It's good to know that, no matter what happens, you can always trust used car salesmen.

We left Exmouth on Tuesday - did NOT want to leave - and made the journey back down south to Perth (grr). We passed over the Tropic of Capricorn again which was pretty cool - on the east side of Australia the Tropic of Capricorn passes near Rockhampton which we travelled through near the beginning of our trip.
On the way we spent the night in Geraldton in an RSL guesthouse, whch had been advertised as budget accommodation but was actually a place for patients with dementia. There were about three older gentleman that were quite harmless but needed constant supervision or else they might wander off, which is exactly what they did, but never got far. It was also one of the best rooms we've ever stayed in and the lady was super nice - she gave us more towels and soaps then we could ever use.
(I should also mention that we finally washed our car for the first time - it had dirt on it all the way from Cairns!)
On the next part of our journey to Perth we stopped at the Pinnacles. That was really awesome to see. It's basically a huge area with thousands of rock columns sticking up out of the dirt. What a sight.
This time we had pre-booked our hostel in Perth and got a decent hostel just one block from the beach. Didn't spend any time there though because we had major work to do - that is, selling our car. So we got up bright and early to start our car-selling. Went first to a fancy Holden dealer just to see what they thought the car would be worth.... not good news.... they sent us to an OK kind of place who then sent us to a super crappy place. Hmmmm. Yeah, the outlook wasn't great. The car is in really good condition however there is the slight problem of it having Queensland licence plates and in Western Australia that's a big deal. The dealers would not touch it without WA plates. So, seeing as we had no time left to sell our car privately, a dealer was pretty much our only option. We had no other choice but to go to "The Pits" - and, let me tell you, The Pits are absolutely brutal. It's the government inspection place where they check over your car before they'll allow you to put on a WA plate and register the car in this state. The line-up was insane - cars queued all the way down the street.... It's also possible to wait for the whole day without them ever even getting to your car. At one point the "STOP, Sorry we might not get to you today" sign was placed right behind our car.... PHEW! Which was great for us, but sucky for the guy behind us. (Actually only about 5 cars ended up getting through after us that day - still PHEW!) So after our 5-hour wait we finally made it to the inspector. The news wasn't bad but wasn't really good either - there was about $450 in repairs required to be done before they could allow it to pass (nothing major but 2 new tires, a something-or-other switcheroo so people can't steal your car and some kind of joint thing on one of the wheels).
So our only option then was to find a mechanic who could fix it the next day, then take it back to The Pits for a re-inspection on Monday and sell the car somehow before we fly out Monday night.
Waiting in line at The Pits wasn't all bad though - we got to complain with the locals, all united in our annoyance with the WA government. We also met an Iraqi guy named Hassan who was really interesting to talk to. He actually came over to Australia a few years back as a refugee and was smuggled into the country on a ship. He's done quite well for himself here though and is going back to Iraq for his arranged marriage later this year (he's OK with the girl his parents have chosen) and bring her back to Australia because he'll hopefully have his citizenship by then. He was really nice and also gave us lots of advice on selling our car.
So that was Thursday.
Also Thursday, while feeling the time crunch, Brad and I had decided to talk to the used-car salesman next door to the mechanic shop. We agreed on a price (however he would still only buy with WA plates, so we had no choice but to get the repairs done the next day and will have go back to the pits on Monday and wait another x many hours for the reinspection.) The price we agreed on isn't ideal but we figure it was still cheaper than renting a car for 3 months, so can't really complain.

Friday we went to the mechanic bright and early. He figured it would take all day to fix so we took the train to nearby Freemantle (Freo) - a really nice, funky smaller city on the edge of Perth. We just spent the day walking around town, did some souvenier shopping and waited for the call saying our car was ready and would now cost $1000 to fix. Luckily that wasn't the case but the car was ready on time and at the original estimated price.
Then we rushed off to Bunbury, a city about 2 1/2 hours south - well, we tried to rush but traffic was so terrible that we crawled for about an hour and were still stuck in the city. Finally made it out and headed to my relatives' house near Bunbury.
I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I have cousins in Australia - whom I've never met actually! Brad and I had called up my cousin Helena a couple of weeks ago and we arranged to visit them for the weekend after we got back to Perth. We got to meet Helena and her husband Andrew and their five kids - David, Elisa, Serena, Johnathan and Christopher. How awesome was that! We had such an amazing time with them. It was so much fun playing with the kids and getting to know Helena and Andrew. On Saturday we all drove over to Bunbury and had a picnic lunch overlooking the Indian Ocean and Bunbury harbour. We went up the lookout tower for a nice view of the city, walked around the downtown a little (had some excitement putting out an urban wildfire) and then headed to the beach. The weather was perfect and the waves were so much fun. The kids couldn't get enough of body-surfing on the waves and finding "treasures" along the beach. Then we ate fish and chips for supper and watched the sunset over the Indian Ocean (the first time Brad and I have done that actually!). All in all, it was the perfect day and we probably had the most fun we've had in a very long time. The kids are just awesome and a total blast and we'll really miss them when we go.
Tomorrow is Sunday and after church with my cousins Brad and I are heading closer to Perth again to meet my other cousins that I don't think I've ever met either (when you have over 300 immediate relatives on your mother's side you kind of lose track!). I'm sure it will be great too and we can't wait.

So, yeah, we fly out again on Monday night to Sydney, spend 4 days there and then it's off to NZ for 2 more weeks, this time to the south island, before we fly back to Canada. We really feel like the trip is starting to wind down - only 3 weeks left!

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Part of trip: Australia, New Zealand, Fiji - 2006-2007

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