Saturday, 28 August
Part of the logic behind the decision to spend Friday night somewhere just south of Perth was an easy run into Perth to deliver the vehicle back to Bayswater by midday, and as it turned out, it's just as well. Had Hughesy made the same navigational mistake when we'd been really pushed for time the results could well have been, well, not disastrous as such, but certainly less than optimal.
Much of the confusion was related to the need to navigate round one-way streets and no right turns into a service station to fill the fuel tank and then get from there to Bayswater by midday. As it turned out, just leave the car in the car park on Saturday arvo looked a fair bit more secure than it sounded over the phone, but in any case we were back in time, the paperwork was concluded and we were left with twelve hours to kill before the Red Eye Express left Perth.
I would've been happy to find somewhere to sit quietly and scribble, and the fact that I'm tapping out this section of the travelogue close to a month later might be seen as justifying that point of view. Various illness and incidental instances have been part of the delay, but I was more than aware of the amount of backlog facing me after a fortnight away.
Madam, on the other hand, wanted to be out and about, and had unearthed the existence of the Citiplace Rest Centre where we could hire a $10 locker to stow the luggage while we set out for places that weren't totally specified but would certainly include Kings Park. While other cities may have similar facilities I've yet to identify them. I would have been quite happy to sit in the facilities at Citiplace and scribble away, but off we went, in search of lunch and nature photography.