Perth and.....im not really sure.....where am i???

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G'day folks,

A bit late on the blog again but its been another busy one for me over the last two months. Heres how it goes......

I got into Perth at ridiculous O' clock in the morning and headed straight for my hostel which a couple of mates from Melbourne had already booked us into and had pretty much a whole day of sleeping ahead of me.

When i could finally muster up some strength to go for a wander, which admitedly was a couple of days on, I headed to Kings Park. The park is home of the flame of rememberance for all the soldiers in the war and has an incredible lookout point over the entire city and Swan River. Other than Kings Park my first impressions of Perth weren't that great, i didnt think that it looked that special and was a tiny little place in comparison to Melbourne.

As i wanted to try and see a bit of Perth before i got a job i had a week or so of sightseeing and lazing about before being forced into working. I spent most of my time on beaches (although you never would have thought by looking at my rather pasty exterior!) I was a regular patron of both Scarborough and Cottesloe beach (Cottesloe being my favourite, and home of the oh so brilliant 'Sunday Session'). The Sunday Session basically involves everyone over the age of eighteen (and a few sneaky ones that werent quite) heading down to the beach with a crate of beer and then into the Cottesloe Hotel and getting a bit wobbly on their feet before heading into Northbridge (the party capital of Perth).

In my week and a half of lazing about i managed to see pretty much everything Perth had to offer and did all the touristy things like the zoo, my old favourite the aquarium and i even managed to see a few pubs along the way.

Unfortunatley, my 23rd birthday crept up on me when i was in perth, but it wasnt all bad. About ten of us headed out to my favourite haunt - the 'Hogs Breath' and i was treated to a huuuuuuge rump steak with curly fries and more beer that i think most would drink in their lifetime, which led to a longer than normal stumble back to the hostel, a little bit of naked walking around and me mistaking the bedroom wall for the urinal - all of which i found out happened the next morning!

After all this, not entirley out of my choice, but due to the number of zeros (and not in the good way) in my bank balance, it was time to start work. By pure fluke i managed to snag a job delivering phonebooks around mostly South Perth with a mate from Melbourne. I had a horrible deja vu of my younger days delivering the Star newspaper and thought it was gonna be the same but that was far from the truth.

On the first day we headed to 'Cheapy Rentals' which as you can imagine by the name rented out cars that were way too old and in some serious disrepair for next to nothing, and the new boss rented me a van. But not just any van, JP was its name! The van was bright orange and had some fancy sunset like paintjob on it - pretty flash looking, and it certainly caught the eye of a lot of people when driving round. Unfortunately, the flash paint job was nothing but a coverup for the shambles that was the engine. Everytime we hit a bump the battery terminal popped off, the leads kept disconnecting, the gearbox was like a maze and JP had mastered the fine art of overheating.

I delivered phonebooks for five weeks, working six days a week with Reece and managed to save up a fair old bit of money after we had established the best technique for delivering them, which turned out to be one driving and the other hanging out the back door and slinging them at the post boxes. Most made it safe and sound but the odd stray one turned out to be a bit less hardy and would fall to pieces on impact. Along my travels around Perth i managed to spot Duncan Lane, Graham Close, and Weller Street along with a few others so that helped me get through my day.

On my days off, so they weren't wasted i tried to make something of them and did a few more touristy things and a couple more sunday sessions. The Perth Royal show came along to Perth in Spetember so i headed out to that with a few others and made a day of it. The show was massive and they had a 'Krufts' dog show there, a poultry and bird show (extremely surreal!), loads of fairground rides and hundreds of stalls. I went on a couple of rides, and bought a few showbags and even managed to win a Nemo cuddly toy on a darts game - the first time i've won anything at a fair so i was happy as a pig in poo.

I also headed to Freo (the locals name for Freemantle) just outside of Perth one evening and did the prison tour. I did the late night tour to get the full experience as the place is supposed to be haunted. The tour was really good and apparently i have some pictures with 'orbs' in on my camera which apparently are spirits or something of the like - although i reckon the place was probably just a bit dusty.

To keep my sporting events tally up I headed to the Equity Stadium to watch a bit of A-League Football. I got the ticket free from a bunch of blokes in Perth jerseys on the train, on the way back from the beach. I asked where the game was being played as i wanted to see one and he whipped out two free tickets to the game and invited us along for a beer aswell - so that wasn't too shabby! The stadium was tiny and looked more like a mechano set than anything else but the turnout wasnt bad and the crowd get well into it so the atmosphere was really good. I saw Perth Glory vs Queensland Roar, unfortunatley the Roar came out on top 2-1, but the game was good and there are a few of the old big names from the premeirship playing for Perth so made the game a bit more skillful.

