Sue Zann Toh

AQWA, formerly known as Underwater World, is Western Australia’s aquarium. AQWA is located about 30 minutes north of Perth city in Hillarys Boat Harbour. The aquarium is set out as a guide to WA’s coastline with four distinct areas,

1. Far North Coast
2. Shipwreck Coast
3. Perth Coast Marmion Marine Park
4. Great Southern Coast

AQWA offers more than just an aquarium for looking at fish and sharks. They have “AQWA Adventures” which includes diving or snorkelling with sharks (!) and whale watching during the whale migration months of September to December. They also have a cafe, bar and gift shop for souvenirs and can accommodate kid’s parties. They can even host a sleepover under the shark’s aquarium for kids. I was a little disappointed that the sleepover was for kids.
My favourite area of AQWA was the Shipwreck Coast. Its main attraction is the underwater tunnel running through a large aquarium filled with grey nurse sharks, stingrays or mantarays, hundreds of fish and a couple of large loggerhead turtles. It’s quite an experience as you stand on the conveyor belt while a giant grey nurse shark or smooth sting ray glides over your head! I loved the experience so much, I went around the circular tunnel at least 3 times!

Another one of my favourite areas of AQWA was the touch pool. The pool is home to stingrays, Port Jackson sharks, many fish, slate pencil urchins, starfish, a cuttlefish and more. I got a thrill out of sticking my arm elbow deep (and more!) to say hello to the stingrays, starfish and my favourite, the Slate Pencil Urchins. It was a bit more difficult trying to touch the fish, as they would swim away when they saw your hand coming too close.

There were many wall aquariums around AQWA as well, filled with colourful fish, lobsters, seahorses, seadragons, jellyfish, anemones and more. There was even an enclosure for crocodiles (only little ones) and outside, there’s Seal Island, where 2 female seals swim and play, and the Stingray Bay, the shallow pool of water where 2 species of stingray happily coexisting together.

If you plan to visit AQWA, make sure you give yourself at least two hours to wander the aquarium. There’s so much to see and learn (and touch!) and you wouldn’t want to be rushed. Keep in mind, this is a kid friendly place, and there’s going to be many children running around and making a lot of noise, so bring your patience with you.

See photos from our AQWA trip in the AQWA photo gallery page.

Visit AQWA’s Web Site

Our trip to the South West of Western Australia in 2005 took us 9 days and 8 nights. There were 4 of us travelling this time, so we stayed at a variety of accommodation, including hotels, motels and chalets.

I booked the accommodation for this trip. I did my research on the internet and ended up using a variety of methods to book our hotels, motels and chalets. Most of the reservation were made using the HotelClub.com web site.

• 
  Night 1 - The Clifton, Bunbury (motel)
• 
  Night 2 to 4 - Gazebo Lake Chalet, Margaret River (chalet)
• 
  Night 5 and 6 - Karri Valley Resort, Pemberton (chalet)
• 
  Night 7 - Karma Chalets, Denmark (chalet)
• 
  Night 8 - The Esplanade Hotel, Albany (hotel)

Select the attraction you would like to read about. These were the attractions we visited during our South West Holiday ing 2005.

Day 1

Serpentine Fall
Big Swamp Wildlife Park

Day 2

Dolphin Boat Cruise
Busselton Jetty and Underwater Observatory

Day 3

Quindalup Wildlife Park
Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse & Tour
Quay West Bunker Bay Resort
Wine Tasting @ Evans & Tate
Wine Tasting @ Vasse Felix

Day 4

Boranup Forest
Boranup Maze
Swim @ Hamelin Bay
Mammoth Cave Tour

Day 5

Trout Fishing @ King Trout Restaurant & Marron Farm
Climbed the Gloucester Tree

Day 6

Warren Tram
Wine Tasting @ Hidden River
Canoeing @ Karri Valley Resort

Day 7

Tree Top Walk
Ancient Empire Walk
Pentland Alpaca Farm
Wine and Cheese Tasting @ Ducketts Mill

Day 8

Natural Bridge
The Gap
Blow holes
Wind farm
WhaleWorld
Swimming @ Middleton Beach

You can see and do a lot in 9 days in the South West of WA. There was never a dull moment as we drove from town to town. Here is the detailed itinerary of our “down south” trip in 2005.

I have provided this itinerary for two purposes, as a travel diary of our adventures and as a template for those looking to plan a trip to the South West of WA. I like a good mix of activities from relaxing wine tasting to a little more adventure, like canoeing on the Beedelup lake at Karri Valley Resort.

Amazing what you can fit into 9 days. Looking back through this list, I can’t believe a group of four, usually disorganised adults managed to do so much in such little time!

Where We Went…

The four of us (all adults) took 9 days and 8 nights for a world wind tour of the South West of Western Australia. I had the pleasure of organising this holiday from what we were going to see, when we were going to see it and most importantly, where we were going to rest after a full day’s excitement.

The Route:

Day 1 - Perth to Bunbury
Day 2 - Bunbury to Busselton to Margaret River
Day 3 - Margaret River to Dunsborough to Margaret River
Day 4 - Margaret River to Augusta to Margaret River
Day 5 - Margaret River to Pemberton
Day 6 - Pemberton
Day 7 - Pemberton to Denmark
Day 8 - Denmark to Albany
Day 9 - Albany to Perth

Have a look at the detailed itinerary and attractions page for ideas of what to do in these areas.

