Skip to main content

Going Back to Perth, Western Australia After Seven Years, and Our Accommodation at Ascot Quays Apartments - Day 1

Bell Tower, Perth Western Australia.
Bell Tower, Perth Western Australia.

The last time I was back in Perth, Western Australia was October 2016 to see my Dad before he passed, and then attend his funeral a few days later. It was never my intention to wait so long before going back. Obviously the COVID 19 pandemic of 2020 caused the initial delay to go even longer than intended. 

Then my partner, Enigma, and I had a short, four day trip all booked for the beginning of December 2021 when a COVID 19 scare shut down the border between South Australia and Western Australia and we watched our plans disappear within hours.

Given that was almost a year after the world had started to come good again from the pandemic  lockdowns and travel restrictions, I just got very reluctant to book anything. Particularly after getting all my vaccinations done (triple vaxxed!) just to meet the requirements of crossing into WA at the time. 

Fortunately we were able to get a travel agent credit for our cancelled airfares with no expiry date (or at least was still valid nearly two years later). Although I had planned to, hopefully, make it back to Perth some time in 2023, Enigma and I never really started planning until a couple of months out from booking our flights.

Our Ascot Quays, first floor apartment and the pool area.
Our Ascot Quays, first floor apartment and
the pool area.
Enigma had booked holidays away from work for the entire month of October much earlier in the year, with a view to possibly doing some once in a lifetime international travel with her sister. 

When it looked certain those plans weren't going to eventuate we changed focus to a two week holiday to catch up with my family in Perth.

We booked our flights for the last two weeks in October, and then Enigma sourced an excellent, first floor apartment at Ascot Quays, with access to a pool and gym (never used the gym but the pool area was great).

Ascot Quays sits alongside the Swan River. It used to be a hotel of self contained apartments but has since been closed with all the apartments being sold to private owners (a few are available as AirBnBs).

Our apartment was an open plan kitchen/dining/living area, with a balcony, one bedroom, and one combined bathroom/laundry.

While it very much had 'motel room' vibes it was about two to three times the space with everything you'd need in a home apartment. Towels, linen, complimentary tea and coffee included.

The pool (and gym) are shared facilities for residents only. While we were there the pool was never crowded but, if you want a relaxing time by the pool, maybe avoid Thursday mornings which seemed to be the day the gardener came around with all his powered equipment (doing a great job too, the gardens are very well maintained).

Each apartment also has its own parking space in the secure garage under the building.

On our first day in Perth we self checked in after 3pm, coming straight from the airport. I spent most of my afternoon making flying visits to family members, who all lived within about 30 minutes drive, while Enigma made the most of relaxing by the pool while I was gone. 

For the two weeks we were in Perth we really appreciated our apartment, its central location, proximity to shops, public transport, and plenty of walking paths to explore through the parklands along side the Swan River. 

If you can find an AirBnB in Ascot Quays (they're not all hosted by the same people), I'd definitely recommend it. Our apartment was very affordably priced for a two week stay that was certainly a lot more for your money than what you'd get staying at a similarly priced motel for the same length of time.

Comments

Buy Gifts and Apparel featuring art by TET.

Popular posts from this blog

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices.  My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe?  Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

TV Series Review: Skeleton Crew (2024) (Disney+) *No Spoilers*

I f you saw the trailer for  Skeleton Crew  and decided the show looked too much like Star Wars for little kids, and didn't watch, you missed out on a real treat. While I will say this show was definitely targeted at bringing in younger fans to the Star Wars universe, it is very much more like family viewing than kids only TV. Not to mention, characters are literally gunned down or murdered on this show, but without the really graphic violence you might see on a more adult orientated show. It's actually no more kid only orientated than the first series of Stranger Things  (2016), or even the original  Star Wars  (1977) movie. In fact the whole show is a not so subtle homage to original Star Wars (1977), Treasure Island  (1950), and eighties movies like The Goonies  (1985), ET  (1982), Explorers  (1985) and others. The plot is very straight forward. A group of children, living in the Star Wars equivalent of the suburbs, find an aband...

