G'day, mate, part 3...

We stayed in AirBnb's in Perth. Our first Air BnB was in South Perth near downtown, and that was a great location for exploring, even if the place was a bit small. We had a 2 bedroom unit on the ground floor of an apartment building in a residential neighborhood, and it cost us about $95 a night. Not bad for a family of 5! There was a yard right outside of the sliding glass doors, and the boys ran around out there to get out some energy.

Our second AirBnb was a little farther out, but it was larger and nicer. It was also in a cute neighborhood of neat bungalows that looked like they dropped right out of the 1940's. The boys could walk to a little playground less than half a block down the street while I made dinner. We even had enough room there to invite the family over for dinner. They brought meat pies from a bakery, and Jennifer made a pavlova for us to try for dessert.

When I found out about the Perth Mint, I knew that Evan would love it. He's my coin collector. Western Australia had its own gold rush in the late 1800's. The Perth Mint converted the gold that the miners were finding into gold bars, and it still refines gold today. Western Australia is home to a lot of mines.

The Perth Mint has the largest gold coin in the world. It weighs a literal ton. They decided to cast one that would beat Canada's record hollow, and they did. ;)

Evan and Ben posing with huge gold nugget replicas.

You could weigh yourself and find out how much you'd be worth that day if you were made of gold. 

More playgrounds. A lot of them had flying foxes (long ziplines). Evan especially liked those.

I enjoyed watching this guy mow the grass. Make note of the hat he's wearing. No baseball cap for him. :)

The people in Australia seemed to take a lot of pride in taking care of their homes. I loved walking the neighborhood in the evenings with the boys and looking at the neat yards and picket fences and smelling the eucalyptus that seems to be everywhere. I'd love to go back one day. Australia was really good to us.

G'day mate, part 2...

Probably my favorite experience in Perth was Caversham Wildlife Park. It's full of native animals that we don't usually get to see or touch in North America. We got to pet koalas, see gigantic bats called flying foxes, and spent time in a kangaroo petting zoo. We could feed the kangaroos and wallabys and hang around with them for as long as we wanted! Several of the animals were ones that I'd never even heard of before that day. There are so many kinds of interesting marsupials in Australia, not just kangaroos. All the boys agreed that the little bilbys were their favorites.

I loved this baby wallaby. He was absolutely adorable. I wished I'd spent more time feeding him, but I had to fight my boys for the honor.

We met David's Aunt Sue and Cousin Jennifer (with husband Michael and Baby Sadie) at a great park. The boys ran around and played on the multiple playgrounds, and we strolled the trail around the lake with Baby Sadie. I'd met Aunt Sue a couple of times before, but I'd never met Jennifer before. It was so good to spend time with them all, and Jennifer gave us a ton of great tips about playgrounds and parks to visit.

 Australia reminded me a bit of North Carolina when it comes to beaches. It is just so easy to get to the beach in both places. You drive down a quiet road to a nice parking lot, you park, and then you walk onto the clean and lovely public beach. (There are some totally gorgeous beaches in the Philippines, far lovelier than anything I've ever seen in North America, but they are definitely not easy or free to visit.) Because of that, it was fun to just drive to the beach and run around for a bit. It was a little chilly because April is early fall in Western Australia, but that didn't stop us from getting a little wet.

G'day, mate...

We decided to go to Australia for Seth's spring break, and being us, we wanted to save as much money as possible on plane tickets. ;) There's a budget airline (Scoot) that goes through Singapore that was a great deal, and I assumed that we'd be able to spend our 12 hour layover in the sleeping lounges.

I am here to tell you that those sleeping lounges are all full if you arrive at midnight. Look up to view our deluxe sleeping accommodations. :) That floor was harder than it looks, but at least we got a back corner where a lot of people don't go. Why didn't we just stretch out on chairs at empty gates, you may ask? Well, in Singapore, you only go through security at your gate before your flight, so all the gates and all those chairs are locked up. Because of this and the full sleeping lounges, the airport that I thought would be the best in the world for an overnight layover turned out to be the worst. (This is an FYI for those of you that might try to replicate this trip.)

But, hey, when you wake up, you can play free video games, watch a free movie, check out the sunflower and orchid gardens, and play in the indoor playground. Silver linings...

Our Australian destination? Perth in Western Australia! We picked Perth for a few reasons. One important reason was that it was pretty affordable. Accommodations and rental cars seemed pretty comparable to U.S. prices. It's not a major tourist destination, but it had all the things that we value right now... fresh air, a Western grocery selection, parks, playgrounds, nature, and interesting animals. Another reason was that it was in our time zone, so we wouldn't have to deal with any jet lag. The third reason was that David has an aunt and cousins in Perth, and it was about time that someone from his family visited them instead of the other way around. We were within striking distance, so we decided to go. :)

Our first day in Perth, we went to King's Park. It's the largest urban park in the world, rivaling Central Park in New York in size. There are botanical gardens filled with strange plants and trees that you won't see anywhere other than Australia. (Did you know that 80% of the plants in Australia are only found in Australia? How cool is that?)

We had hit the grocery store right after we got off the plane, and I'd brought a cooler with us from Manila. We had our baon (packed lunch) under the trees. Honey ham sandwiches with cheddar with mayo and mustard on good, whole wheat sandwich bread! Hummus! We can't get those things easily at grocery stores in Manila, so we were thrilled.

King's Park had multiple children's playgrounds, but we only spent time at Rio Tinto Nature Playground. It has 3 man made pools and streams for children to play in. We spent hours there. There are also climbing structures. We just kept finding new things to play with. I even ran into some Australian homeschooling moms and their kids, and it was so fun to talk to them about homeschooling in Australia. :)