Perth, Rottnest Island, and Exmouth

We're off on our travels again! A few days ago we left Sydney on a five hour plane ride for Perth. We arrived, all very tired, because we had to get up at 6ish in the morning, and headed promptly off for the markets (Karen's idea, obviously). After being dragged around to look at hats shaped like mushrooms and foldable cutting boards, we went to Fremantle Prison, which was built as a convict prison in the 1800s and was operating until 1991. We were going to go on the normal tour, but one of the staff said that Kate was the biggest 8-year-old he had ever seen, so she was allowed to go on the tunnel tour. The tunnels under Fremantle Prison were dug for a supply of fresh drinking water for the prison and the town. We hiked in some parts and boated in others. Gagi and Tess were having trouble, as neither of them had long enough arms to push off both sides of the tunnel at once, therefore pushing off one side, running into the other, pushing off that side, you get the idea. The tunnels had lasted a hundred years before they came. Just as they were getting the hang of it, they ran into the rainwater drainage pipe. At one point, there was a hole in the ceiling where you could yell stuff and the people above ground could hear. Kate shouted "Oh my gosh it's walnuts!" Tess shouted "This is your conscience!" and John shouted "Save big money at Menards!" Karen unfortunately did not want to alarm passerby. One day we went to Rottnest Island and biked the whole thing on tandems. Tess got a large amount of axle grease on her leg that still hasn't come off. We saw some Quokkas, some native kangaroo rat-like things and some great views of the lighthouse. Then we headed off for Exmouth via propellor plane for 2 hours, where two days ago we went snorkeling with manta rays in Coral Bay. It was very fun, even though we didn't see a lot of rays but snorkeled with a large female and smaller male manta (about 8 feet across). Yesterday we went swimming with whale sharks. It was really cool! They're really neat animals - about 15 feet long - so it's like snorkeling with a school bus - they are filter feeders and only eat krill, so you don't have to worry about losing an arm, which is nice - Dad did see several reef sharks snorkeling, fairly large, but they are fairly shy. Also we saw a few humpback whales, dolphins and a sea snake. It was pretty cool. The drives to such places are incredibly monotonus, open scrub land punctuated by the occasional termite mound, with lots of sheep, cows, and kangaroos on the road so the driving is more interesting for Dad than for us. The only good thing is that Kate can't play her "sing everything you see"game. In Sydney, it's usually something like "A caaaaar, and a stoplight and a road and a treeeeeeeeee!!!" Here it would be more like "sand, and a road and some sand, and more sand..." We've also started watching Glee which has been fun, and also slightly annoying, as we are treated to off key renditions of Mr. Cellophane and Defying Gravity by Kate. Hope everyone is well,
                                                                                                                                   Tess