Perth Visit - June 2018

The main purpose of our trip was to attend the 25th anniversary of the State Agriculture Biotechnology Centre where Rob used to work. And then we got this great chance to catch up with wonderful friends - as good as family!

We'll start off with an apology that we didn't take enough photos to cover all the fun we had.
* Mike and Anne had us, Ian, Barbara, and Chris over for dinner in good old Applecross. No photos!
* I have no photos of Stewart, Patty, James and Toby who fed us and took us for several walks around Mount Hawthorne.
* Margaret, Alana, Anna and Leo also welcomed us back and Anna put on the usual huge Italian feast in Sterling - all without us catching it in photos.
* Stu and Jac served up a yummy lunch in Subiaco and avoided the camera.
* Over lunch and coffees, Steve, Dave, and Michael got us caught up on who is doing what at University of Western Australia. Did we get any photos? No!

You might wonder if we took any photos at all. Oh yes we did!!

The official group photo with lots of laughs and fun catching up after so many years.

Derek took this selfie of our large celebratory party with even bigger smiles and more laughs.

A photo of Rob giving his presentation - and the first slide of his presentation catching even more laughs. The photos date back to 1988 - showing Rob entertaining as Frank-N-Furter the Sweet Transvestite from the Rocky Horror Show. Mike is also in good form back in the 80s - like today.

The title of Rob's talk was "TBA" - not the usual "To Be Announced" but "Think Before Action", the mantra he makes his clients live by these days.

We returned one day to visit the SABC lab so Rob could walk through familiar hallways (the much-discussed "No Escape" sign on their entrance), touch his old lab bench

...and to hug long lost machines (yes he did!). His very favourite machine is the MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometer which does all sorts of nifty things (he tells anyone who cares to listen). The story also includes that the machine arrived broken, a major part had to be replaced, and the broken part has since been mounted in a glass box and serves as a perpetual prize at many of the SABCs social events and competitions.

Our hosts for the week were there to greet us: Bailey the border collie and Jasper the western grey kangaroo, who still loves his bottle. Hard to believe that Jasper will grow to become close to 2 metres tall (6 feet)!

Jasper hangs out in the garden (eating Elaine's flowers), sleeps on the couch on his favourite towel, and takes liberties such as bouncing up on the kitchen bench. We hear that kangaroos cannot be trained like dogs can. Maybe they are closer to being a cat - the epitome of indifference?

Bailey is all about the action. Loves to play catch - and then plenty of snuggles.

We should clarify that our human hosts were Elaine, Craig, and Robert. They took us and Mynd out to dinner at their local African (!) restaurant Leopard Lodge. The food was outstanding (steaks, cottage pie, all the trimmings, ice cream, apple cake with warm custard.... mmmmm.

We couldn't possibly visit Perth and not go to Kings Park to see the familiar view of downtown Perth - and also take a selfie overlooking South Perth where we used to live.

We drove by our old apartment building, horrified to see that the caretaker's old ute (truck) is still parked in the same spot. Come on! It is 18 years since Rob left... I guess some things do not change. We lived on the top floor in the middle - right behind the tree, which was much smaller back then.

We stopped by to reminisce around the campus of University of Western Australia were Hild was a student. Her old office, which was in a possum-infested cottage, has (thankfully) been demolished and covered over by a business school, lawn, and parking. Her office shortly before moving to Denmark is now housing multiple postgrad students.

At least nearby Mathilda Bay looks and feels pretty much the same - in spite of the unusual of constant drizzling rain!

At Elaine and Craig's we got to enjoy the newly installed coy pond with vertical garden - and rescue Bailey's frisbee from the deep. Then there is the aviary with many colourful and very loud parrots. Rob took photos from outside the aviary because he was not wearing shoes, not because he was scared.

We got to see Mal's aquaponics (combination of growing fish/yabbies, vegetables and flowers. I don't know where the photos went (!), but we do have a photo of Nola's mealworm farm that helps feed the fish. We also had a chance to sample fruits from the ice-cream bean tree (Inga feuillei). Nummy!

We went to catch up with the rugby guys at Saturday's game between the Western Force and the Melbourne Rebels. And then a fun catch-up with the gang at a local pub. Rob was happy to wear his Murdoch Rugby cap again.

To say it rained is an understatement. We were very happy to have our Ikea-quality ponchos (possibly designed by Darth Vader) outperforming locally sourced ponchos while the torrential rain kept sweeping across NIB Stadium. Like Rob said: "It is on a day like this that it is better to play rugby than watch it"!

... May the (Western) Force be with you...

One of our most frequent activities back in the 90's was to go running and swimming on Floreat beach most mornings in the summer. As you can see in the photos, the beautiful beach goes on and on and on and on ....

Recently a storm came through and reallocated alot of the sand to somewhere else - so no access to the beach. That means you don't have to look at photos of us running or swimming!! Phew! Lucky you.

We also had a chance to take the ferry from Mends Street in South Perth near our old apartment to downtown Perth. The old paddle boat called "Decoy" is still there in South Perth so many years later.

What used to be a simple dock on Barrack Street Jetty has now been converted to a pretty area called Elizabeth Quay with walkways, chairs, sculptures, bridges, and commercial spaces.

While exploring the changes of downtown Perth, we found that the never-ending construction on St. Georges Terrace is finally complete with huge office buildings. We found one of them with a familiar address (we now live in 179 George Street, Ottawa). And lo-and-behold our favourite ice cream: White chocolate Mmmmmagnum... ah

We frequently used to walk from South Perth, across the Narrows Bridge, along the north side of Swan River to the Causeway and back along the south bank. So of course we had to do that again. The Illawarra flame trees were in bloom, the birds were resting on jettys, and of course the black swans were floating into the sunset.

We got to spend lots of time with Liz, Bruce, Andie, Fletcher, and Charley in Bateman. Lots of fun working through maths homework with Andie. Gee these kids learn so much so early these days! We were quite impressed. Bruce and Liz prepared a yummy BBQ dinner and we ended up chit chatting for hours around the firepit in their back yard... no photos of that. Luckily we could rely on the younger generation to capture part of the moment with this selfie by Charley.

We were excited to also catch up with Helen who dropped by. She reminisced about their visit to Rygnestad and Norway a few years back - sending greetings to Janet, Hild's mum, back home. The photo below is from their Rygnestad visit when Andie was a wee little girl.

Hild, Rob and Ann catching up after so many years apart. How come Ann has not aged from 1996 to 2018 and we have!? In the photo from 1996 we are all out on a boat attending a scuba diving course together. In 2018 we are simply hanging out in the food court at Bull Creek Shopping Centre. Some things change, I guess. Tee Hee.

We had a great 8 days of full on visiting-action. We miss all our friends already and hope that they will all visit Ottawa soon. At the very least we have made a pact with many of them to meet in Disney World in January 2020 for the new Star Wars adventure - May the holiday-planning-force be with us all!!

June 2018

Back | Top of page | Forward