We're on to country number 8, a new hemisphere and a welcome back to 'normality' - Australia! It is nice to be back somewhere where everyone can understand us and we can understand all the signs and we're even starting to pop 'o' on the end of words and are referring to the cool box as an 'eski' :-)
We headed back to Singapore from Borneo and spent 2 nights staying with one of Chris' friends, Steve - was really great to stay in someone's house and be able to make our own brekkie and do laundry and just hang out without being in a hotel room or skanky hostel lounge! We saw a few things we hadn't on our first trip to Singapore and Steve showed us a few places we probably wouldn't have come across on our own. And we finally had cocktails at Raffles which cost more than our last 3 meals put together but it was worth the money to soak up the atmosphere and I ate my money's worth in peanuts!
We caught a plane to Perth from Singapore after much deliberation about where to start our Aussie adventure (Perth had the cheapest flights...) and arrived late on 3rd March. We spent our first day wandering the streets of Perth and enjoying seeing some recognisable things and lots more new stuff - I had an afternoon bimbling the shops on my own after Chris developed a dodgy tummy and retreated to the hostel - after 4 months in Asia and no proper illness, Chris gets ill in Oz (but prob from something in Asia admittedly)... Perth is a nice small city with lots of coffee shops and parks scattered around the city - we've had (until today) near perfect weather with the bluest sky I've seen at sea level - the lack of ozone is bad for the skin but does make some nice looking sky.
Photos are on Chris' blog: www.rootfest.com
In Asia, there are so many cheap places to stay that we'd got used to be able to completely wing our plans and just arrive in a city and wander around until we found a room to our liking... No so in Oz... Perth appears to be a bit lacking in the cheap room department and we had to relocate to Scarborough for the next 3 nights as there was nowhere in Perth to stay. The hostel was a bit ropey but it did the job and was a 15 min walk to a spectacular white sandy beach with perfect turquoise ocean so we were happy to spend the next couple of days lazing on the beach topping up the tan and jumping in the refreshing sea to cool off. Not a bad life eh? :-)
We spent one more night back in Perth before picking up our home for the next 15 days - our Wicked Campervan (www.wickedcampervans.com.au) - a cheap and cheerful graffiti-ed old banger of a van but it has space to sleep and a wee stove to cook and it's great to be able to go wherever we want all the time and not relying on buses. And even nicer to not be lugging our now full-to-bursting backpacks anywhere! We're gradually heading south from Perth and have spent the last couple of nights in Bunbury and Bussleton.
Bussleton Jetty - the longest in the Southern Hemisphere at 1.8km:
The possum who visited our table at drinks o'clock:
Right now we're set up for the night in a car park overlooking the ocean near Margaret River - Australian wine country (of course we visited a winery this afternoon and enjoyed a tasty glass of rose with our camping stove cooked dinner!).
Wednesday's nights camping spot - our van's the one in the carpark:
Surfing in Yallingup:
We're heading south and east to Albany, Esperance and then back North to Kalgorlie-Boulder before heading back west to Perth, and maybe a cheeky trip North to visit the Pinnacles desert if we have time.
Internet access is a lot more erratic and more expensive than in Asia so the reports may be a bit few and far between from now on...
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