Beaches & Boxing Kangaroos

Our first full day in Perth started out with brunch at a delicious restaurant in a cute neighborhood called Leederville.  “Sayers” was the name of the place and it was chosen by an acquaintance of mine from college who happens to live in Perth.  Her and her husband met us there for brunch, and let me tell you this:  she picked it good.  The place was utterly delicious and there were cute gays everywhere.  You know brunch spots are good when the gays are there en masse.  Looking around at the crowd you’d swear you were in Sydney or Melbourne (or San Francisco maybe?)   But this wasn’t some big cosmopolitan city.  This was Perth.

This is a good place.  And it was about to get better.

Our next stop was Cottesloe Beach – one of the two most famous beaches in Perth.  Cottlesloe was a long, white sand beach much larger than the cove beaches that we have here in Sydney.  The sand was whiter, the water was clearer, and the temperature was a bit warmer than the Pacific waters on the eastern side of the country.  Sydney just can’t compete with this:

We met up with our British backpacker friend again and headed up to an area called Hillarys – a man-made harbour complete with a marina, restaurants, aquarium, and a shopping mall.  Hillarys wasn’t anything too exciting, though the kangaroo-emu-koala merry-go-round was a neat find.  I sorta wished I was a kid again.

The best part about going up to Hillarys was that we inadvertently ended up near Pinnaroo Valley Memorial Park – a big cemetery on the outskirts of Perth.  Pinnaroo is known for its large semi-wild kangaroo population.  It was late in the day when we arrived and the roos were all just coming out to feed as dusk set in.  And they were everywhere!

They were hopping!

And lounging!

And looking absolutely adorable!

And this one you can tell has a little joey in her pouch!

And this one was letting it all hang out… oh my… look at the balls on that one.  Insane.

There was a little scuffle between two of the roos – boxing perhaps? – but then they saw me and were just too intrigued to carry on.

I can confidently say that this was the best trip to a cemetery – ever!

Our day ended with a little fun back in Northbridge, the bar and club district in Perth.  The gay bars were surprisingly good – not overcrowded or pretentious like Sydney gay bars.  Who knew?  Oh, and guess who brought their camera with them???

Not me.

But Karen did.

Ugh.  Why is there a straight couple kissing the background?  That’s offensive and an abomination in the eyes of the lord.

Somebody had a little vodka…

Actually, we all had a little vodka… enough to prompt me to drunk dial several friends in the States at 4am Perth time.  Receiving a drunk dial from the farthest possible city from the United States is a massive honour.  It’s like the Oscars of drunk dialing.

Or something like that.  I'm going to stop talking now.