Day 1-Mom gets in late afternoon. Quick trip to show her around the area. 9pm game versus Perth at Baseball Park.
Day 2- Get up early go to Dunsborough/Margaret River. Bakeries, Beach, Fish and Chips, Brewery, kangaroos, Lighthouse. This is the same area that I went after Christmas and spent a week at. It is a beautiful region and Mom seemed to really enjoy it down here.
Day 3- More time at the beach down south, Another Brewery and a couple of Wineries. Make short drive to the actual town of Margaret River. Do some souvenir shopping. Go over to the mouth of the Margaret River where it meets the Indian Ocean, watch some surfing (both regular and kite surfing). Drive back to Perth, on the way home stop in the town of Busselton and see the longest Pier in the Southern Hemisphere (exciting!)
Day 4- Wake up and go down to Fremantle, which is a port town just south of Perth. Very popular tourist destination. Get some breakfast and then go to the Fremantle Markets which is basically a farmers market. Great spot to get some more souvenirs and fresh fruit, a lot of locally made and grown merchandise. After Fremantle, go all the way up to Swan Districts so I can coach my U-16 team and they have a come from behind 9-5 victory.
Day 5- Baseball all day. Arrive at South Perth Baseball Club at 8am. Coach my u-18 team to a 15-1 victory. Then have a state league double header starting at 12 30. The whole club was playing Wembley which is the worst club in the league. Their state League team was 1-28 going into the game. We swept the doubleheader, and only gave up 1 hit in the 2 games combined (14 total innings due to mercy rule in game 2). I got to throw 2 hitless innings in game 2, it was nice having the opportunity to throw while Mom was here. After the games, we went out to dinner with Marshall and Quokka and his girlfriend Cherie for some Indian food, which was very good.
Day 6- Mom finally lets me sleep in. We took the ferry out to a place called Rottnest Island. There is no vehicle traffic on the island and is a mini vacation spot for the people in Perth. It was a 30 minute boat ride over. We rented bikes (which is what you do there) and spent about 3 hours riding around the island on the paths. They had some beautiful beaches and also a little rodent like animal called quokka’s all over the place. It was good day trip. For dinner we were tired of eating out, so we stopped at the local fish market and got some snapper and king prawns for me to grill on the bbq. It was very good.
Day 7- Mom’s last day in Australia. We spent the first part of the day going to the local beaches in Perth, it was sort of windy and overcast (which is a big change) so there wasn’t much of a crowd to compete with. After the beaches, we went up to Kings Park. Which is a huge park (1000 acres?) that overlooks the city and has a beautiful botanical garden. Mom really liked it up there and wished that we would have spent some more time searching around up there. They also had an aboriginal art gallery/gift shop on the site which had a lot of neat stuff in it. After that it was time to return the rental car, then I went to practice and by the time I got home took Mom to the airport and sent her back on her way to the Land of Snow.
It was a very fun week, and I’m really glad Mom got the opportunity to come visit. She didn’t like the heat too much, as it’s a pretty big change going from 35 degrees and snowy to extreme sun and 95 degrees every day.
Day 2- Get up early go to Dunsborough/Margaret River. Bakeries, Beach, Fish and Chips, Brewery, kangaroos, Lighthouse. This is the same area that I went after Christmas and spent a week at. It is a beautiful region and Mom seemed to really enjoy it down here.
Day 3- More time at the beach down south, Another Brewery and a couple of Wineries. Make short drive to the actual town of Margaret River. Do some souvenir shopping. Go over to the mouth of the Margaret River where it meets the Indian Ocean, watch some surfing (both regular and kite surfing). Drive back to Perth, on the way home stop in the town of Busselton and see the longest Pier in the Southern Hemisphere (exciting!)
Day 4- Wake up and go down to Fremantle, which is a port town just south of Perth. Very popular tourist destination. Get some breakfast and then go to the Fremantle Markets which is basically a farmers market. Great spot to get some more souvenirs and fresh fruit, a lot of locally made and grown merchandise. After Fremantle, go all the way up to Swan Districts so I can coach my U-16 team and they have a come from behind 9-5 victory.
Day 5- Baseball all day. Arrive at South Perth Baseball Club at 8am. Coach my u-18 team to a 15-1 victory. Then have a state league double header starting at 12 30. The whole club was playing Wembley which is the worst club in the league. Their state League team was 1-28 going into the game. We swept the doubleheader, and only gave up 1 hit in the 2 games combined (14 total innings due to mercy rule in game 2). I got to throw 2 hitless innings in game 2, it was nice having the opportunity to throw while Mom was here. After the games, we went out to dinner with Marshall and Quokka and his girlfriend Cherie for some Indian food, which was very good.
Day 6- Mom finally lets me sleep in. We took the ferry out to a place called Rottnest Island. There is no vehicle traffic on the island and is a mini vacation spot for the people in Perth. It was a 30 minute boat ride over. We rented bikes (which is what you do there) and spent about 3 hours riding around the island on the paths. They had some beautiful beaches and also a little rodent like animal called quokka’s all over the place. It was good day trip. For dinner we were tired of eating out, so we stopped at the local fish market and got some snapper and king prawns for me to grill on the bbq. It was very good.
Day 7- Mom’s last day in Australia. We spent the first part of the day going to the local beaches in Perth, it was sort of windy and overcast (which is a big change) so there wasn’t much of a crowd to compete with. After the beaches, we went up to Kings Park. Which is a huge park (1000 acres?) that overlooks the city and has a beautiful botanical garden. Mom really liked it up there and wished that we would have spent some more time searching around up there. They also had an aboriginal art gallery/gift shop on the site which had a lot of neat stuff in it. After that it was time to return the rental car, then I went to practice and by the time I got home took Mom to the airport and sent her back on her way to the Land of Snow.
It was a very fun week, and I’m really glad Mom got the opportunity to come visit. She didn’t like the heat too much, as it’s a pretty big change going from 35 degrees and snowy to extreme sun and 95 degrees every day.
