Australia: WA

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HI!

After a really lovely last few days in NZ Jack and I went our seperate ways around the world; Jack to Bali and me to Australia!

Western Australia is easily one of the nicest places I've been - the landscapes are amazing and the temperature is lovely and hot. I spent the 1st few days in and around Perth, spending lots of time with people I met in the hostel. This included going to various beaches, markets, the shops and Kings Park (you get the loveliest views of the city from it). I also did the cultural thing of going to the art gallery and WA musuem - it was intersting to learn about the Aboriginal culture, it's totally different from the Maori's in NZ, and really makes you realise how cruel the 1st English settlers were when they arrived here.

I then started on one of my many tours. The 1st one took me up north to Exmouth. This involved 7 days of driving (it was about 3,600km round trip) but saw amazing things. We started off with the Pinnacle which are basically finger shaped rocks coming up from the ground; went sandboarding (where I got incredibly sandy!); walked through various gorges, saw amazing rocks; went to many beaches where the sea was lovely and warm (was like sitting in a bath!); saw dolphins incredibly close up; and visited the stramatolites. The main highlight of the trip has to be the the snorkelling with mantaray, turtles, big fish, and reef sharks! absolutely amazing to see in the water. On the way back I prepared myself for Alice Springs by sleeping out in a swag (a mattress with a cover used for sleeping out under the stars). It was terrifying! On the way back to Perth we actually left Australia and stopped in at Hutt River Provence which is its own country. There we met Prince Leonard and got our passports stamped and had a tour of his country. His farm became a country in the 1970's when he found laws to get around the fact that the government wanted to reduce the amount of crops that they would purchase form the farmers. He is a really bizarre man! ALong the way I saw loads of kangaroos - they are really cute!

my next tour took me south of Perth, down to Margret River and Albany. Here we visited an absolutley amazing cave which was full of stalagmites and stalactites, it was really stunning. There were loads of beaches and rocks along the way. In Margret River we went beer and chocolate tasting, and at 9.30am we went wine tasting - a good way to start the day! The weather turned rubbish (wet and windy and cold - had to wear a jumper!) so I didn't climb very high on the 61m Gloucest Tree (there isn't much to keep you onto the tree) but did walk along a tree top walk which gave amazing views of really big trees. In Albany we visited more wineries, saw more amazing rocks with the waves crashing over them, and more beaches!

Tomorrow I head off to Alice Springs to do a 3 days tour to Ayers Rock, and then it's onto Cairns to meet Jenny! But today I'm going back to the beach to watch the surf compition again - it's a hard life! xxx

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