The Caveman and I have recently returned from an amazing 5-day getaway to the other side of the country.
My best friend lives in a region south of Perth and we decided a couple of years ago that we should save up and splash out on a visit to her. She has family on our side of the country and normally we only get to see her when she comes across to see them - and then only if she's visiting Queensland. It's a long and expensive trip, so it doesn't happen often.
Our original plan was to go last year, as a treat for her birthday, but Covid travel restrictions meant we had to postpone. We put the trip back nearly a year and finally went last month.
It was the Caveman's first visit to Western Australia. I lived there for a few years as a child, but further north ... so, even though I do have some memories of Perth, this felt like my first time seeing it properly. We stayed in central Perth for the first and last nights of our holiday, but the other three nights we stayed about an hour south of the city, in our friend's home region.
We were lucky with the weather. There were predictions of cold and rainy days for the duration of our visit but we were pleasantly surprised when most of the days ended up being more dry than expected.
The activities we did were varied and interesting. Of course the most important aim of the trip was to spend time with a dear friend. However, you can't go nearly 4000 kms (five and a half hours on the plane!) to a new place and not have a list of things you'd like to do or see while there. We managed to do everything on our list, which we were absolutely thrilled with. We saw lots of nature, firstly at the extensive botanic gardens in Perth, then also seeing wildflowers and flowering native shrubs on the sides of the road everywhere we went. We also saw fossilised rocks (that was for my paleontology-loving Caveman), paid our respects at a couple of significant Aboriginal sites and visited the historic Fremantle Prison to learn more about the convict era. We toured a number of small towns with our friend and got a feel for where she has lived much of her life. As an added bonus, we were able to catch up with another friend who happened to move to the area just a few years ago. The two friends are completely unrelated to each other and have never even met, so it's sheer coincidence that they live in the same region now! Great for us on this trip though.
The flight back to Queensland was only four hours long, apparently thanks to the way the winds move over Australia. Meteorology is not my strong point, so I didn't pay attention to the details, but I was grateful for the faster trip home - although I was very sad to leave WA and our friend.
All in all, it was a fantastic holiday and one we would happily do again in future if the opportunity ever presents itself. In fact, with more money and time available, we'd go further and see more of Western Australia, perhaps even getting up towards where my family lived when I was young, in the Pilbara region.
Now THAT would be the trip of a lifetime!
