picniced among the stones before driving south to stay in Mandurah and visit Ellen's aunt and uncle.