G'day Straaaalia!

Streuth, throw a shrimp on the barbie, head to the sunday sess at the Cott, sporting thongs and tank tops, to open a couple of tinnies with the local bogons (mullet heads). No wukkas though as off on a roady tomorrow arvo ...

As you can see we've arrived safely in Perth and already learnt the lingo.

Perth is a really nice, but quiet, city. It was good to be back amongst English speakers - albeit ones with funny accents! We spent our first days wandering the sights and chilling in King's Park. King's Park was lovely - really pretty with amazing views over the city. The nightlife here was almost non-existant though - we know it's winter but everything was closed by 10pm!

After 2 days we hit the road, but rather than take an organised tour we copied their itinerary, dropped the boring stuff and hired a 'wicked' campervan! Unfortunately we had to hang around until 3pm to collect it and it turned out not to be so wicked afterall, so we complained (luckily we'd perfected that art in Asia), got a refund and hired a nicer, bigger, better equipped camper for less money down the road! So the first day of our 'roady' was a bit of a wash out as we only got as far as Freemantle but we did take to life on the open road with Ali relishing the opportunity to cook for the first time in 2 months - even if it was on a tiny gas powered stove!

So, onto Margaret River - the heart of Western Australian wine making (not sure what was drawing us there) - with a few stops along the way: Busselton where we walked the longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere (2km); the 'Ngilgi Caves'; and the 'Leeuwin Naturaliste National Park' (that's naturaliste, not naturist!). Once in Margaret River we discovered the difference between a campsite and a campsh*te. The latter having the additional attraction of its Wayne and Waynetta type residents! Still it was an excuse to wander into town for a couple of cocktails in preparation for our wine-tasting tomorrow...

... and wine tasting we did! Starting at 10am with a trip to the famous Xanadu and taking in 6 of the best wineries (that's what they call them here) we had 55 tastings - the equivalent of 11 glasses! Unfortunately the early start meant the first few glasses tasted of vintage Colgate, but otherwise they were all yummy! There was also a gourmet lunch at Voyager (best winery in the country) with another glass of wine, a mid-afternoon picnic plus tastings at the local cheese and chocolate factories. All making for a great day and lots of new favourite wines! We also got to see plenty of wildlife along the way, including our first kangaroo sighting - complete with a joey in it's pouch (which briefly made Steve feel guilty about eating, and enjoying, bbq skippy the night before!).

Once our hangovers had subsided the following morning we headed further south to Walpole with a couple of impromptu stops at Cape Leeuwin (the most south westerly point of Australia where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet) and Augusta where we went on a whale watching cruise after stopping for petrol and being told the bay was full of Southern Rights and their calves. We saw quite a few and they're huge - 18m long and weighing in at around 80 tonnes!

Next up was a drive through the 'Karri Valley' (and no Sam, it didn't rid Ali of her desire to see the petrified forest!), took in 'Beedulup National Park' and waterfalls and thought about climbing the 'Bicentennial' and 'Gloucester' trees ... although it was only the briefest of thoughts once we realised they were 61m high and there were no safety rails! In fact, just steel spikes sticking out of the tree. Being told that the only deaths have been through heart attacks and not people falling still didn't persuade us!

The next day brought a drive through the 'Valley of Giants' and a walk across the 'Treetop Walk' - a 40m high platform through the Giant Tingle (Eucalyptus) trees, as well as a walk through the 'Ancient Empire' - more giant old trees! Bored of trees by now we headed to Denmark stopping at several of the area's pristine and perfect beaches along the way - the highlight of the day (for Steve anyhow) was Ali slipping on the rocks at 'Green's Pool' and falling, fully clothed, into the sea!!!

Once dry we headed to Albany and watched the Humpback whales from the beach. Huge, impressive looking creatures though they were only calves (the mothers abandon them to make them form their own pod in the safety of the shallows - and the reason they hit their tails on the sea is to call their mums back - awwww).

Enroute to Esperance, our southern most destination, we stopped by the 'Natural Bridge' and the 'Gap' - coastal rock formations that really do make you realise that "there's nowt so powerful as the sea". We also took in the Cape Le Grand National Park - one of our favourite places so far with its beautiful scenery and cool wildlife (kangaroos lazing on the beach etc); the Ocean Drive - with imaginatively named 9 mile, 10 mile and 11 mile beaches; plus the Pink Lake which wasn't at all pink!!!

And so it was time to leave the coast and head inland ;-( As the drive to 'Wave Rock', our intended destination, was quite a long one we thought we'd break it up by stopping at Lake King - which looked quite a big place on the map ... however when we got there we quickly discovered it wasn't! Whilst we've seen our share of one-horse towns on this trip we can only describe this as a no-horse town! The caravan park was self-serve and was completely deserted with tumbleweed blowing and the only thing nearby was a trucker's stop - you could almost hear the horror movie audience screaming "don't do it" at the screen! We got back on the road pretty sharpish - despite the late hour and the 200 km journey to the next town!

Wave Rock, which funnily enough is a rock that looks like a breaking wave, was great - although Steve spent ages trying to work out exactly how many kitchen work surfaces a 15m high 100m long granite slab would make! We also wanted to visit the original 'rabbit proof fence' after Ali saw the film on the plane - not sure if we saw it though as there were loads of fences around!

We stopped overnight in Rockingham before heading to the 'Pinnacles' Desert (thousands of limestone pillars rising out of the yellow sand to the North of Perth - very eerie) so we could meet up with an old school friend of Ali's, Lee, and her husband Rob who emigrated over here 10 years ago. Ali hadn't seen Lee for 13 years so it was great to catch up, though poor Steve and Rob having to listen in on 13 years of gossip! We went to their local pub in Baldivis where we had a lovely meal and a few drinks, before being chucked out around 10pm as they wanted to close up!

Finally, Freemantle (back where we started 3,200km ago!) and the Coogee Beach Caravan Park - we arrived at around 8.30pm only to be lectured about the late hour and how they really shouldn't let us in as we'd wake the other residents!

We've had a really good time here, even though Perth (well actually the whole of Western Australia) is not so much a city that never sleeps as one that struggles to get out of bed - perhaps they are the opposite of vampires and allergic to darkness?! In fairness we didn't spend a weekend in the city so it probably wakes up then?!