Australia 2025

Day 12 - Arrangements and Rockingham

Yorkshire Jon was a little quiet this morning so probably a bit hungover considering the Belgian beer he had demolished the day before but having roused himself to his tasks, he came round eventually.

Our big occupation was confirming the arrangements for the Pinnacles trip which involved some e-mails to our Travel Agent and the a call to the tour company from the hotel reception.

In the meantime, we headed off to Rockingham, a seaside resort on the same line as Mandurah. We took a 555 bus to Rockingham from the railway station there as it was a bit of a jaunt, even by our standards. The TransPerth ticket covered the cost - £5.20 all day on it. Bargain!

I was quite disappointed really as the bus took us past an ugly North American style housing and retail complex which was totally out of character for this country. I saw plenty of this type of building in Canada the following month and it's lack of imaginative architecture is really most depressing. The Americans have no imagination and it's a pity the Australians have followed suit. Surely they are better than this? However, the beach was most splendid even if the horizon was most industrial.

We ate our sandwiches on the beach, looking out again over the Indian Ocean and then wandered into a cafe to watch the scantily-clad women go by. This holiday sucks at times.

After an hour of this, we returned to the railway and got back to the hotel to sort out the Pinnacles problem.

That sorted, or more accurately, reassured, we again caught the train to East Perth station to check out the arrangements for boarding the Indian-Pacific as it leaves by a different station and platform that I assumed at first. There was one in and it looked most impressive - we couldn't see the locomotive or the end of the train!

Having settled our minds, we returned to Durty Nelly's for some Fish & Chips and then to the hotel for the daily washing of the suncream and all the other tasks.

It was then the usual visit to the Belgian bar - we've been there so often we know the staff names!! "Antoine - the usual please!"