Perth and South West

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Went to a great museum in Tokyo on the last day, which charted you through the city's history and development. It was huge and they had built replica bridges and other dwellings. I took the opportunity to ask (Jon reckons "interrogate") our museum guide lots of other questions that had built up throughout my stay. Like why do the majority of people on tube/train put a standard cover on their book? It's not to protect it - apparently, privacy is a big thing and peole don't want others to know what they're reading!

Anyway, we left cold Tokyo and flew into sunny Perth. It's a really nice place - very chilled out. Here and in the southwest generally, society is quite different to that at home. My mate Vic (who recently migrated here) describes it as UK about 20 years ago. All shops close at 5pm every night. The internet cafe stays open till 6pm though!!! If you work, you can only get your shopping done on a Sat (when the rest of the world does). Nothing is open on a Sunday. Internet is dial-up speed. You can't check into most hotels beyond 7pm. We rocked up to a motel in a town of 66000, at 2030 and caused a sensation for being such a late arrival!!

We hired a car and did a week-long road trip round the south-west. It was fabulous. We went to some beautiful coastal towns, some really fabulous (almost hidden) beaches, walks in the bush (although not too much as I was scared of being stranded in there too deep in case fire broke out), and most importantly of all - some winery visits!!! We popped into a few wineries in Margaret River area, but I also navigated the trip to ensure that we stopped off at many others along the way! Poor Jon had to be the spitter-outer.

In some respects, we seemed to leave a wave of destruction behind us. We went to the lovely Kings Park in Perth before the road trip, and found out it had been set alight the next day. Near Dunsborough, we went for a walk on the tip of Cape Naturaliste, visited the lighthouse and then headed down to Eagle Bay beach. Only 20 mins later, whilst swimming in the sea, we saw the Cape land catch fire, masses of smoke billowing and subsequent havoc ensue. Residents got evacuated but they forgot to tell folk on the beach to get out.

Have been to visit my friend Vicky in Perth today. Her and hubby Keith have just had a lovely little boy (Ollie) last week. The baby is really, really cute. Their house is amazing (pool included) - dead spacious.

Off to Rottnest Island tomorrow, and then flying to Ayrs Rock (Uluru) on Sat. Nothing like heading to the middle of the desert during a heatwave....

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Comments

[savo]

Book Covers
The book covers are to allow men to read porn. Women would rather not see that they are reading porn so allow all books to be covered to let them get away with it. I think the women should stop to oust the men!