Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Perth Darul Awesome Trip - Day 5

Today we gonna drive another 50 km down south. 2 main activities were already in the schedule, whale watching in Augusta and a visit to Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse.

I was pretty excited actually, you know, gonna watch a real life whale in their habitat with your own eyes. My wife on the other hand was not really into it, she was a little bit afraid of open water. Now it baffled me how the hell she can fall in love with beaches?


So woke up early so that we can be at the pick up site at 10:00 am. It was raining drizzly the whole journey. The weather has been like this for the past 2 days, which was not good especially when you are a tourist and on a visit to a certain place.

For the whale watching, my wife had already pre booked the tour and they charged us AUD79 per head. The whole tour will take up approximately around 2 to 3 hours. Pretty expensive, I do really it worth every penny.

When we arrived at the pickup zone, we were greeted by a young man in his 20s. He informed us since there were not so many customer that day and the sea was a little bit roughs due to the weather and they got a small boat, they decided to gather every customer to their competitor, which just happened to have a bigger boat. Nice. Amazing how they can actually work together although they were competing in the same business and the margin of course is small. Back in our country this is most unlikely to happen especially among us Malays. I have seen it with my own eyes, but that gonna be another story.

And yes, about the payment. We have to pay another AUD80 per person to the new operator. The recent one told us they will push back the payment that we have made, and somehow we trust them. In our own country? That is not gonna happen!

View from the jetty.

We were brought to the big boat using a smaller boat. 

The big boat. Not as big as what you think. Well if it is bigger, wouldn't we call it a ship, would we?

On the boat there are already 3 couples who were waiting for the tour to start. A couple from Singapore, and the other 2 were Australian. We had a small briefing regarding the safety measures, but my wife is pretty advance in this. She already put on the life jacket. And then the guy in charge told us we might want to go to the upper deck because it got a better view and pretty safe up there, you don't have to even wear the life jacket. 

So, I went upstairs, we all did except for my wife. She decided to stay at the lower deck since she had a little sea sick. And that guy was right, it got a better view up here and it was pretty safe so none of us wore any life jacket. 

A few minutes later my wife decided to join us. When she went upstairs, the guy who drove the boat suddenly like, "You must be kidding me," and he was referring to the life jacket my wife was wearing. We all busted in laughter, including me! Hehe sorry baby. That was a really funny moment and I had to share it with others.

After that, pretty much there were nothing, except for the bumpy ride and scanning the ocean to look for some whales. Everybody was like, "Hey! Hey! I saw them just now! There!" or "Where are you God damn it." the whole journey.

My wife talking to the boat driver. Nice guy. Got a degree in Marine Biology, ended up with family business. He literally knew and recognized every single whale around that area, he was like,"Hmm I haven't saw that one since last year." and "That one is the mother of the other one we saw just now." Yes he said that. Either he is genius or he just lied to us, we sucked it up in amaze. 

Some of the tourists went to the front deck hoping for a better view.

You see the whale?

No?

.................

Please tell us you see it. We spent AUD160 for this. 


The journey ended around 1:30 pm. Caught a few pictures of the whales in action, and that was it. So for those of you who are on a tight budget and time, you might want to consider to skip this activity. But we got some time to kill so I guess yeah it's kinda worth it.

Then we headed back to the Augusta town for lunch. Augusta is a small town, very small town if you ask me. Even Balik Pulau town in Penang is bigger than it. Not so many people, and not so many cars you can see around. But one thing for sure, this town is clean. It was hard to find even a cigarette butt on the floor. This is amazing and something that we can learn, how do they actually do it?

Augusta Town. Very clean and quiet. Even though there is a roadwork ahead but they still maintain it clean. 

We had a lunch in a fish and chips in a restaurant nearby, couldn't remember its name. The taste, hmm what can I say it is a fish and chips, they all taste the same to me, but I think this one might taste better than the one in Fremantle. 

We then headed to our next stop, Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse.

The lighthouse.


It is about 5km away from the pickup zone of the whale watching in Davies Road. The lighthouse is historic maritime landmark, watching over what they called as "The place where the two oceans meet."


The site visit will cost you just a AUD5 but the guided tour into the lighthouse will cost you a whopping AUD17. I said fuck it we are going in. So we paid the entry and enter. And then we regretted it because it was bloody nothing there. Except for a few signboards and a scary tour up to the top of the lighthouse. I am afraid of height I tell you, and why the bloody hell I agreed to my wife's suggestion to go for this tour, I don't know. It was not because I afraid of her. She wasn't afraid of me.

The museum and souvenir shop.

Entry to the lighthouse.

A long way uphill to the lighthouse. First regret.

The entrance to the top. Some 500 steps to be climbed. Second regret.

The ultimate of regretion. WTF?? It was so high I'm going to dieeeee!!!

But nice view though. Although the wind is a bit strong, when you were up there you should enjoy the moment while it last. But definitely not me. I was nagging "when are we going to get down?" the whole time.

After the tour ended, it was already almost 5pm. We went back to our stay in Margaret River for a dinner and prepared for tomorrow's journey.

End of Day 5.

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