So... after a gap of a few days I've finally found the time to get on with this blog again. The day after the last post Agnes arrived in Alice Springs. We didn't really see much of the sights of Alice and basically just had a relaxing day before going off on a tour into the Red Centre of Australia the following day. We departed at stupid hours in the morning (something that was going to get all too familiar over the next few days), and after an unseemly amount of faffing about with the luggage, started on the long [View Full Entry]

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So here I am in Alice Springs for a couple of days before heading off to Uluru/ Ayers Rock. I arrived at Haven Backpackers, and my first thought was that I was way out from the city centre. It turns out that I am actually still only about 15 minutes walk away from almost everything. This place is a million miles away from Perth and Adelaide! It has a very still and dusty feel to it, and I saw far fewer people on the streets, in fact in places it felt almost like a ghost town. The buildings are all low [View Full Entry]

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So, here I am on my final day in Adelaide. I had a fairly lazy start to the day, getting up a tad later than usual to catch up on sleep, and the rest of the morning catching up on writing the previous two blog entries. Feeling hungry I wandered off to find some food (a burrito) and then on to the South Australian Museum. In many ways this was quite similar to the West Australian Museum, with various displays of Aboriginal artifacts (a whole load of spears, boomerangs, shields, digging sticks and other items), stuffed animals from around the world [View Full Entry]

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Hello, This entry covers two days. It seems to make sense to do that as it basically covers my two day tour of Kangaroo Island. This is Australia's third largest island (after Tasmania and uh... another one). It is in fact not named because of all the kangaroos there (kangaroos are found everywhere in Australia), but because of it's separation from the mainland and absence of Aborigines. This meant that when Europeans discovered it, the kangaroos had no fear response to humans and therefore were particularly easy to hunt and eat. The early European discoverers therefore named it after their [View Full Entry]

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Hi, I've been quite busy over the past three days but now I have my final day in Adelaide for a bit of R and R before going to Alice Springs. The day after my last update I took a day trip to the Barossa Valley, which is where a large amount of Australia's wine is produced. After the pickup from outside the hostel we drove out of Adelaide through the very scenic, almost European looking countryside of the Adelaide Hills and onto the Barossa Valley. It was quite strange to look at, being all green hills and trees- it seemed [View Full Entry]

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Hello everybody, So now I've had my first night and first day in Adelaide. After posting the last blog I went off to a bar called The Grace Emily, basically just intending it to be a quick beer as a nightcap before bed. Happily it turned out to be open-mic night with a large number of bands on (each only doing a couple of songs) so I hung around for a bit longer, since quite a few of them were decent enough. As an unexpected bonus (what with my general absence of social skills and all) I got chatting to [View Full Entry]

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Hello folks, Not a massive amount to say today I'm afraid. The main thing is that I have said goodbye to Perth and Western Australia, and hello to Adelaide and South Australia. I got in too late to do a whole lot here- just had some food and uploaded the past week and a bits photos because I ran out of time last night. Well, hopefully more to say tomorrow as I'll check out Adelaide and see what trips I can book for the next few days. [View Full Entry]

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I have finally caught up with the blogs and am actually writing this one about today. Not that I have a whole lot to say. I spent the morning with more blog writing, checked out of the Norfolk Hotel and came back to Perth. I had a few hours before I could check in to the new place, so took a quick wander into Perth City Centre where I saw a bit of a Christmas Parade, including Santa. Frankly, in this weather the whole thing just seemed wrong and weird. I also popped into Woolworths like I promised to back in [View Full Entry]

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And here I was again, back in Fremantle for the start of my first day after the tour. But here with a good reason- more scuba diving! I was off for a trip to the waters around Rottnest Island, which is just Dutch for 'Rat's Nest' Island because (apparently) of all the quokkas which are a particularly ratty looking species of kangaroo that live there. Not that I got to see any. I guess they are not noted for their underwater swimming ability. Well, any of you with a big jealousy thing going on because of the manta rays and whatnot [View Full Entry]

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I think for this entry I will merge two days together. These two days were basically just the return journey- having leisurely wound our way up from Perth to Exmouth over five days and taking in the sights along the way, we now had two days to cover the same distance. The first day was almost exclusively spent in the bus, just with fuel/ toilet/ food breaks. By the end we had passed from the 'bush' landscape which had been so prevalent over the past few days into an area of arable farmland. In fact we actually spent the night at [View Full Entry]

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