Blogs from Western Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 643

Dear all... We left Fremantle, having purchased our equipment - cooker, crockery, cuttlery, a blow-up bed, bedding, etc., and we have began our drive South. But we've had a good few days; we're now addicted to charity shops, where we got a load of matierial and stitched ourselves some curtains (Tazmanian Devil/Bananas in PJs!!) well into the night using the dingy light of our van! Which, by the way, we are loving! It's slowly becoming more organised as things have to be shifted around during the day - bags into front seats so we can inflate the bed (seats too lumpy & uncomfortable), then bags back again so we can set off. Haven't stayed 2 nights in one place for the last 5 days (feels like weeks!) and we've only just arrived at Margaret River! Here's ... read more

Ok... on with the diaries! 18/06/05 Having eaten breakfast in the horrible half a shed-style 'kitchen', we drove to Yallingup Shearing Shed. A great expience and insight into the farm life, we saw demos of sheep being sheared (with volunteers!), watched the dogs round the sheep into their pen, and got to feed the lambs. The use collies and also Kelpies, which are collies crossed with a dingo - the only dog that walks on sheep! Together these dogs keep the sheep in line! Next we visited a Chocolate Factory, tasted some choccy samples and had the compulsory hot chocolate, mmmm!! A visit to Margaret River Cheese Factory and on to Margaret River itself! Stocked up on food supplies and made ourselves Nachos at a campsite - the kitchen was a palace compared to last night! ... read more

G'day! Here we are in Perth, WA and just to keep you up to date... Finances = Green (possibly not for long now we're in Oz) Fitness = Amber (but getting better) Relationship = Green Arguments = Zero We've made it to Oz. We arrived in Perth on Sunday to a bit of rain (we think its following us!) after a fantastic end in South Africa. We spent 2 nights in wonderful 5-star luxury while on safari at Shamwari. The place itself was amazing and we were waited on hand and foot while the game drives were incredible. Considering we weren't really bothered about doing safari it has been the highlight of the trip so far. Mark was really good at spotting animals and when he spotted the hippo's before our ranger he was renamed 'imfubu' ... read more

I have never seen a real ghost town. Until 1966 Wittenoom was a thriving town with the big asbestos mine in the nearby Wittenoom gorge. Then they discovered the danger of cancer from asbestos and they closed the mine. Most of the people left anyway as there were no jobs anymore and the WA government were determined to extinguish the town, maybe to prevent future law suits (even though several researches showed it wasn’t dangerous anymore). So they destroyed all public buildings, and only some private houses stayed, with no services. 20 people leave there now, determined to call it a home. Their houses are nice and surrounded by small gardens, but all around it’s simply deserted. It’s just unbelievable to see it, and when you see picture of the place at its glory days you ... read more

Last day of work has just past so i am now "ready"... tickets in hand, bags just about packed so "set" and give it a couple more days and i would have 'gone' for a bit of a journey..... As this is the first entry it is just to see if it works and that people recieve the update before i take off out of the country and there is no turning back!..... My itinerary as it stands begins with... Bangkok for a few days, then to Cambodia for (hopefully) 2 months (pending the extension of my visa) where i will be mostly volunteering with WildAid, back to Thailand in time for a full moon party, off to Spain for La Tomatina (tomato throwing festival on the 31 August) and there for 2 weeks, in Prague ... read more