Perth

First Impressions

I've now entered the largest state in Australia, and indeed the second largest subnational entity in the world, Western Australia. Its capital is Perth, home to three quarters of the population of WA. You can fit the UK almost 15 times into WA - it's pretty big. Perth and its surrounding area is famous for a very generous all year round climate - in the summer the temperature is regularly up to 40 degrees with a refreshing breeze, and usually doesn't drop far below 20 degrees in the winter. It really is a great place to live, although house prices have shot up in the last 5 or so years and the cost of living is quite high anyway as it's a long, long, long, long way from any other major city.

Of the original crew that spent a lot of time together in Sydney, and that travelled to Tasmania, only 3 of us remain - myself, Dave and Jamie. The others have either stayed in New South Wales to work, headed off home or have already travelled through the west. I'd already decided to go to Perth after just 3 nights in Adelaide so when the other two guys decided to visit some friends of Jamie's north of Adelaide I was left with a week in Perth to myself.

Hostels in Perth are in high demand at this time of year - probably partly because the east coast has had terrible weather recently - so I booked myself into a hostel in a little beach-side place called Scarborough, about 45 minutes from Perth city centre on the bus. After 2 days of cloud and rain the legendary Perth weather finally made an appearance and I settled in for some serious tanning sessions on the beach - long overdue after 2 months of decidely average Australian weather (I still had the bottle of suntan lotion that I brought from England).

I ended up staying in Scarborough for 5 nights - a bit long for somewhere so quiet, only one pub there - and then spent the next 7 at the YHA in Fremantle where Jamie and Dave made the mistake of joining me. It really was a horrible place, hot and sweaty and full of lunatics but it was the only place with space in Fremantle. The weather remained pretty decent, getting up to 40 degrees at times, but the beach life was getting kind of annoying, not just because it's a bit dull but also the wind in Fremantle is so strong at times that you get covered from head to toe in sand and also might end up chasing your towel half way down the beach. So, we decided to get away from the mainland and spend a few days on Rottnest Island.

Rottnest Island

When Frederik de Houtman visited a small island to the west of Fremantle in 1696 he noticed that a number of marsupials (kangaroo relatives) on the island resembled rats, and hence the name Rat's Nest (Rottnest) has stuck ever since. The little critters are actually called Quokkas and as there are no predators on the island they positively flourish; apparently it's impossible to visit the island without seeing them. And see them we certainly did.

The ferry to Rottnest costs about 25 pounds for a return journey. The journey takes 25 minutes each way so that works out at about 50p a minute - I'm not sure if that's expensive or not. Lots of people take a single day trip but if you want to stay a bit longer, like we did, there's plenty of accomodation in the way of a hotel, a hostel and loads of little apartments. We chose to stay at the hostel, a former army base called the Kingstown Barracks, for 2 nights before heading back to the mainland. We also hired a mountain bike each as cars are banned from the island (only shuttle buses and maintenance vehicles are allowed) and it's the best way to see the whole island in a few days.

We still had our snorkels with us and, since Rottnest is also famous for snorkelling and scuba diving spots, we put them to good use by following the designated 'snorkel trail' as best we could. Parker Point had the best snorkelling area and had a nice touch of mounted plaques on the sea bed for you to read as you move along. I didn't see anything particularly dangerous, unlike in Jervis Bay where there were stingrays galore, but I did see some pretty colourful and also very large fish.

After stopping for an ice cream on the way between beaches we spotted a quokka hopping about outside a shop. We got very excited and tried to get loads of pictures, but had we realised how many there were on the island we wouldn't have been quite so enthusiastic. They're incredibly cute little things and quite friendly to humans too, and when they want to they can hop REALLY fast. It's quite a sight. They flourish on the island because predators such as cats and foxes are banished. Also they, like most of the island's fauna including the coral, are strictly protected. You can't even pick up a shell from the seabed in some places on the island.

We didn't quite manage to get round the whole island - mountain biking and snorkelling in high temperatures is a tiring combo - but we did get to see most of it, and beautiful it certainly is. If you go to Western Australia in your lifetime make sure you check it out, it's well worth the time and effort and is fairly cheap too, our hostel cost about 25 pounds for 2 nights and there's loads to see and do. Right, I'm pretty much up to date now so I've no idea what the next update will be about. I've moved into Perth city centre and am staying here for a few days so I'll probably be back with an update about that soon enough. Take it easy, and I'll see some of you soon, yes?

Sun City

Not a huge amount to report since the Rottnest update. I've had a great time, no doubt about that, but it's been a very hot and subsequently laid back affair that's mostly involved being out in the sun, which has been out in full force for virtually the whole time. Did I mention it's been very hot? Usually upwards of 35 degrees, and not much wind in the city centre until late in the afternoon when the Fremantle Doctor kicks in.

