Time for an update. I am currently in Freemantle ('Freo') after flying to Perth this morning. It's a beautiful, gezellige city with great architecture. The weather is gorgeous as well, which is nice after all the rain I had in Sydney the last few days. So what have I been up to lately?
After my last work day on Friday the 14th, I had one more week in Sydney that I wasn't working. I decided to get organised first and then go to Canberra for a few days. Canberra was nice. The area where the embassies were was nice, it smelled of pinewood or something. I went to see the old and teh new parliament house the first day and the National Museum of Australia on the second. The first day it was raining so heavily that I just spent a few hous in the mall before making my way back to Sydney. With the hostel (more like a lodge actually) being really, really good and friendly, this was a good trip for a few days!
Last weekend I stayed at Paul and Carla's in Rushcutters Bay (very posh and very nice!). Had lunch with Caroline on Saturday in Bondi and saw the Rolling Stones on Saturday night in the Superdome in the Olympic Park. They were just awesome, unbelievable how these four old rockers play for two hours with so much energy. Mick Jagger was just running up and down the stage, playing the audience, it was just f&*%ing brilliant. Am still excited over the fact that I saw the Stones!!!!
Sunday I met my cousins husband Mike for lunch, hadn't seen him in 1.5 years so that was nice. Went to Bondi for a farewell Thai dinner with Caro, Paul and Carla. Boohoo, leaving my friends behind and now it's just me!
Last day in Freo and time for an update. I am really enjoying this little town. Went to the beach on Tuesday ( the one on the photo) and a bottlenose dolphin came really close to me. Wow.
Yesterday I went to the Pinnacle Desert on a 4WD tour. Great seeing a bit of the outback. Dirtroads, sanddunes and everything, really cool. The pinnacles were impressive. I'd imagined there'd be about 40-50 of them, but there were thousands. Fantastic, my photo's don't do them justice. Speaking of photo's, my online album has changed: the one I was using now charges USD 23/year so I moved to Yahoo. You can now view my pics in a slideshow.
Writing from Margeret River this time. Yesterday morning I got up at 5.45am again to catch a train to Perth and from there a bus to Margaret River. It was one of these backpackers minibuses so we stopped at many places along the way. Nice crowd of Swedish, English and Irish, Played the Stones and other CD's on the way, grat fun. First we stopped at a village where dolphins are often spotted, unfortunately not yesterday. From there to a bakery to buy lunch and off to the beach for an hour to eat lunch and swim and chill. In the afternoon we did some winetasting and had a glass of champers at some very cool surf spot, in Yaningup or something. Some people on the bus left MR this morning, me and some others staid for an extra night. All went to the pub for dinner last night, good fun. This morning I went canoeing with Susie, Martin, Fin and Steve, from Ireland and England. Our guide told a lot about the region and its first settlers, very interesting. The canoeing went well, apart from the first minute: Steve, Fin and I set the record by falling out of our canoe within 30 seconds. Pretty stupid but very funny. After a bit of canoeing on the river we went to a bushwalk up the hill for some good views and to visit a cave. Then more canoeing and a bushtucker lunch that consisted of worms paste (which wasactually very yummy), smoked emu, smoked kanga and all sorts of berries en things that you can find on the beach and in the bush all over Australia. Quite interesting. Tonight it's off to the pub again for a few pints, and I''ll move on tomorrow, to Denmark for the night. It's a shame I can only see so little of WA this time, will definitely have to come back to do Darwin-Perth some time.
Arrived in Perth last night after a great trip in the south west. From Margaret River, I went to Denmark, where I stayed in a very nice hostel called Blue Wren Traveller's Rest. Denmark is a very pretty small village. The Swedish couple (Victor and Frida) and I both stayed in Denmark for the night and decided to have an early dinner together and go cycling the next morning. Graham, the hostel owner, lend us his mountain bikes and we cycled part of the Bibbulung (or something) track. Great cycling, through the forests and bush and leading to the sea. Went for a dip in the ocean on a stunning little beach before cycling back. Saw some wallabies on the way back! We made a good salad for lunch, and off we went: walking the river track this time. Also very pretty. We had to catch the bus at 5 pm to Albany. Shame leaving Denmark, it was a very special hostel and Graham was the kindest guy, very relaxed and well travelled and very interested in the people in his hostel.
Albany was nice but not special. The chocolate cake welcome in the hostel was though! Very nice. Victor and Frida and I had dinner together and then watched Priscilla with some other people in the hostel. Off to to pub for a pint and another early night (nature does this to you!). The next morning cooked breakfast for us, a very nice Geordie couple in their fifties and a cool English bloke called Rob. Was good fun and a good way to start a long day of travelling. The airco in the bus didn't work so with 35 degrees plus, this wasn't very nice. Finally got to Perth around seven. Checked into The Underground, a big hostel with A/C and pool. The Swedes will be staying for two nights, me for four. Have three days in Perth now, discover this city that is supposed to be brilliant!
