G'Day from WA!

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Before we left for our West Coast adventure we tried our hand at Boomerang painting! We were given the workshop free after we booked some trips for the East Cost. We were there nice and early, as we had to check our that day anyways, and had the whole place to ourselves for quite a while. We were given plain boomerangs and lots of designs and symbols to look at so that we could choose a design. We were told how the Aboriginal people use the designs to tell a story and therefore we decided to tell the story of our trip so far. We traced the outline of the boomerang onto paper first so that we could have a go at a few designs and once we were happy start the painting. We had to do couple of base coats but there was a big fan to dry them off quickly. After the base coats were dry we could start decorating. This took some time as we had lots of little symbols and dots and kept having to wait for different colours to dry in between. After we were all done we had them varnished and left them to dry while we had some lunch and sorting things out for our flight. The guy who was teaching us about the symbols and meanings was saying how good it was that a lot of foreign people come along and take the time to learn about the aboriginal culture and way of life as most Australians just don't care which is pretty sad really.

We had to be at the Airport for 5pm and luckily the train station was right outside our hostel so it was a pretty easy trip. It was a 5 and a half our flight over to Perth and was a pretty uneventful flight. There were TV's on the backs of all the seats which gave us a brief moment of joy until we were told that you had to pay $10 to watch them! So all we could watch was the flight information for 5 hours and another listen to the same old music on our Ipod's... We arrived at midnight Perth time and took a taxi to our hostel, the taxi driver did get a little lost but we made it safely in the end.

Our first day in Perth we made our way into the city to meet our friends Ross and Kay, those of you with good memories will remember that we met them in the Cook Islands. We spent the day looking for a campervan to hire as we were planing on spending the next week driving around the southwest. We didn't have too much luck with the campervan hunt and ended up with a Stationwagon and camping set! Nice and cheap though.
That evening we were invited to stay the night at Kim's Dad's cousin Linda's house who lives just outside Perth. We met her at the train station and were taken to meet the family. They put on a huge BBQ for us and her daughters and brother and his wife all came round to visit. It was a really nice evening and afterwards we had the best night's sleep we have had in ages in the nice comfy bed!

The next day we made our way back to the city to meet Ross and Kay and pick up the Station wagon! What a beauty she was! A lovely mint green Ford Falcon. (Well, mint green under the layer of dirt and grime...) After signing lots of forms we had a look at the car and Ross noticed that both the back tyres were very worn down so we had them changed then pointed out every single scratch we could see. Which was alot.... Now we got in and quickly noticed that the roof lining had been stapled back up and she had defiantly seen better days! But she had character at least. Maybe the character of a hobo... We decided to name her Betty.

We headed down to Mandurah for our first night and got eaten alive by mosquitoes before we could even spray the repellent on us! After covering ourselves in layers of DEET we managed to get the tents up and Joe and Ross took charge of the Veggie BBQ while Kim and Kay went on the Beer run! They found a drive through Liquor Store where you pulled up and you got served at the window!

The next day we headed to Bunbury and stopped off at a place called Busstleton on the way for some lunch. After putting up the tents in Bunbury we headed to the beach. The beach's in this area are very calms. There are a lot less people in the west compared to the east so the beaches are pretty empty and you can get miles of sand to yourself if you're lucky! We lazed around on the beach for a few hours and had a swim in the Indian Ocean before heading back. We went into town that night and had a few drinks while watching some bands. A nice and chilled out evening! The next morning we had a game of mini-golf at the camp site, (we came joint last 😞 ) and had fun on the jumping pillow!

The next town along was Dunsborough which has an amazing bay and more beautiful beaches. We spent some time looking for somewhere that Joe could watch the Carling Cup final on TV but had no success! The pubs close at 10pm on a sunday and kick off was at 12am! So we decided to cut our losses and find a camp site in Maragret River. A lot of Australian wine is made in this area. We wanted to do some wine tasting but couldn't find anywhere free so decided to go to the fudge factory instead! We found found probably the best beach we have been on since we have been away called Redgate beach which is just south of Maragret River. We parked up and walked a short path to see a huge beach with only 2 other people on it! We went for a swim and body surfed in the waves but Kim kept getting knocked over because they were huge! As we were getting towards the point where the Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean meet, the water is noticeably colder here! We spent 2 nights in Margaret river as it was such a nice area.

So our plan from here was to head on down to Augusta and then across to Albany. We got to August fairly quickly but there wasn't really alot there so we headed east to Albany. Unfortunately the Map Book that the car hire place gave us was a bit out of date and we ended up going a bit far inland. I guess the towns we passed through are a bit off the beaten track and so not many backpackers would really get to see them! So in that way it was good... It was a long drive to Albany, but Betty was holding up well despite her knackered transmission, shuddery brakes, dodgy steering and oil leak. We made it to the Valley of the Giants tree top walked just in time for it to close so we found a camp site near by so we could go there the next day.

The camp site was an eco camp site near the edge of a forest and there was only 2 other people camping there, so it was quite eerily quiet apart from the wind! We walked down through the trees at dusk to see the Kangaroo's but we couldn't get a good photo as they kept hopping off! It got really dark and we forgot a torch and almost got lost on the way back to the tent, but clearly we made it in the end! It was a very windy night and the next morning we made our way to the tree top walk.

The walk takes you on a steel walkway through the tops of the Red Tingle trees which only grow withing a small 10km area in this part of Australia. The walkway went up to 40m high and swayed a bit in the wind! Because it was a steel mesh walkway you could see right down to the floor. Pretty cool! We also went on a guided walk through the forest and learned lots of things about trees!! You can also stand in some of the tree's that have been burned in previous forest fires and you get an idea of how big these trees are!

