Perth/Margaret River: Running Auntie and Slacker S**t Parent Edition

In this post, I will discuss the three things we prioritised on our recent trip to Perth, as well as give you a pro auntie tip, for living your best Singapore life on holiday (why would anyone want to do THAT?), in better weather. Follow my guide, and you can too! Caveat: if you go during the December school holidays (summer in Australia), there might not be better but potentially worse weather. At least the sun sets a couple hours later and it’s cool in the morning?

I will answer the most important question first – yes, Aesop is cheaper in Perth, but not THAT much cheaper. Look up Singapore prices before you go and decide whether it’s worth the luggage space.

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Our No. 1 priority was staying near outdoor running routes.

In Perth, we stayed at Quest on South Perth Foreshore. The main pro of this property was that it was about 50m from the run/bike paths that circle the Swan River. I ran twice, the Strava maps are shown below. For exact details, you can follow me on Strava.  

Other pros:

• Connected to Mends Street Arcade, which has a Jason’s/ Cold Storage Fresh equivalent.
• Rooms come with a microwave, washing machine and dryer, basic cooking facilities, and the beds are turned daily. 
• Really good banana bread at Atomic Espresso in Mends Street Arcade.
• Two playgrounds in the vicinity. One is about 50m from the property, and the other is slightly further down, maybe about 400-500m away. 

Breakfast sandwich without barbecue sauce in the foreground, banana bread and Andy Lau in the background.

Cons:

• Nearest supermarket is a Jason’s/ Cold Storage Fresh equivalent, i.e. overpriced groceries at Singapore prices, even the fresh produce. But after travelling all that way with young children (the flight is only five-ish hours, how weak are we) you’ll willingly fork over the money for their ready to heat, surprisingly healthy meals.
• The nearest playground is a sand playground. Offspring will for sure truck sand back to the room.

At Margaret River we were originally booked to stay at Riverglen Chalets (where we stayed on our last trip), but had to give up the booking because we got COVID and had to postpone our trip. This cluster of chalets is quite near the town centre, maybe a kilometre or so, and a couple hundred metres from the entrance to Rotary Park, which is where the Margaret River parkun is held (Saturday mornings, check out the website).

We ended up staying at Chalet on Percheron (single chalet), a lovely if ulu property, essentially an Airbnb. It’s ~1.5km from the main Margaret River running/bike path, ~3.5km from the town centre, and ~3.8km from Rotary Park. But there are wild kangaroos and a huge backyard, where you will set your children free and be disappointed that they are still full of beans after running around for close to two hours.  

I did three runs when we were here, but am only showing two Strava maps because two of the runs were on the same path. Even if you don’t make it for parkrun, the route in Rotary Park is quite nice and has some trail (but nothing technical, mostly packed mud fairly free of tree roots. Why don't we have anything like that here?). The run to Prevelly is excellent, and if you don’t want to do an out and back, you can get your family to drive down to meet you (don’t worry your sweat will dry quickly and it will feel like you never ran at all) and have breakfast at The Sea Garden restaurant. The banana bread is good as well (sensing a theme here).

Admittedly there aren’t as many runners/ bikers as there are in Perth and definitely way less than on the PCNs in Singapore, so it takes some getting used to. But I daresay it’s pretty safe (nothing untoward happened to me, and I felt safe enough to not bring my phone), just go during daylight hours OR if you should be so lucky to have grandparents along, someone can watch the kids and you can go with your spouse. 

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Priority No. 2: Cooking. 

I suppose the point of being on holiday is not to have to perform such menial tasks, but I was already going to do laundry anyway, and I cannot resist the lure of fresh produce and an uncluttered kitchen. Also, there is only so much restaurant angmoh food Asians can consume.  

The no. 1 thing you should cook is steak, potatoes, and broccolini. The last time we came to Margaret River I also made cream of mushroom soup, but as Jon pointed out we prioritised regular runs this time round so there was less time and energy for cooking.  

Pro auntie tip: save the small containers of butter you will keep getting when you order banana bread (see first priority above), and which they give you on the aeroplane. You can use the butter when pan-frying the steak. It will be a bit melty, sure, but just stick it in the freezer the first chance you get.

I would also do a mashed potato, though I tried to do roast potatoes this time round. The problem is the ovens at most of the properties are a bit temperamental and don’t heat evenly so it’s not easy to get the nice golden brown one is used to with a familiar oven. 