Just after i quit the phonebooks I got a ticket for the Perth Rally Championship at Gloucester Park, which was brilliant. I got a ticket for the super special stages in the evening (where they race around a closed circuit, two cars at a time). There were hundreds of cars racing and i saw all the big names aswell. I was able to get into the service area and watch all the cars being worked on after the rally and also managed to spot a few of the cars driving through the city from the forest where they were racing during the day.

As i still needed 8 days seasonal work to complete my 3 months to enable me to extend my visa for another year i decided to go fruit picking again and get it over and done with. I lined up a job with an agency but couldn't start for a week so myself and a canadian girl (Alaina) that i have been travelling with for the last 6 months decided to rent a car and see the South West corner of Australia. We rented the car for 6 days to enable us to have a good butchers at all of it and not miss too much. We started off with a drive all the way down to Albany, then along the South West coast to Denmark, up to Margaret River, and then further north to Bunbury and Busselton, then right up past Perth to Cervantes to visit the Pinnacles Desert. On the last day of the rental we drove back south past perth to Williams to visit some friends about to go on a road trip up the west coast to say goodbye.

The South West of Oz is absolutely beautiful. Both Albany and Busselton had incredible beaches, Margaret River had a nice little town and Denmark and Bunbury were also pleasant little places. I think of the lot, Busselton was my favourite as it had an unbelievable beach and a jetty that stretched 2km out to sea. I was a bit dissapointed with the Pinnacles desert as i had the impression that the rocks would all be huge but it turned out that most were little over three feet tall. The trip itself was amazing and we had borrowed a tent and fishing rod off a mate so we camped every night and fished for a few hours every day. There was a lot of driving involved, i think i did just over 2300km in the 6 days. i made the mistake a couple of times of leaving towns a bit late and having to drive in the dark, which means kangaroos are everywhere. They jump out the hedges and trees infront of cars and are a nightmare. As i only had a Hyundai Getz, which was a smart little car but about as solid as a bowl of jelly i didnt fancy hitting one!

Once the car went back to the rental company (without a piece of kangaroo on it!) i headed back to the job agency to find out about my seasonal work. It turned out the job was no more but i got hooked up with another one and had to leave the next day.

So now i find myself in the middle of nowhere in a place called Wydgee. It is approx 450Km north-east of Perth. It is 90Km from the nearest town (well they call it a town) and is the sort of place you have to check under the toilet seat before sitting for redbacks then look down the U-bend for snakes! When we were travelling here we even went past a sign that said ' the outback starts here'.

Fruit picking started the day after i got here and i was picking peaches and apricots. Unfortunatley the farm was a bit understaffed so everyone had to work long hours (I have to wake up at 04:45...arrrggghhhhh!) and work out in 40 degree heat most days. Also the famer is unwell and in hospital in Perth and his Missus has just popped out a rather large sprog so isnt feeling too great and is in hospital aswell, so three of us (myself, Alaina and a South African backpacker called Bridget) have been helping to run the place with the assistance of a couple of family members helping out from nearby farms. My duties on the farm include making sure the orchard gets enough water and at the right times, feeding pigs (which more often than not just chase me around their enclosure!) and chickens and collecting their eggs. I also have the wonderful task of skinning and cutting up Kangaroo to feed the three dogs and two cats on the farm.

The wildlife out here is certainly interesting and i do get too see quite a bit of it. I spotted an Emu the other day when turing on the water pump, see Kangaroos, loads of Goannas (big lizards) and a load of wild goats. The one thing that i definately see too many of now though is Redback spiders. These are evil little buggers and can give you a fair old bit of trouble if you get bitten. I even spotted eight of them sat around the fuse box which i have to turn on and off every morning and night when the generator goes on/off. Im yet too see a snake on the farm yet, which i can definately live with, but im told they are about.

So anyway i have to finish here as i have to drive down to the orchard to make sure the melons get watered today.

Take care everyone and speak soon,

Dunc

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Photos

Perth Cityscape
The view of the CBD from the top of Kings Park

My Birthday
My Hogs Breath Birthday Cake

JP
Heres our wonderful delivery van - you could never see us coming!

Sunday Sesh
The crew down at Cottesloe

Busselton Jetty
Half way along the jetty looking onto the beach

The Pinnacles Desert
Can you tell what it is yet?

Daily Chores
The Roo leg ive just skinned and chopped up....and Kia the dog.

Redback
A Redback spider and its eggs

Comments

[Fagin]

Indoor Urination
Im glad you have joined the indoor urination club after the abuse you gave me at uni haha

[Dave Farty]

Are you sure!
Are you absolutely sure that what you are holding up by the dog isn't the remains of the last backpacker that stayed there?