Surfing and Strippers

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On arriving at Perth airport, I met Chris who I would be staying with for the week, and Melissa, his daughter. They gave me a lift back to Chris' place where I met Ilka (Chris' wife) and their dog: Ali. They were all really lovely people, and had all sorts of crazy luxuries, from a private room with a double bed, and a swimming pool, to conditioner and fluffy towels. That evening Ilka proved to be an awesome cook, making rice with 3 choices of curry, fish, and some weird things which I had almost forgotten about called vegetables. The next day I spent the afternoon in Perth where I ran into 2 girls who I had met in Cairns, and as I had nothing much to do, I went with them to see the new Harry Potter movie, which was ok.

After chilling in Perth for a day I decided to actually do something proper, so I caught the bus and train over to Scarborough beach, where I hired a surfboard for a few hours and played about attempting to teach myself to surf, getting knocked about and swallowing about a kilo of sand and half the sea in the process. Towards the end I had nearly got it - I could stand up, but only for about half a second, but then it got too windy to be much good, so I took the board back, booked a couple of lessons and chilled on the beach for a while. When the wind had got strong enough to make the sand painfully stinging I decided that lying down was no longer a viable activity, and so went back to the surf shop where the guy on the desk pointed me towards City Beach, and assured me it was a 10 minute drive and I couldn't possibly walk it. Half way there I stopped off and went swimming, watched a kitesurfer playing in the waves for a while and then walked the final bit to City Beach (a walk that couldn't have been more than 4k total). Once there I had about an hour to kill before Chris finished work and gave me a lift back. That evening Ilka made some lovely pasta, and I went to bed at about 8, as my first surf lesson was the next day at 7am, meaning I would have to be up at 5 to get to Scarborough in time.

The next day I was up very early, and got a train and a bus over to Scarborough, where I met Louie, our instructor for the day. He gave us all 8"6' boards, and we headed down onto the beach. Once there he gave us a talk on how surfers are all "cruisy" and there was no need to rush. Then he showed us how to catch a wave, and we all headed out to sea to practise bodyboarding for a little while (very easy), before getting back on the beach to learn how to stand up. The way he showed us of jumping up was a lot easier and simpler than my method of scrambling about and falling off, and once we were in the water I was up on the third try, and managed to surf all the way in after about 10minutes. We were only surfing the white water, but it was still awesome and extremely fun. After that me, and the guy who had been second in the class to stand up, joined the "advanced" group, where the instructor (I forget his name) helped us to get up more reliably, as well as read the waves, which was very much like launching a dinghy, except when the big waves come you go for it. Then after about 2 1/2 hours, the lesson was over and the waves had dropped so I headed back to Perth for the afternoon. That evening Chris and Ilka took me on a tour of Perth, stopping off at Rosie O'Gradies for a drink and Kings Park, which had a nice view over the city at night.

The second and final of my surf lessons was at a more reasonable hour so I didn't have to get up until 7.30, and this time I was put in the day 3 group, and therefore got a smaller board (8 foot). Whilst carrying it down to the beach I thought I had stood on a thorn so paused to take it out and found a wasp busy stinging my foot, which made walking the rest of the way to the beach fairly painful but it was ik once we were in the water. The 8" board turned out to be a bit harder to stand up on but felt much better and had more manoeuvrability, meaning that by the end of the lesson Jala had taught me to turn the board, although I can only turn to the left reliably. Then, on the final wave in I managed to hit a stopper just before I jumped up and swallowed a ridiculous amount of sand, so my throat was quite sore for a while. After surfing I went over to Fremantle where I went round the markets and had an awesome organic donut, before meeting Ilka, who gave me a tour of Fremantle, including a delicious icecream shop which rolled real waffles up to make cones for their icecream. That evening I went out with Melissa to a hen party for a girl called Claire. Courtney, the organiser, had decorated up her house for it, made very strong vodka jelly shots, and everyone had brought food and alcohol. We played "Head Jobs" (where you have to guess what person is on the card stuck to your head - think stripper, madam, prostitute, Hugh Heffner), pass-the-parcel, with flavoured condoms in each layer, and penis slippers as the prize in the middle. Then, as we were about to start pin the penis on the hunk, the stripper turned up in full army regalia. After he left most of the girls left to go out clubbing, and me and Melissa hung out with Courtney's parents for a while for Nathan (Melissa's husband) to pick us up.

The next day was fairly chilled out; we started off by going to watch Justin and Christine's daughter - Samara - dancing, then went to get a drink at a nearby shopping centre. On the way there, we were sitting in a queue of traffic when an idiot woman in a black car pulled out from a side road, across the traffic, and made to go across the second lane to turn right. Unfortunately she didn't look as she pulled out, and so the P-plater in an old Commodore doing 70k in the second lane went straight into the side of her without time to brake. This delayed us a bit as Chris gave the p-plater his details, and checked on the woman, her father and son, but although everyone was a bit hurt, noone fatally so and there was loads of people about, so we went to get coffee with Christine and the others. Afterwards we chilled at Justin and Christine's for a bit with Samara and Floyd, then later in the day me, Melissa and Nathan went out to Northbridge - which Nathan was scared of doing as it is the "rough" part of Perth, but it was fine. We started off having a few drinks in the Elephant and Wheelbarrow with a few of their friends, before having lovely Thalis at Maya Masala.

Then, on my last day, me, Chris and Ilka went into South Perth to chill with one of their friends who was pretty cool, before going to catch the prospector train out to Kalgoorlie to see Pam.

K xx

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Photos

Brighton Beach
They stole our beach!

Perth At Night
View from Kings Park