Australia

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We spent the morning doing loads of washing and packing our rucksacks. It wasn’t fun but we felt better knowing it had been done so that we could relax and enjoy our last full day in Perth.

Around lunchtime we all went to Quinns Beach. It was really hot so Matt and Nitin jumped straight into the ocean, while I hesitantly paddled around a bit. I made one attempt to go out further to join them but got sploshed by a big wave so decided I was happy in the shallower water watching them get dunked!

I kept scouring the ocean looking at the boats that were anchored and looking for cormorants. Something moving caught my eye close to one of the boats. I thought it might be someone out for a snorkel or swim until it vanished under a wave.

It appeared again. This time I realised it wasn’t a person; it was a fin. Given that the beach had been closed earlier in the week because of shark sightings I decided to wave at Matt and try to get him out of the water. I wasn’t going to shout ‘shark’ at the top of my voice as I really didn’t know what I’d seen, but I also didn’t want to leave him in there.

He laughed at me and kept swimming. I beckoned him more fiercely and he finally got the hint and started moving towards me at the slowest pace ever. I looked back and as I did the fin emerge from the water again before disappearing as though it was circling the small boat.

When Matt finally arrived in front of me laughing, I turned him around and pointed out to sea. Nitin appeared and saw it straight away despite Matt telling me I was seeing things. After a bit of discussion we agreed it seemed to be jumping out of the water like a dolphin so wasn’t Jaws after all. Relieved I let Matt get back in the water but told him not to go too deep this time.

It was great all sitting together enjoying a cold beer knowing that the weather was guaranteed to stay perfect. We spent a fun afternoon sitting, chatting and people watching.

After a quick shower and change we drove to Hilary’s Marina to find somewhere to have dinner. Australia doesn’t have restaurants and pubs everywhere in the same way that we do - more emphasis is on entertaining at home - so this was one of the closet places to eat out.

Everywhere was rammed with people - it was definitely the busiest place we’d seen in Australia so far. By the looks of it everyone had had a great day at the beach and they were now all walking around checking out the eating options along with us. Eventually after finding most places were full, we stumbled upon a gourmet burger restaurant I’d read an excellent review of in an airline magazine and there was one single table left. It looked like it was meant to be!

We all crowded around the little table and ordered one of the delicious sounding gourmet burgers. Matt was also very impressed that they did Tim Tam milk shakes - for those of you who don’t know Tim Tams are a bit like Penguins only better and we’d become addicted since traveling New Zealand and Australia!

After dinner as we walked around the marina I was treated to the best ice cream I’ve ever had - vanilla with huge chunks of honeycomb.

It was a shame to leave as we knew it was our last outing in Perth. To make up for it when we got back we stayed up late with Jess laughing at Hot Fuzz on the TV. Eventually we had to go to bed knowing that only a few hours later our alarm would be going off at 5.15am for our flight.

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