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In the midst of packing and decluttering to get ready to move out for our major renovation project, we decided that we would visit Perth, Australia for our family holiday. Yeah. Talk about living life on the edge, huh?

Best time to go to Perth Australia?

We had been thinking of doing it for a while. In my mind, this was the best time to go since our youngest would be 3.5 years old – old enough to remember the trip. Any younger, she won’t remember it for long. And she would also be old enough to sit through the long drives in between places of interest without yelling her head off.

God provides

But we wavered mainly because of the cost. The price of flying a family of 2 adults and 3 children versus flying a family of 4 adults (yes, children 12 and above are considered adults!) and 5 children is huge! But you know, God is so gracious. He provided the means – from the accommodations to the flight and car rental! And not only were the main costs covered, we were blessed with some extra pocket money as well! So we took the plunge and quickly booked the promo air tickets that Singapore Airlines was offering at that time. The total cost of the tickets was $6000+!

Taking it slow

And then we did nothing! We had no time to even think about the holiday until probably a week before the date of departure as we were caught up with packing our stuff up for the house renovations, as well as with finalising renovation details.

But we did decide very early on that the trip will not be a jam-packed one – it will kill us! Instead, we would take it slow and easy. Since we were doing a self-drive (we had to rent a 15 seater van), we needed to be mindful of how tiring driving long distances can be since only Henson would be driving. And if we missed out on so-called tourist attractions, so be it.

A farm and a farm stay

We had started out with a farm stay in mind but since we were blessed with accommodations in town, we didn’t want to spend extra money on a farm stay. So we thought we would just drive around, visit the farms and then drive back. But the Lord had other plans.

In the end, we visited Country Life Farm, which the kids absolutely loved for not only did the farm had loads of animals for them to feed and pet and carry, the farm also had a small pond for them to paddle a boat in. There was even a corner set up with bumper cars which appealed to the older ones. Everyone had fun there.

And then we also stayed on a farm. A dear friend who used to be our oldest child’s preschool principal had migrated to Perth. When she heard that we were visiting Perth, she blessed us with an overnight stay at Orchard Glory Farm which is owned by a Singaporean family who’d migrated to Australia. The farm offered pony rides as well as an informal tour of their personal vineyard.

Other Touristy Things We Did

a) Caversham Wildlife Park

Besides the 2 farms we visited, we also visited Caversham Wildlife Park and got to see the usual suspects – Kangaroos, koalas, wombats, etc. We also viewed the sheering of sheep and the children had first hand experience milking cows.

b) The Maze Park

We also visited The Maze – which, as its name suggests, is a park made up of mazes. The older ones had fun trying to figure their way out.

c) Freemantle, Busselton Jetty and the Underwater World Observatory

We set aside one whole day to visit Freemantle, and spent another day driving to see Busselton Jetty and its Underwater Observatory.

We made an impromptu decision to stay overnight at a budget motel as we had underestimated the driving time. It would be too late to drive back to our service apartment. So we slept in our clothes and bought AUS$1 toothbrush sets from the motel’s reception so as not to kill each other with our breath the next day 😀 We even got to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on TV that night which kept us company till we fell asleep that night.

d) Cottlesloe Beach and King’s Park

We wanted to see the beautiful sunset at Cottlesloe Beach but it was rather cloudy and I was freezing! Did not enjoy that too much. The other place that everyone had fun at was King’s Park. It’s beautiful! There’s so much open space and greenery. They especially loved the fact that they could climb up and down the equipment and run around like crazy and not be sweaty! We all got a healthy tan!

Visiting Friends

We also visited our dear friend twice. She hosted us to a Aussie BBQ and a home-cooked meal. They loaned us their GPS and their picnic trolley bag. She actually loaned us a pressure cooker and a thermal pot as well! But since there was very little time to cook, we only used the trolley picnic bag.

Overall, we had a blast. But the long car rides between places of interest did frustrate the children at times, especially the 3 year old who was strapped in her car seat.  After all, you can only get excited about that many sheep, cows and horses while driving through the fields, right?

Food

What about food you may be wondering. I had started out with great intentions of cooking as much as possible so as to cut down on eating MSG-laden food. But it was too idealistic. We bought pizzas, wraps and ham that could be heated up and eaten as breakfast at the service apartment. But to cook a meal for 9 of us and lug it along was too complicated. The best I could manage was to buy lots of cheese, ham and croissants for our picnic at Caversham Wildlife Park. But to eat that daily………….We did pay a price for eating so much processed foods, especially wheat and dairy. Most of us developed congested noses and phelgmy coughs 🙁

A Different Experience

The children got to experience different things like the lovely weather – “Hey! This is the first time I go outside to get cool!” says the 14 year old upon reaching Perth Airport. And I think they all secretly loved the freezing cold feeling every evening when we had to walk back to the service apartment from the carpark, especially when we couldn’t get a lot near the apartment! They also got to experience how annoying and persistent the flies were, especially on the farm. They even noticed that the streets look different since buildings are mostly one storey high only.

But I must say that it is getting harder and harder to plan family getaways as the children grow up because finding what teenagers and pre-schoolers like is tough, if not impossible at times! But we must persist because these are memory making stuff!

Thank You, Lord for not only giving us what we need but also giving us what we desire! May we never take Your love and provision for granted!

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