Trips and Travels

Senin, 18 Januari 2016

Mandurah: a small town with (where the fuck are) the dolphins

Hello folks, 
it is been a long time since I wrote my blog in English. Think that my English is a little bit degrading, well yeah at least at this time I am gonna try to explain it, carefully, and pardon for my grammar error (anyway, you are not a grammar Nazi, bye!).

I wrote about my first day coming to Perth, in the earliest morning and had a short chitchat with a nice old man who lives in Mandurah. Yeah, Mandurah. Don't  mistakenly call it Madura, because it is not an island in Indonesia. Never thought what Mandurah looks like. Mandurah is, probably (well I guess so, this is just my assumption) not that really popular among tourist whom are visiting Western Australia. Actually, why I had a chance to take a look at this place (which turned that I really fancy!), was a mere spontaneous plan. 

Okay, let's make this short, when I was in Perth, I had a good friend, his name is Ryan, whom always accompanied me wherever I went, ahahhaha. Well, it was not like that. Ryan and I sometimes hang out with our own friends, since he took different classes, and I never was in the same classes with him. I met him on homecoming party held in Pan Pacific Hotel. We were both (a little bit) lost. I am bad at dancing, and it was a rough party with full of drinks and bla bla (but the food was good though, I kinda like it, the spring roll was heaven, and Kaboob satay which was a bit cranky). A random friend I met on party introduced me to Ryan, which I thought it was a good idea since Ryan seemed reluctant to dance as well.

Then, for two more upcoming weeks, I hang out with Ryan, went to cafetaria together, party together, he even took me home at night because he was worried I might be kidnapped by some aliens (probably). He was a nice guy. Ryan told me, he was actually a solo traveler. I guess he was a bit loner type of guy and did not have any problem to do solo traveling. He was from Sydney, and it was his first time to coming to Perth. He told me he wanted to explore other small towns around western australia sort after we ended our courses. 

At that time, I told him, well enjoy the party. I didn't have any ideas at first to do some travels with him, to other towns, since even we were close enough but I had my plans as well and I didn't think that I should put him on my plans also. 

If it wasn't because I helped him when he was drunk at Casino, probably he wouldn't have taken me to a cute dinner and asked me to come with him to his trip. 

While we were eating San Churros, he told me he wanted to go to Mandurah to see dolphins. Well, that was a pretty cool thing, that was on my head. However, unfortunately, he asked me when I had some sort of plans with my host family so I said, "I am afraid, I can't". The next morning I woke up at 9 am, and It turned out that my plan was canceled. Host family was still sleeping and they were a bit lazy to go out. I called Ryan, very immediately, and hoped that he had not gone to Mandurah yet. And yes! he answered my phone, and said that he just took a shower and was ready to go. 

"What time do you wanna go?"

it was at 10am, I knew that I might ruin Ryan's plan.

"Actually, at this time. But if you wanna come along, I can wait, I probably go out to search for some breakfast" he said.

YES! Gosh, he is very kind.

"Ryan I am ready at 11am, is that okay?"

"Yes, sure that's alright. Meet me at Perth underground at 11.30?"

Soooo, I took a quick shower and ate a slice of bread then go. I didn't even put any single make up because I didn't need to (hahaha, I know this is silly).  I waited for him near the convenient store inside the station, we were gonna take the train. Honestly, I never took a train before during my stay in Perth. I always used bus and bus and I was afraid taking the train to go somewhere (this is the perks of being a Surabaya resident , if you know what I mean *lame joke alert*). 

I came earlier before Ryan, he wore his green jumper, same outfit he wore a night before when we were having dinner. So, he took me to the ticket machine, and we were in a rush because the next train to Mandurah was 5 mins to go . And we ran to catch the train and yep we made it!. The train was full of people so we gotta stand off for about a half an hour. It was heavy raining at that time and so damn cold for me. Ryan knew that I was a bit jiffy and he said, "You can hug me if you want to" BUAHAHHAHAHAHAHA. he offered me a hug so yeah the rest of it you could know without I describe it here.

I blamed the weather coz it made me sleepy during the journey and so did Ryan. We fell asleep in the train and woke up 10 mins before it arrived in Mandurah. Mandurah station was small, and we took the bus to go to the coastal line.

The ticket from Perth-Mandurah (two way round tickets) is 10 dollars, and you gotta keep your ticket so you can show it to the bus lady and got a free ride to Mandurah beach.

 It was still raining on the way to the coast, the bus lady asked us many things but Unfortunately I couldn't understand what she talked about so Ryan handled it all (damn you Australian slang). Mandurah is a very a nice town, small and circle, and how magically the weather changed so fast. Once we arrived at the coastal line, the rain stopped and sky turned blue and very bright. 

Mandurah coastal ft. a seagull




 I have been to several towns in Western Australia before, but I could say that Mandurah is my first choice of all. Small, Nice, Warm, Pretty, Not too many people visit there, it is a good item to just escape for a while. 

We were hungry as hell and we had lunch at Ciceros, the most famous fish and chips in WA. Ryan and I didn't know if Ciceros portion was that huge, we ordered two packs of original fish and chips and we couldn't finish all of them. I sat on the balcony and seagulls tried to steal our food. A dad and his son laughed and talked to us if we had a great day, we both fed the seagulls. It was really cute!

After that, we just walked around the jetty and sea the boats. Ryan planned to take a yacht but it cost 50 dollars and he said it was too expensive for just seeing the dolphins. An old lady told us it ain't worthy because the dolphins seemed very shy so they didn't want to come out. Then, we decided, okay, let us do some fun, sauntering the roads and walked and walked.

Mandurah people seemed really nice, most of them are senior people (I am not sure if they are just tourists or locals because there are lots of apartments and houses there as well). They greeted us to have a great date and one old guy asked me to take a picture with him. It wasn't creepy at all, even though Ryan was a bit gawky and surprised by his favor. That old guy asked Ryan, if I was his gf or something and Ryan just laughed. That old guy told me, "You're a pretty girl, he picked the right choice" BUAHAHAHHAHAH. What a sarcasm.

lovely neighborhood taken from the bridge

 We enjoyed the clear sky and sat on the bench near the dolphin drive, nope, it was a small street name. Dolphin drive , ahahha, sounds funny, right? Ryan asked me about things and we chatted and relaxed. We walked again to the beach and it was pretty great one. What I love about Mandurah is, you could live near the river and know that most of people here have the boats and kayaks and use it slong the river (and if you are lucky enough, you could see "the dolphins"). 

I could say that Mandurah is very adorable, quick changing weather (that is so quick, 17mins bright sky, dark again, clear again, I bet mandurah is an old lady having a period). If you don't want to stay over there, you should go back to the station at 8pm tops, because the bus service ends at 8pm. And taxi is very rare there.  All we spent was just 20 dollars including the mighty Ciceros stuff and Ice cream and it was a truly memorable visit!
boats, boats, boats

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