Anyone visiting Perth in Western Australia should definitely schedule about a week of their trip to see WA’s South West.

There’s a holiday for everyone in the south west. The area is well known as a wine region, offering many wineries with free wine tasting and tours. The climate is mild and perfect for sightseeing or relaxing. If you prefer an adventure holiday, there are many places that offer canoeing, kayaking, rock climbing, absailing, surfing lessons, horse riding, bush walks and much much more. For nature lovers, there are many wildlife parks, dolphin and whale cruises to visit. You can pretty much take your pick with the variety of activities on offer in the South West of WA.

During our 2005 South West Holiday, my partner, his sister and her husband took 9 days and 8 nights off for a world-wind tour of the South West. My highlights would have to be swimming at Hamelin Bay, trout fishing in Pemberton and of course the delicious wine and food on offer. Memorable moments were climbing the Gloucester Tree (pronounced Gloss-ter), walking on the Natural Bridge in Albany and visiting Pentland Alpaca Farm.

It was a fantastic trip that I’m sure to remember for many years to come. Since I was the one who organised this holiday, I thought I’d share our itinerary and experience in as much detail as I can.

Start with The Route, which details which towns we visited, including a map of the area. Move onto The Itinerary to see what we did and when. The Attractions gives you more details on the attractions from the itinerary, and The Hotels, Motels and Chalets lists the accommodations we stayed in during our trip.

The Round the World Trip in 2004 took us to Vienna, London, California. It was a business trip where we spent 2 weeks in Vienna, a week in London and a week in California.

In Vienna, Austria, we met with my partner’s sister and her husband where we discussed their future employment in Australia. They were introduced over many meetings to the type of work they would be performing and their roles in the company.

London was a packed full of as many tourist attractions as we could see. The aim of London was to gather information and photos on tourist attractions and create a web site featuring these attractions. This was a possible way to break into the travel market. I had a bit of a love-hate relationship with London, you can find out why in the London page.

If London was packed full of tourist attractions, Calfornia was packed full of meetings. In the internet marketing industry, most of our contacts and partners were in the USA. We scheduled many meetings with ouor contacts and partners throughout California. The meetings took us from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, to Anaheim, to San Francisco and back to Los Angeles. The meetings stregthened our relationships with our American partners and was all in all, a success.

Visiting Bunbury, in the South West of Western Australia, makes a quick and delightful holiday. Bunbury is known as the Gateway to the South West and is one of the larger towns in the area. Being only two and a half to three hours from Perth, it makes an ideal quick get away for the weekend or long weekend. Our 2004 Bunbury holiday was planned for 3 days and 2 nights.

The decision to make a trip to Bunbury in 2004 was a on-the-spot decision. We happened to choose a long weekend, which meant that accommodation was not so readily available. After a few frantic phone calls, I decided to enlist in the help of a travel agent to book a room for two nights at The Admiral Motel.

This holiday was a glutinous one. We spent a lot of our time eating at fabulous restaurants in Bunbury. Our favourite being the VAT-2 restaurant on Jetty Road. VAT-2 offered fabulous views and fabulous food, the sticky date pudding was possibly the best I ever tasted. We also went to Barbados on Bonnefoi Avenue and the Ex-Tension on Ocean Drive. Barbados overlooked the bay and Ex-Tension offered a fantastic breakfast with views of the beach.

We didn’t spend all our time eating. We went to the Big Swamp Wildlife Park and took a boat tour to visit the dolphins in Koombana Bay.

The Wildlife Park was fantastic, the admission fees were very reasonable and you could buy food for the animals. We spent most of the time sitting on the grass feeding the kangaroos around us. I managed to come home with a free souvenir, a peacock feather. We like to joke around and say that my partner tackled the peacock while I plucked the feather, but reality was, the feather fell off the peacock and I picked it up.

The dolphin boat tour was amazing. It was my first encounter with dolphins and they just amazed me. They were so curious that they would swim right up to the boat, take a look at us, then swim away. We got some amazing photos and I got a little sunburn.

Although this Bunbury holiday was a quick one, it was relaxing and the perfect get away. We were so impressed with our time in Bunbury that we visited again in February 2005. Read about it in our South West Holiday for 2005.

Added: Page of the best photos taken during the Bunbury trip, 2004.

On the way back to Perth, we stopped in Busselton to take a break from driving. Probably the biggest tourist attractiong in Busselton is the Busselton Jetty, a 2 km long wooden jetty.

Strange as it may sound, there’s a train that runs the length of the jetty. It’s quite a quaint train, small and cramped, but worth a trip. We took the train out to the end of the jetty then walked the 2 km back to land. It was one of those things where you wanted to do it once, and possibly never do it again!

The Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse is near Dunsborough, about 30 minutes north of Margaret River. We took a guided tour up to the lighthouse where we got some fantastic views of the ocean and its surroundings. The tour guide was quite passionate about his lighthouse, which made the tour very pleasant. The lighthouse itself is not very tall as Cape Naturaliste is already at an elevated position. The advantage of the short lighthouse was that you didn’t have climb too many steps to get to the top!