Kookaburra Outdoor Cinema on 9 February 2013

How to spend your Saturday night relaxing and memorable? Choose a nice outdoor cinema to watch a good movie AND surrounded by friends!

It was a the CNY eve ( 9 February 2013), Mary and Timea have been planning for this outing for some time. They have chosen a movie called "Le Chef", a French film directed by Daniel Cohen.

JO and I gathered at Midland train station to be picked by Mary. We were traveled to Kookabura by a 4W vehicle. The scenery were much different from Perth city and residential suburb areas, more green jungle/ trees rather than bricks and stones.

Finally, we reached the destination and start to load all our preparation: foods for picnic, cushion or pillow (for own comfy), blanket ( hill side areas could be a bit chilling at night), chairs are not necessary as the cinema has provided this facility.

 Here is the entrance of the cinema, excited as this is the first outdoor movie experience in Australia.

This local cinema only operate for certain period in a year.

The decks behind are the audiences' seats.

We brought sandwiches for this outing, but our friends bring much "interesting" foods to share.

One of the couples brought very tasty cheese and chicken pate. The pizzas brought by Sandra were lovely and understand it was picked up from Ciao Italia restaurant in Subiaco. May be should try out the Ciao Italia

restaurant in South Perth soon:)

Is good to book a table for picnic, most organized.

When the sky turns dark eventually, we start to enjoy the selected movie~ Le Chef. There are other movies in the showing list such as Les Miserable but we have watched it HOYTS cinema much earlier:P

Le Chef is an entertaining movie, is about the passionate on cooking, an awesome dream, human relationship and...the trailer is here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf2Nk3Ld8Og. It turns out to be unique way to celebrate our CNY 2013, good night and good bye 2012 and welcome a brand new year ~ 2013!

Mandurah Crab Festival on 17 March 2013

When KW asked us to visit the Mandurah Crab Festival on Sat., I think Mandurah is a bit far to travel but all of us are quite excited about the MKR cooking demo. Hence, we decided to start the trip on Sunday morning!

Mandurah is a good place for water sports. We reached the west foreshore and saw some water ski and boats around. Parents brought their infants and child for nice Sunday outing.

I never expect this is a huge event, bigger than the Chili Festival in Fremantle and festivals in most of the suburb. It was very happening with  lots of foods stalls, handicrafts and workshops.

Selling cold drinks and ice cream received good response from the crowd, good business.

Umbrella painting : you normally see this activity in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The little girl was very concentrating in her artwork.

Instead of drawing your own portrait, may consider on your pet's portrait. This one looks awesome, isn't it?

I have been enjoying crabs in Malaysia and China too, but JY advised me not to have the same expectation in Perth as the Aussie cook the crab differently. Yup, we try the crab with simple way cooking ( steaming ), eat with vinegar only AND it tastes DELICIOUS! The meat is tender and sweet.

Hmm...finger licking good.

This crab dish looks so yummy but we didn't go for it as the queue was too long.

Water sport was one of the competition in conjunction with this festival. To me, the highlight of the carnival was not the water sport or the crab, it was the extreme game competition that show as below:

 I believe they must have been going through very hard training before they could perform such a stunt action.

So, the Malaysian government may consider to provide this kind of platform to all the "kaki rempit" and minimize their "stunt" performance on the road/ highway.

Mandurah has the beautiful scenery and the locals/ visitors could enjoy a relaxing afternoon simply by resting at the foreshore and chit chatting with friends.

To end this post, here is one of my favorite memory about the lovely outing at Mandurah ( a sunny and breezing afternoon):

I saw these white birds often at Riverside Drive yet don't know its name.

Yanchep National Park visit on 29 March 2013

Good Friday Visit to Yanchep National Park @ 29 March 2013 

Where can you see the kangaroo and koala bear in its natural habitat besides Caversham Wildlife Park?

Yanchep National Park (YNP) will be a good choice.

We reached YNP at around 11.45am, expecting to see a "Safari" or something like "Taman Negara" view in Malaysia but it is not similar at all. Nevertheless, the view are still as beautiful as many of the other parks in Perth. The area is huge, the natural "green carpet" ( grasses ) are just ideal for picnic, BBQ and other outdoor activities, very family friendly environment I would say.

I have seen koala bear before in Caversham Wildlife Park, I know they are lazy fellow who will sleep almost 23 hours a day. In YNP, we managed to say hi to koala bear again. This round, I get to know more about them as there are a row of signboards that explain their lifestyle. I have just found out that Koala's main food - gumtree leafs contain poisons, Koala won't get killed by consuming it but the toxic elements might contribute to its sleepiness all the time. 

There is lovely tea house in YNP called Chocolate Drops. 

I love the deco!

The ambiance is cozy, nice interior deco and most of all, foods are yummy. Another specialty offered by them are the handmade chocolate. I am not a big fans on chocolate so I choose to try their coconut white chocolate chip, the taste was not bad, rich in coconut flavor but my friend said it was too sweet.

The quiche is nice but a bit tiny:(

After getting our lunch, we went to the Crystal Cave tour. It is such a small and young cave ( about 200 years) couldn't compare with the spectacular Mulu Cave or Nia Cave in Sarawak. However, we really appreciate the tour guide efforts in making the whole trip very informative, I like her professionalism.

My colleague told me the kangaroos will come out to source for foods at around 5pm. We were lucky enough to see these creatures hopping around even as early as 4.30pm. They are the smaller species and not afraid to human beings.

Sharon busy taking photos on the Kangaroos.

As you can see from the picture, the lake is not beautiful as it is almost dried up and very muddy.

The final activity we wish to explore is their jungle trail. The longest trail is 17.5km and shortest is 500m. We prefer the shortest one. However, when we arrived at the entrance of the trail and found out that the gate is closing at 4.30pm daily, what a disappointment! 

We were not sure whether is a good idea to travel home after 6pm as it will be getting dark soon. Hence, we end the YNP trip 10 minutes to 5pm. If we are to visit for the second time, may consider the following activities:

a) Lunch picnic, reading and playing kite.

b) Aborigine living place

c) Indian Ocean Drive, to view the panoramic sea view.

FEES

1) Entrance: AUD 11 per vehicle 

2) Cave visit: AUD 10 per adult