Day 13 - Yallingup to Perth

Todays Challenge - To spot the elusive Black Swan .

We leave late this morning as we only have a three and a half hour trip to Perth. There is light rain but it is clearing as we pull into Busselton to refuel. The coastline has been very pretty along this stretch of road.

Just outside of Busselton we hit the freeway and a lot of traffic. It reminds us of the Sunshine Motorway. The freeway bypasses Bundbury which Rod visited some 20 years earlier when implementing a computer network at the Griffin Coal Mine site in Collie. We bypass Mandurah and the traffic slows down to a snails pace.

We pass through Rockingham where we meet the burbs and finally cross the Canning River Bridge and see the skyscrapers of the Perth CBD. As we cross the Swan River Deb looks for Black Swans but doesn't see anything but black seagulls (crows).

As we drive through the CBD towards our accommodation in Hay St, the Tom Tom goes berserk and tells me to turn right instead of it's original "left turn 100m ahead" I decide to stick with the original and it is now telling me to "turn around when possible" . Suddenly it recalculates and we are back on track pulling up in front of Rydges where we will spend a few nights.

The car is valet parked at a cost of $38 per night for an average car, Rod tried persuading them that his car was far from average, but they wouldn't have it......he is not happy but has no alternative. We drop our bags and head off to buy Deb a new phone as her Android is stuffed. She has been coveting Brooke's iPhone for some time so we look for the Apple Store. It's not far away but it is packed to the rafters with 'Apple Fanboys'. We buy a phone then get Deb's SIM card cut down to size and she is back on line. Look out Facebook.

We then head to the information center and book a triple tour for tomorrow. We take a 15 minute walk down to Northbridge, Perth’s restaurant and nightclub area and book a table in a Thai restaurant for dinner. Up the street we then stop at the Brass Monkey Hotel for a well earned beer. We walk back to our accommodation and relax until we catch a cab back to Northbridge for dinner.

We have not spotted a Black Swan so we decide to carry the challenge over to tomorrow when we cruise down the river to Freemantle.