It wasn't far to Albany after that and found a camp site with a pool! We decided to treat ourselves and went to a cafe for some food. Unfortunately the food portions were only enough to feed a small mouse with a small appetite but the price was that of a 5 course banquet! Being totally livid with this we did manage to get 1 small extra portion of chips, which was still rubbish. The weather wasn't that great so we had a swim and played in the games room and headed to the pub. We didn't stay long though as it was $8.50 (over 4 pounds) for a pint!!!! For our second day in Albany we went and took in some sights along the coast. The cliffs and naturally eroded bridge were pretty spectacular to see. We went to "Whaleworld" but it turned out to be a museum about whaling so we decided not to go in! After the extortionate price we payed for food the night before we had a cheap evening and watched a film in the TV room before emerging to find pouring rain and a huge thunderstorm! This entertained us for a few hours as we watched the lightening over the sea. Luckily the rain eased off over night as the tents weren't the most waterproof things in the world!

We got up early the next day as we had to head up towards Perth (about 500 Km's away!). We were getting pretty good at packing the car up though so didn't take long before we were underway. We found a campsite in Mandurah which is about 45 mins south of perth and spent the afternoon on the beach and swimming in the sea. We did plan to watch the sunset but it got really cloudy which put a dampener on that! We sat around and ate all our left over food (mostly noodles) and had a few beers.

We dropped Betty off at 1 o'clock the next day in Perth and checked into our hostel. That night we went out to a vegetarian restaurant run by Hare Krishna's which had the policy of "Eat to your heart's content and pay what your heart feels". Which was pretty good for us! The food was really good and we each paid a fair price. Sunday was mothers day, lucky for us we did remember our lovely mothers so gave them a call in the evening, but during the day we took a trip to Fremantle. We rocked up at the train station and went to put our money in the machine to get a ticket but saw a piece of paper covering it and we thought it must be out of order. A quick glance along the station and we noticed all of the ticket machines had this on them before we realised that because it was bank holiday weekend the trains were free! Bargain!

Fremantle (or Freo as the Aussies call it) entertained us for a couple of hours. It's by the sea with a nice harbour and some cool markets. We got some chips from the "Award winning fish and chip shop" but they were rubbish. Just frozen chips from the supermarket! Ice Cream made up for the disappointment (sorbet for Joe, dairy allergies and all).

So 3rd March, 3rd March, what is so special about the 3rd of March? Well for weeks leading up all Joe head was "It's my birthday in (insert number of days here) days!" So yes, it was Kim's birthday! (23... old girl now!) We went to the Soundwave Festival in Perth. We took the train there (sadly not free today) and followed the crowd of people to the Oval where it was being held as we didn't know how to get there. We joined a maaaaaaaaasive queue and stood in the sun, which was already baking hot at 11am, before hearing an announcement of: "Anyone over 18 with ID please come to the front of the queue." So we walked straight in! We had a look round at the usual festival stalls and found some shade with a perfect view of one of the stages. After watching a terrible Australian band, perhaps the worst band ever (A Morning at Elmwood), we saw Madina Lake and Sugarcult before making our way over to the mellow stage and watching City and Colour. Dallas Green was on top form and had the singer from SAOSIN onstage for a duet as well as singing along to Plain White T's who were on the main stage while he was tuning.

We went and got some over-priced festival food. We saw a bit of Scary Kids Scaring Kids who were recommended to us by a guy who worked at the bed bug infested hostel in Brisbane. We found a good spot in front of Stage 1 and watched Thursday. Dallas Green made his second appearance of the day in Alexisonfire who were awesome. Half of the PA broke during the set so they turned all of their on-stage monitors around so the crowd could hear better. It was fixed eventually by the panic stricken stage crew, and Incubus were up next, amazing as always. Final band of the night were The Offspring who were brilliant. We sang along to every song and had croaky voices that night and the next day!

We managed to get the train back without having to pay for a ticket as there were so many people everyone was just allowed to walk through. We tried to get some food in the city centre but everywhere was closed so we had to settle for crisps and orange juice! After such a hot and sweaty day having a shower back at the hostel felt good but we couldn't go to sleep straight away even though we were tired as we had to pack for our flight to Cairns and Ross and Kay had to fly to Singapore so there were 4 of us trying to pack in our tiny room.

We said our emotional goodbyes to Kay & Ross (again!) and waved them off to their bus to the airport. We fly to Cairns tonight via a short stop in Melbourne before making our way down the east coast. We just checked the weather, and guess what.... there is a monsoon! So we might be a bit wet in our next blog......

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Photos

Finished!
Kim's at the top, Joe's at the bottom

Road trip day 1....
Safety Bay (the sun was bright, not a nuclear explosion...)

Us and Betty
Ford Falcon, 300,000 KM's, Oil Leak, Coolant Leak, Broken Steering, Dodgy Breaks, Roof lining stapled on, Steering wheel covered in Duct Tape, Drink's petrol and no CD player.... what a beauty!

playing mini golf....
.....badly

the amazing jumping pillow!
kim got the jumping timing alllll wrong! plus a random kid got in the shot....

Redgate Beach
Ross and Kay in the middle!

Dog Rock....
Albany's biggest and best attraction... right next to Dog Rock Mall and Dog Rock Motel. By the way, it looks like a dog...

Dallas Green
City and Colour.... AWESOME

Comments

[laura soole]

Amazing
Hey Hey!! The festival looked really good however my favourite thing was the dog shaped rock!! How cool. Looks liek your having an excellent time!! Missin ya loads. xx