As it was Emma's last day in Perth yesterday (she's off to Sydney and up the East coast before our paths cross again in Melbourne in a couple of weeks) - we decided it had to be a day of pure Western Australian indulgence (and thought we'd work on our connoisseur skills ready for the Chilean Vineyards!!) As a result we spent the day on a 'booze cruise' (Sorry - the Swan Valley Wine Experience!!)
At 9.45am (never to early to start?!?) we headed up the Swan River on a boat, sampling cheese and biscuits (yes... accompanied by a few glasses of wine!!) on our way to a local Vineyard for lunch. Lunch was followed by more sampling... (by this point we were getting pretty good at detecting both peachy and blackberry flavours!!) and then onto another Vineyard!!! This (although the wine was hard to beat!!) was followed by our favourite part!!! The Margaret River Chocolate Factory!!! Heehee!!! Possibly with fewer inhibitions than usual, we made sure we had enough of the free samples to get a fair representation of the errmm... quality...!! Hmmmm... the coating of melted chocolate on our hands said it all!!! (Honestly... we sound like a pair of 5 year olds hey?!? Big kids in a sweet shop!!)
Anyway, as great as the wine and chocolate were... we were actually pretty reserved (honest!!) This was due to two things... firstly, we were having so much fun laughing at some of the other English people on the boat (who were ABSOLUTELY WASTED - but still managing to have a good dance the entire trip back down the river!!!) and secondly, we'd promised ourselves a night out in Fremantle...
Therefore (with Andrea having to do a bit of catching up!!) the three of us headed out into the night... in search of a few good bars, some decent music and lots of fun!!! It was a good night - made even more amusing by the characters we met!!! In fairness, everyone was really friendly - but our favourite had to be the Australian guy who described an area of his home town - Melbourne (infact, the same area in which Emma and I had literally just booked a hostel) as "cool - like Fremantle but dirtier... really arty, druggie, prostitutey!!!" hmmmm... really selling it!!! Anyway.. the night was a success... though i'm pretty sure that collecting us in the early hours - and hearing our 'lively' tales of debauchery - Gareth was glad he hadn't joined us!!!
Tonight, minus Emma, we're off to check out another area of Perth - Subiaco. I'm currently toying with ideas on where to grab food - in a suburb of such good restaurants can i really give into my cravings for Nandos hot sauce?!?