First thing to mention is that we had fun getting our luggage back from Rottnest after we put the wrong ferry labels on our bags - you specify one of 4 destinations by getting a particular colour, and they take your bags and put it on the relevant ferry going to a particular port, either in Fremantle or Perth. We were going to Fremantle on the Rottnest Express but we were hungover after a night of drinking with our roommates and didn't even notice there were different colours when we picked them up. Fortunately, and I mean very fortunately, they arrived 30 minutes later at a port not far from ours in Fremantle - they could have gone to Perth instead, or been left on the island. Phew.

Some sightseeing updates - I've been to the Perth museum, the art gallery, Kings Park, the WACA and the Swan River. And I've also been to the Adventure World water park near Fremantle. We went back to Scarborough for 3 days at the beach as well. As a result of all this I've decided to put some pictures up of my tan.

I've been reading a lot of books on my travels. Current count is 15 but some of those were pretty chunky, over 750 pages. The good thing about reading books in Australia is the abundance of second hand bookshops that will take back the book you bought for $15 last week and give you $5 credit for the next one you get. So you end up spending about $10 per book, which is about 4 pounds. Not bad really, and the second hand shops are excellent, full of all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff. Here's a selection of some of the books I've read:

- The Godfather Returns (Mark Winegarden)
- The Eagle Has Landed (Jack Higgins)
- The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
- Mein Kampf (Adolf Hitler)

Yes, you read that last one correctly, Australia is one of the countries in the world where you can legally obtain copies of it. Amazing what takes your fancy when you've got loads of time on your hands at the beach. Oh, and I've decided to teach myself Spanish. I've started with a simple book but hopefully by the time I rock back to Blighty I'll be fluently covering everyone in saliva when I speak.

I'll be back with one more update from Perth before flying to Sydney on March 6th, where I'll see a few visitors to this blog. Don't forget that it's my birthday on March 17th so make sure you have a few drinks for me. See you later.

Goodbye WA

Transport in Australia is a strange beastie. You can get cheap shortish-range transport such as a bus from Sydney to Canberra (> 3 hours) for just 15 dollars - under 7 quid - yet air and, in particular, long distance rail journeys are extremely expensive compared to the UK. Get this - to travel from Adelaide to Perth you can realistically either get a train or a plane. For the plane you can fly with Qantas or Virgin Blue, and it takes about two and a half hours. For the train, you sit in a single seat with nowhere to lie down for almost 2 days solid. And which costs more? Yep, you guessed it - the train. And yet people actually choose to travel on it!! You can sit and explain that one to me all day and I still won't get it.

So, what was the point in that bit of waffle? Absolutely none, I just thought I'd mention it. It probably comes from reading Mein Kampf, which is possibly the worst written book in history and is literally just pure waffle (and insanity). One amazing point about that book - it appears that the Holocaust, in which an estimated 5 million+ Jews were murdered, might have stemmed from Hitler contracting syphilis from a Jewish prostitute as a youth. Talk about holding a grudge.

So, what have I been up to? Not much is the answer, apart from topping up my tan at Cottesloe Beach. As previously advertised, I fly to Sydney on the 6th (exactly 3 months after first landing there), however I'm doing this with a tinge of regret. It'll certainly be nice to see the likes of Dez, Bev, Jon, Beth and Nick, and Sydney is great, and Dan and Holly will be plus one and I still have friends in Bondi. But the trip means I'm missing out on going up the west coast of Australia with my friends Dave & Jamie, with whom I've been travelling for the best part of 3 months. That would have been a blast - the dolphins at Monkey Mia, stromatolites at Shark Bay (oldest living microbes in the world, over 3,000 years old), and the wildlife at Coral Bay which is apparently almost as good as the Great Barrier Reef and more accessible too. Hopefully I'll get a chance to do that later, but in the meantime it's back to the hustle and bustle of Sydney for about a month.

It looks like I'm going to be spending my 31st birthday in Canberra of all places, with Lynn's friend Barbra who is a lovely lass indeed. Most travellers don't even bother to visit Canberra because its reputation is so unbelievably poor (Bill Bryson even hated it in his book, and he likes Bradford) so I'm eccentrically delighted to be spending 4 nights there and celebrating my birthday in a very original way. If nothing else I've always liked to be a bit different. Incidentally I've booked a Murray bus to get there for 15 dollars - see first paragraph.

I went to Fremantle before flying to Sydney to exchange some books and subsequently lighten my luggage load. I was rather surprised to see the QE2 leaving Fremantle harbour when I got off the train, on its last ever voyage to Dubai. What timing. A few average kodak moments later I was back on the train, the proud owner of a book called 'Danger Down Under', full of tales of woe of backpackers in Oz. How cheery.

So, my little Perth adventure is over. I loved it, it's really relaxed but can also be bustling if you got into the city centre or out anywhere at night. The trick is to get out of the city and down to one of the suburbs, preferably a beach side one. I'd love to live in a place like Fremantle, it has everything, but I think it would be too expensive for a pauper like me. Oh, and don't forget the weather in Perth which is just awesome, probably the best in Australia. You can go hotter, but why would you want to? Anything more would be too stifling. I'm hoping to come back here to work, if I can find something suitable - touch wood.

Next update from Sydney, I'll be staying in the city centre which is a first for me - should be an experience. Bye for now!