From the Woolworth’s receipt below, you will see that I bought “chicken bulk” for $6.20. This consisted about 10 good sized drumsticks, which I roasted, took the meat off of, then boiled the bones for stock together with the chicken drippings and kale stems. 

The shredded meat was just about enough for two meals for the four of us, one of pasta and one of ramen soup (I bought a jar of miso paste and added about a tablespoon to give the soup some body). Pictures below. 

Ramen on our last night in Margaret River. Because Asian.

Tomato (cooked down), kale and chicken pasta

Steak in the background  (it was really very good), and not quite golden brown roast potatoes.

 

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Priority No. 3: Don’t bother about visiting wineries for food and wine (scandalous). 

If you can get a booking, great, but if you can’t, don’t sweat it. And if you don’t buy any wine, it just means you will have more luggage space to bring back 4L of your favourite detergent (AUD$17.80) which now costs a whopping $9.80/L at Cold Storage. 

How long will you last me? ㅠㅠ

A lot is said about how expensive eating out in Australia generally is, so here I present to you pies from: (1) Margaret River Pies; and (2) Witchy Pies (this is in Witchcliffe, which is on the way to Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse). Said lighthouse was undergoing renovation when we went though, so check before you go. We went to Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse instead this time round. The guided tour (by a very tall man named Paul) was good, as most guided tours in Australia usually are (it’s the angmoh accent perhaps), and I bought a book at the gift store called The Ways of the Bushwalker. 

Mexican Pie from Witchy Pies

Beef pie from Margaret River Bakery

Sausage Roll from Margaret River Bakery

Jalapeno Pie from Margaret River Bakery (similar to Mexican Pie, above)

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Picspam – what you're really here for, because it's easier to look at travel pictures, except these aren't really travel pictures, are they?

Offspring with red kangaroo at Perth Zoo. Admission is a bit pricey but well worth it. If you have to choose between the zoo and Caversham Wildlife Park, I'd choose the zoo. Unless, of course, you must join the ranks of Singaporeans who have 100001 videos of their children feeding kangaroos, and must upload a picture of your family with the wombat to social media. The #fomo is real.

I'm a sucker for all this naturally dried fruit. I'd skip the cauliflower puffs, and the avocado chips are available at Cold Storage.

The nice thing about this brand of yogurt (about the cheapest of the lot and readily available at most supermarkets) is that random jokes and facts are revealed as you eat the yogurt (the tub is clear plastic and said random jokes and facts are printed on the inside of the label). Just be prepared that your offspring will not stop with the knock-knock jokes thereafter. We had a joke-telling contest one night before bed, I think mine was by far the funniest: Knock-knock! Who's there? Ander! Ander who? No, Ander-roo! 

Fish and chips from Zamia Cafe at King's Park, Perth. I spent four hours at a playground there with the boys, because Jon had to work one morning. These fish and chips were surprisingly good.

Offspring at the playground near Zamia Cafe. The playground where these stone sculptures were located is pretty good (it kept Them occupied for 4 hours, so...). Not pictured, the awesome obstacle course. But D and his wife took their kids to the Rio Tinto Naturescape which he said has even more fun things (like a creek!), so consider this my PSA to go to the more heong King's Park playground.

View from the top of Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse (thank God for the beautiful rainbow); in front of Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse.

Other places of note:

• Underwater aquarium at Busselton - we couldn't get tickets this time, but I highly recommend it. 
• Swings & Roundabouts (restaurant, probably related to the winery) which is one of the first restaurants you will see when you drive in to Margaret River from Perth. We had some doubts but the supermarkets were closed by the time we got there on our first night, so we gave it a go. We had the inferno pizza (nduja!) and shared the duck rillette, and They shared the fish nuggets (real fish). 
• Eagle Bay Brewery. Food wasn't great and I didn't feel up to driving so Jon couldn't drink much, and who in their right mind goes to the Margaret River region to drink BEER?! But we didn't need to make a reservation (perhaps this post is really a lesson on the need to make reservations, but what kind of holiday is it if you have to make so many reservations?) and there was a large grass patch with a small hill for Them and Their ilk to roll down.
• U&I Cafe, Perth. Open 24 hours, serves pho and other Asian food. 

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I hope you have a nice time, if you choose to go. But maybe don't tell me you're going to Perth until you're back, unless you want to bring back more laundry detergent for me.