The family have been altogether since August 2023 when Eleanor and I reunited with Martin in Shenzhen, China. However, we hadn’t had a family holiday with just the three of us outside China, since Myanmar, Christmas 2019 (albeit we went with a friend for the first half of the holiday). Having been with my parents for Christmas 2022, we decided that we would spend Christmas not in Northern Ireland. Now as to how that decision came about… well my memory is hazy.

I listen to a Podcast, Journey to the Magic, whereby the host interviews famous faces about their Disney holidays and how they got to be Disney fanatics. At the end of the episodes, there would be a segment about holidays and while I would listen with the smugness that we have been to all the Disneys around the world, there was one episode which caught my attention… a cruise… from Australia. The first time that Disney Cruise Line has sailed from Down Under. That piqued my interest, I told Martin about it during one of my morning walks along Whitehead Prom and the next morning or a few mornings later, I woke up to a spreadsheet of a suggested itinerary, culminating in a 6 night Disney Cruise departing from Sydney over New Year.

With the departure from Sydney being a fixed point, we decided to fly from Hong Kong to Perth and down to Margaret River prior to Christmas. Christmas would be in Melbourne, and then we would fly after the cruise from Brisbane back to Hong Kong.

When we last came to Australia in 2015, we saw a lot of my extended family, but this time we didn’t reach out to any of them, instead we reached out to friends. Sadly we missed out on seeing a friend in Perth, but family circumstances for her meant that she was in Singapore. Perth though was a new city to us as we hadn’t visited there previously.

On landing in the evening, with no jetlag since it is on the same time zone as China, we got an Uber to our hotel. We squeezed into the Uber and from that point on, knew we needed to order an Uber XL for 3 large suitcases and us.

We didn’t see much of Perth, as the next day we collected our hire car and made our way down the coast to Margaret River. We stopped off to see thrombolites at Lake Clifton.

You may be forgiven in thinking they are rocks, but far from it, they are living organisms approximately 2000 years old. As the water level was low and there was no wind, it meant that visibility was excellent.

I could have stayed longer, but it was hot and there was no shade and Eleanor and Martin had already decided they had had enough.

Our next stop was lunch and then onto our AirBnB. We found it easily and let ourselves in. We headed out again to the supermarket and as we had had a large lunch, we bought a rotisserie chicken, loaf of bread, some fruit and milk (and a bottle of wine!)

We had one full day in and around Margaret River and we chose to spend it at a beach. Deciding what beach to go to proved difficult, but we chose Gnarabup Beach which was also home to the White Elephant Beach cafe. We sat outside for lunch and were immediately besieged by flies. We moved inside!

Lunch eaten we went down onto the beach, and into the water. The last sea I was in, was in Vietnam. Lovely warm sea. The sea that I got into at this beach was not warm. It was cold. But I had on a rash vest to protect me from the sun, as I hadn’t put any sun protection on my back, so at least I had an additional layer on me. Martin and Eleanor had been sensible and put cream all over them, but they were the last ones to submerge themselves fully in the water since they no additional layer.

We spent a good amount of time at the beach, but once I had left the water to don the Santa hat, I found it difficult to get back into the Indian Ocean.

That evening, we went to Margaret River Tuck Shop. Martin had previously mistaken it for a sweet shop the previous day, but on looking for restaurant recommendations, that one had come up. The AirBnB while not centrally located was walkable into town and so we walked via the river.

Martin that morning had run through the forest, by the river and into town before returning to the house. He had taken a picture of a kookaburra which had proved to be larger than either of us had thought. Our Guiding and Scouting days didn’t give us a frame of reference of how big a kookaburra might be, and on reflection probably neither of us had actually been that curious to find out. Well it turns out a Kookaburra is quite big.

As dinner of a beautifully tender Kangaroo filet was ending, my mum sent a text message. A message that in all honesty we had been expecting, but when it came it was still a shock. My Uncle Roger had passed away. If we had been in China, we would have flown home. But suddenly the world while still relatively small is big and expensive and I spent moments of the holiday being grateful for the memories.

The next day which was only a week ago as I type, we went back to Perth via a Gin Tasting in Margaret River and then onto Busselton.

Martin had been tipped off about a gin joint. They were doing sessions where you could create your own gin but that was on the Saturday and we were there on the Friday. That didn’t stop Martin dropping me off at the place and the Martin took Eleanor into Margaret River to do some shopping. We arrived at Giniversity at 9:57, but on arrival I don’t think any of us noticed that it was still early until I tried to open the door and found it shut. A couple of minutes later, the door opened and I found myself booking a gin tasting. Their first customer of the day, and my first ever gin at 10am.

After my gin tasting we headed for Busselton. In our minds we were going to go one of the longest Jetty’s in the world at 1.841kms and then visit one of only six natural aquariums in the world. But … of course it is summer here, and a school holiday. We arrived in good time for the midday train departure of on the hour every hour, but we hadn’t pre- booked. So we got a glimpse of the pier which curved at the end. The sea was turquoise and the beaches white. We didn’t even contemplate walking down the pier. It was too hot.

The train returned to the end of the pier just as we had finished looking round the gift store. Martin picked up pace and we made it to lunch before the rest of the crowd got off the train and made it to the nearest eatery.

Once upon a time at least one of us would have been disappointed, but we have all learned to be flexible and shrug our shoulders and move on.

Lunch eaten we left for the hotel in Perth to drop our luggage off and head to Fremantle for dinner- as well as the next touristy adventure – I had also pre booked that.

Our evening was to be at Fremantle Prison. Built by and for convicts in the 1800s, it was decommissioned as a maximum security prison in 1991. It is now a World Heritage Site and has been open to the public since 1992! Our tour was at 19:15 and was to be by torchlight.

We heard of spooky goings on, we heard about and saw the isolation cells, the recreation yard, the executioner’s gallows and saw Yorkshire flagstones that had once been ballast on the convict ships.

In two of the cells we saw artwork done by inmates just before the prison closed. The Governor believed the prison would be demolished and so he let the inmates paint on the walls. We were told though that the beauty of the art belied the heinous crimes done by those particular inhabitants.

Eleanor is jittery. But loving horror she laps up anything spooky in the London and Edinburgh Dungeons, there was at least a scream a minute from her! So in the torchlight tour when “prisoners” may have come visiting as part of the tour, we had a scream from Eleanor when it was least expected and that included the tour guide! We were in a small confined area with the rope hanging for all to see. We had just been told about Martha Rendell, who murdered three of her common law husband’s children. She had shown no remorse and on October 6th 1909 was hung. Pretty much as soon as those words were spoken, there was a loud bang and Eleanor screamed causing a lot of people to jump. There quickly followed a muffled sorry from a woman who had dropped her torch which had caused the loud bang. Even the tour guide had to confirm that this addition to the tour was unexpected but exceedingly well timed!

The rest of tour went as planned, and we left the Prison having had a lovely night.

Martin and I returned our hire car that night, and walked back to the hotel. We went shopping in Perth the following day to get our Christmas Pyjamas. I had already delivered the good/bad news to the family … there is no Starbucks in Perth so there is no mug to add.

On Saturday night we ventured to the Supreme Court Gardens and joined in Carols in the City. We had the traditional Carols but there were also the pop tunes that are familiar to Christmas too as well as songs like the 12 Days of Christmas.

Perth was a lovely chilled start to the holiday that we needed as a family. We have all realised that it is lovely to do things as a family but each of us needs our space and an AirBnB gives us that as does giving Eleanor her own room in a hotel!