TV Series Review: Creature Commandos (2024) *No Spoilers*

O fficially, Creature Commandos is the first show of James Gunn's kind of reboot of the DCU. Technically though, it starts with James Gunn's, The Suicide Squad , and includes his series, Peacemaker , as the events of both are either referenced or felt within the show. Potentially that means Margot Robbie is Harley Quinn in the DCU, but I'd be surprised if she would even want another crack at it, let alone that James didn't recast the role. However that's a whole other rabbit hole for a character that may not appear again for at least a few more years. Creature Commandos is Suicide Squad but with monsters, and no real threat of Suicide - well, having your head blown off if you stray from the mission at least. Though I don't recall that being a thing in Gunn's Suicide Squad movie since the team was renamed 'Task Force X'? Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) somehow still has a job, but is no longer allowed to use humans on her team, so she assembles a team of...

TV Series Review: The Penguin (2024) *No Spoilers*

W hile we wait for an eternity (well an eternity in movie fan years anyway) for The Batman Part 2 , sequel to Matt Reeves acclaimed, The Batman  (2022), we have, what is essentially a direct sequel with  The Penguin , a limited. eight episode, TV Series set within a week or two of the end of the first film. Unfortunately it's a direct sequel to Colin Farrell's Penguin rather than Robert Pattinson's, Bruce Wayne/Batman. Fortunately that's the only real disappointment I have with this series.   Right from the first episode The Penguin establishes itself as a show for grown ups who enjoy actual character development, that hooks you in, is thought provoking, and raises questions that you expect will be answered as the story unfolds. After the events of The Batman, there is something of a power vacuum left in Gotham's crime world that Oswald 'Oz' Cobb a.k.a. The Penguin, sets out to fill using his experience, quick thinking, and his ability to hustle his way into...

Introducing Resident Dragon: The Trials and Tribulations of Living in a Shared House with a Dragon in the Suburbs

Resident Dragon Cast: TET, Red the Dragon Cool Froyd the Cat, and Grrr Dog. Buy Prints of finished toons . L ast year (2024), for my birthday in May, my sister bought me a quality, metal bodied, ball point pen (black ink).  As someone who likes to sketch with ball point pens, and with a big concern that these last few years I really wasn't drawing as much as someone who considers themselves to be an artist should, I decided to put the pen to good use. In June of the same year I bought two A5 sketchbooks and spent as much time as I needed to fill a page with ball point pen 'doodles', each morning after breakfast.  I'm predominantly a cartoonist who's always drawn from imagination, so filling a page in a sketch book is not a challenge. I just draw a line, or a circle, or whatever and see what emerges. Filling Sketch Books Just to Draw More Filling an A5 sketchbook page would take me about 20-25 minutes. I drew all kinds of random things, occasionally using the time to...

Real Flying Car Prototypes That Look Like What the Movies Promised - Ace VTOL GT Slipstream, Alef Model A, and the Bellwether Flying Cars

Ace eVTOL GT Slipstream Flying Car. I've been a little obsessed with flying cars of late and I thought I was done with the subject for now but then Google News put  flying car company, Ace Vtol , based out of Perth, Western Australia in front of me. How could I not take a look?  The GT Slipstream's next-generation Arc Reaction Engines. Images: Ace Vtol website. Especially when their flying car, the  Ace eVTOL GT Slipstream , kind of looks like a regular car (in terms of size and shape) and has engines that look like they're straight out of a sci-fi movie. Even more surprising is you can actually pre-order one of these vehicles . Ace Vtol has done a USD$250 million deal with Palm Beach, FL based Aeroauto , the leading retailer of eVTOL vehicles in the United States to sell the craft to future owners. The GT Slipstream is described on Ace Vtol's website as follows: The aircraft, named the GT Slipstream, is a two-seater flying “muscle” car that will reach spee...

Movie Review: The Fall Guy (2024) *Minor Spoilers*

W hen I initially heard they were making a movie version of the TV series, The Fall Guy (1981-86) , I was definitely interested, as a person who tuned in to that series, weekly, when it originally aired. I had intended to see The Fall Guy in the cinema but, for whatever reason, didn't get there, and didn't prioritize seeing the film as the reviews, and more importantly, general information about the movie came out. Specifically, The Fall Guy makes no effort to capture whatever magic it was the TV show had that made it the show it was. A fact that is driven home by the reworked TV series theme song, played over the end credits and behind the scenes footage of stunts in the film, that removes all references to real world actors and replaces iconic line of "I'm the unknown stuntman who made Redford such a star" with the nonsensical "I'm the unknown stuntman who tries to win your heart." - sure... I guess... I mean, the original song is about never gett...