Perth, wine and surf

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Our flight arrived around 3am and by the time we got through immigration it was about an hour later. We were wrecked and decided to take a bit of a nap before heading into the city. A few other backpackers were doing the same. I couldn't sleep but Gordon was out like a light. A couple of hours later we took a taxi to Globe Backpackers on Wellington St just in time for breakfast. We explored the city early that morning (Friday) and were amazed to see so many people cycling to work and jogging in the parks before going to the office.

We didn't do much over the next couple of days, just relaxed, got our bearings and went to see Casino Royale in the cinema which was excellent. We also started reading the Lonely Planet guide to Australia and New Zealand because this stage all we knew was that Perth is in the left hand bottom corner of Australia and Sydney is on the right!

We headed out to Fremantle and Cottesloe beach just outside the city on Sunday. We bumped into 2 of the Irish lads from Meath we've accidentally met 4 times after first meeting them in Vietnam! We're not sure who's following who but it's pretty funny how we keep meeting them unexpectedly. They're going to stay in Fremantle and look for work there but we reckon we could still meet them in Sydney sometime.

Overall I'd say Perth is a nice city but there's an edge to it. It doesn't feel all that safe with a big police presence at night and a lot of winos hanging around the streets.

On Monday we took a bus to Margaret River. The town is pretty small, only about 6000 people, but it's well known for vineyards and surfing. We took a winery tour on Tuesday with the excellent BushTucker tours and sampled wines from 5 local wineries and I even found myself buying a bottle! We had a help-yourself lunch of various local meats, bread, cheese and vegetables. The hilight was the kangaroo though. A lovely lean meat with no fat. Although I still find it a bit strange that Australians eat the meat of their national symbol - the kangaroo.

The following day we started our 3 day surf course with Josh Palmateer's surf school in Margaret River. The surf was excellent the first day and we decided to rent boards and stay on after lunch. We had a 10km walk back to the hostel so we slept pretty well that night. The next couple of days the sea was much calmer and the waves weren't half as good but it was still great fun, learned a lot and will definitely surf again as soon as possible! The last day of the surf course was Australia Day, a national holiday. The local surf club had its annual Classic boarding competition where members surf on their old boards from the 60s and 70s. We hung around to join in the barbeque and watch the competition. The boards are much harder to surf on and there's no foot leashes on them so on most waves it was a mess of bodies and surfboards flying everywhere!

We came back to Perth on Saturday to work out a plan for getting to the east coast. It's also almost time to look for a job so we've both got to dust off our CVs. We're planning to work in Sydney after driving there from Perth. Right now we're looking for a campervan relocation deal - where the hire company offers a cheap rental price because they need the campervan driven to another city. Hopefully we can head off tomorrow or the next day and not be stuck in the middle of the outback for the Ireland-Wales game on Sunday!

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Photos

the surfing beach at Margaret River
this was the calmest day in weeks, hardly any surf at all but at least it looks nice.

Comments

[fifi]

Kangaroo?!
Colum, you ATE kangaroo...what is the world coming to???!!! im most surprised and shocked! That's a funny coincidence about meeting those lads from Meath four times..No doubt you'll cross paths again...keep us informed!