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Published: September 2nd 2009
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Easter weekend saw one of the funniest events witnessed in a well to do area. As we were now back in Claremont we decided to visit the local supermarket (Coles) late on Saturday afternoon. Obviously with it being Easter weekend the supermarket had decided to reduce a lot of its produce. In England when a supermarket does this its usually a fairly low key event. Oh no, not here in Claremont! There was a man with a microphone walking around the shop telling the shoppers to get over to this counter or that counter where food had been reduced to half price. As soon as he made the announcement people literally ran across the store! Now Claremont is quite a well to do area..its the equivalent of saying Muswell Hill M&S shoppers running across the store to get the cheap bargains!! We were absolutely amazed and could only stand and watch (we did see someone taking photos of what was happening!!) Before long we were caught up in the frenzy ourselves...with 12 hot cross buns for a $1 or rump steak for $2 who can blame us- after all we are officially backpackers now! Armed with our bargains we headed home
and cooked up a feast! The boys all stay up to watch the footie tonight...needless to say there will be sore heads tomorrow!
Easter Sunday saw us meeting up with Johns friends in Freemantle for a “Sunday session” at Clancys Fish Pub. As the weather was gorgeous we all sat outside in their lovely beer garden and for me it was lovely to finally meet up with the wives and girlfriends of his mates...female company at last!! A lovely afternoon was spent drinking copious amounts of wine and John gets quite emotional to see all of his old mates again..some of whom he hasn’t seen for at least 10 years. He’s really pleased that so many of them have made the effort to come and see us...aaaaahh! Obviously a lot of the time is spent reminiscing about when he was in Oz before and what shinanigans they used to get up to...for me I can see why John has always had a hankering to go and live in Oz now.
Soon after easter weekend we head back over to Joondelup to stay with John B again (his wfe is still in England so its company for him) Our days are spent trying to sort out our campervan rental (go to have a look at a “Wicked” campervan and decide that there is basic and then basic and then a “Wicked” van - not sure their sexual slogans grafitted on the vans are really us either!!! As its easter hols rental prices are still way too high so we decide we can’t get going for at least another 10 days to keep costs down.
We spend some time over at the local beach (Burns Beach) which is within cycling distance from the house (although once again John has difficulties with the gears on the bike) or in the pool in the back garden ...generally just chillin out with the odd barbecue in the evenings thrown in for good measure. Life with our backpacks seems such a distant memory now!!
Some of the days are spent in central Perth high up in Kings Park which overlooks the city. We get magnificent views of the bay area and the city below us and spend many hours wandering around the park relaxing and taking in the views.
We also spend time over at Scarborough beach just outside the city and catch up with another of John’s friends. Whilst here we manage to arrange to buy some camping gear after advertising for stuff on gumtree. The great thing about Oz is that there are always backpackers who have been travelling who need to get rid of stuff. So, for a few dollars we manage to get hold of 2 camping chairs, a polar sleeping bag and a sleeping mat (yes the sleeping bag was thoroughly washed before we used it!!) They were even willing to throw in a gas camping stove too but we didn’t need it. Only problem was that we now had to tow all the stuff round the pub with us that evening!!
Up until now we’d only met up with John’ friends so it was really good to meet up with an old friend of mine from work back in London (Ruth) who had moved over to Oz almost a year ago. We spent time catching up on all of our gossip and reminiscing whilst doing the whole ladies coffee morning thing before going for a walk along the beach. It was good to catch up with her as originally we thought we’d miss each other but as she was relocating to the west coast from the east coast luckily our timing was just right!
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