Back to Homely Freo

Back in Fremantle following the camping trip to South West Australia, the weekend and beyond was pretty lazy, hanging out at Alana's, not doing much other than eating and drinking whilst Flora played. We met up with Bruce and Toni and Scott at Little Creatures for some pizza and beer. It was great to see them, but it wasn't too big a night as we had Flora with us. Alana and Cat cycled to the beach one morning, and also had a dip in the river beach before heading off for a bit of Christmas shopping here and there (mostly for Flora).
On Christmas eve we went over to Guida's in the late afternoon where she had set up a gorgeous festive table for about 15 people in her new house, which was really nice (very neat, tidy and clean). We ate great food, had plenty to drink and in the evening Father Christmas (Jose Luis) knocked on the door with a sack of presents, mostly for the kids. It was loads of fun and just before midnight, Isabel drove us back to Alana's via a house nearby that had reindeer and a sleigh outside (big enough to sit in), bicycles that powered

lights and all sorts of fun things for Flora. It even had a count down to Christmas and we were there a few minutes before midnight. When we arrived back to Alana's we put Flora to bed all excited for another Christmas celebration the next day.
Flora awoke to a full stocking on her bed - she just couldn't believe he had come into her room. She even spotted a muddy footprint on the carpet of her room. She brought the stocking into our room and opened it with us before heading upstairs to see that Santa had eaten his biscuit and the reindeer had polished off the carrot.
After breakfast Flora opened more presents from Santa and us, had a play and then we packed up an esky and headed to the beach with Alana and Andrew.

The waves were bigger than usual (Alana lost her glasses as she got tumbled over) and other than a brief dive, Flora largely remained under the umbrella eating snacks while we enjoyed a few Christmas beers. Once they were finished we went home to organise our seafood lunch and continue with the beers. It was a really lovely and relaxing Christmas day.
The next day Jose Luis came to collect Flora so that she could spend the day and night with them and Pedro suggested we go to Mojos, a local music venue, since we didn't have Flora.
Dinner ended up later than expected and we didn't stroll down to Mojos with Alana until almost 9pm. Mojos is a small music venue that hosts an annual boxing day event and we were pleased and excited to find that the bands were great. They were all pretty different from each other, and a couple of the lead singers had real charisma. In between sets we spent our time out in the beer garden yard type

place, chatting to other people and having fags and spliffs. After a little while Andrew joined us along with his friend Mandy. Mandy was loads of fun and also knew lots of the other people who were at the gig, including a varied bunch of youngsters staying at a hostel in Cottesloe.
After an exceptionally enjoyable night at Mojos we left when the night finished, strolled back to the house and carried on on the balcony over the river as the sun came up.
The next morning was something of a struggle as we had organised to take Pedro's parents on a picnic to Kings Park. We dragged ourselves out of bed, borrowed Alana's car, and went to collect Jose Luis, Isabel and Flora, first stopping at the supermarket to buy picnic provisions.
Our first stop in the park was overlooking Perth and the Swan river, under some beautiful large trees, where we set up a picnic whilst Flora ran around and played with another little girl sitting

nearby. After our delicious picnic and a laze in the sun, we took Flora to Naturescape, billed as a place for children to connect with nature and learn to appreciate the unique Western Australian environment. We enjoyed the park, climbing and exploring, while looking for clues to solve the mystery of the mosquito sandwich, and we were also luck enough to see a bandicoot. Next stop was an ice cream at a beautiful playground beside a lake with a giant crocodile to climb on, amongst other

things. After a lovely day out, in which we did surprisingly well given the previous evening escapade, we headed back to Alana's where we made a big fish dinner for everyone.
After a day of shopping and relaxing, we woke up early the next door to head to the Rottnest Island Ferry. Andrew and Pedro cycled the bikes over, while the rest headed over in the car. The ferry was super fast and when we arrived Cat got off as fast as possible to cycle over to the rental shop to secure a trailer to attach to the back of the bike for Flora. First stop was the bakery to pick up some food and of course spot the little quokkas that are dotted all over the place. Flora was pretty enchanted by them and we had to promise to

