Australia

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Australia

The internet has been very sparse since we arrived in this country, so I will start by doing a bit of catch up - again.

We arrived in Perth around 11 pm and we both fell in love with the place as our taxi drove us to the hotel. The city is so quite, clean, orderly and English speaking that we could feel ourselves start to relax. By daylight, the city is even prettier, but admittedly, a bit busier. We spent the first day wandering around the area, following a walking tour; spent a fair bit of time in the street mall area and by the mouth of the Swan River. Next day we hiked up to Kings Park where we spent most of the day. It overlooked the city and ocean area and had lots of walking paths through the bush area and gardens. By the time we returned to the hotel we were both tired.

On the 30th of Dec. we picked up our rented car. It is a red Toyota Celica which looks nice, but isn’t the best highway car out there. But it will do. We headed towards Albany on the South Coast, with the idea of stopping overnight at one of the small communities along the way. Needless to say, we wound up in Albany as there wasn’t much for accommodations along the way. That made for a 5 to 6 hour drive. Spent our first night in Albany in a motel which cost big bucks. The next two nights we where in a Youth Hostel which only cost $65 buts has shared washrooms and kitchen facilities. Being able to cook our own meals is going to save us some $$.

Albany is a pretty little place with about 25500 people. It was a whaling town until the industry was shut down in the 1980’s. This is where we spent New Years Eve, with nothing to do. The town put on a show for the kids that we watched for about 5 minutes and then we wandered around. At midnight we watched the 20 minute fireworks show from our room window. The next day we toured the old whaling factory…the whole whaling process really was brutal…and then did some sight seeing. Not much else to do as the town closed up early because of the holiday, not even any coffee shops or restaurants open.

Today is the 2nd of January and we are in Walpole, about a 2 hour drive west of Albany. Another small town, with nothing open because it is Sunday. In fact, at 5 pm we went looking for a grocery store to buy some food for dinner, an nothing was open. A hamburger and fries had to do.

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