find some more to coax her into the trailer again. She loved being towed in the trailer whilst looking out at the scenery, and fortunately, it was a bit cloudy whilst we were cycling and so not too hot. We cycled up to the north coast to Bathurst Lighthouse and stopped at the tented eco resort on Pinky Bay for a coffee. We continued on around a number of beautiful bays with turquoise water, dotted with the simple but cute accommodation available on the island. When we got to Little Parakeet bay we parked our bikes, laid out the sarongs, went for a swim, and ate the lunch we had picked up in the bakery. We decided we would go on to Catherine beach, but on the way there, whilst Pedro was peddling up hill, something in the gears snapped. When we checked it out it looked pretty bad, and when a helpful man stopped to survey the damage, he confirmed that the bike was buggered. This was at our furthest point from the ferry and main settlement. Pedro felt that he had broken the

bike and it was his fault and wasn't very receptive to Cat's reassurances that you cannot break a bike by changing gear. The helpful man helped us at least change the trailer from Pedro's bikes to Cat's and Pedro was able to freewheel down the hills, and push it up the other side, while Cat waited at intervals. In the end it wasn't too hard to get it back to the settlement. We left it near the ferry and then headed to the playground, and then to a couple of areas with an abundance of quokkas for Flora to check out. She adored them and they were really quite friendly, and of course very cute. We had one last swim at Pinky's before catching the Ferry home, where Alana and Andrew were kindly waiting to collect us.
At lunchtime the following day, Cat, Pedro and

Flora met an old friend and touch rugby team mate, Mark, and his daughter Flo, in the pub. Cat hadn't seen Mark since he had been living in London back in 2007, so it was really cool to catch up again after so long, and meet his little girl. The pub backed onto a big oval, so there was loads of space for the kids to run around and enjoy themselves. Alana dropped in to have a drink with us and catch up with Mark, who she hadn't seen hardly at all in the past decade, despite having once been married to each other! Alana then dropped us off at Bruce and Toni's, where we went to stay for the remainder of our time in Fremantle. When we last visited in 2015, they were part way through some renovations on their beautiful East Fremantle cottage. Since then, they had dug underneath the house and built another living area down there, having only moved back in from their (very fancy) shed in the garden a week earlier. The house was beautiful, and it was great to see how their labour of love had turned out. We spent the next few days there hanging out, taking their dog Cooper for walks, going to the local play parks, visiting the Fremantle Arts Centre and generally just enjoying catching up.
On new years eve we went down to Clancy's fish bar with Bruce and Toni, a bunch of their friends, and Alana and Andrew. The place was packed and outside on the oval they had a kids farm, a bouncy obstacle course, and face painting. I'm not sure quite how we managed it, but Pedro skillfully got us a table in the room where the band was playing and we kicked back, enjoyed the company, the music, and

the food and beer.
We also spent a fair bit of time outside in the farm, on the bouncy thing, and an awfully long time waiting for face painting. At one point,when the farm was packing up, a sheep got loose and charged into a woman knocking her clear off her feet. She could have been really badly injured.
In the end, Flora finally had her face painted like a unicorn and it was worth the wait as she was so happy. The new year event at Clancy's finished at 10pm to enable their staff to go out and enjoy themselves and at this point, we all went back to Bruce and Toni's to carry on celebrating and bring in the new year.
New Year's Day involved little more than walking the dog and relaxing and beginning to think about getting ourselves organised for our journey to India. Alana and Andrew flew to Bali and we went back to theirs a couple of times to feed Stinky Bill, their very old nearly blind dog.
On our final morning in Australia, Toni made us an omelette and we headed to the Fremantle Arts Centre for the kids story time while Pedro finished packing. Before long it was time to head to the airport. Cat has always found it hard to say goodbye to Bruce, and although not usually one for tears at airports, this time she was unable to hold them back. The sadness of leaving was quickly replaced by stress and annoyance at the airport. The whole thing was a shit show. After queuing for an hour because the check in system was down, we were informed we needed a physical copy of our visa for India. We were told we would have to join the back of the queue once we had it. So while Cat went to organise the copy, Pedro joined the queue once again. While back in the queue, the fire alarm in the airport began sounding and firefighters began arriving in the building. Two hours later we were finally able to check in, but not go through to departures. As we were all hungry, Cat went to get some food, but then the queue for departures started moving.....the whole thing was a nightmare and unnecessarily stressful. But we eventually made it onto the plane...