Western Australia

With hangovers still sitting in our bloodstream we escaped rainy Alelaide straight into Perth. We had said goodbye to Tara with a lovely lunch with Janet at the Little pub just off Hinchley Street - (Honest thats its name!) who had only been out for a week. She had also suffered with the terrible weather in the UK and had spent over 68 hours travelling to get the game - now that is what you call true dedication!

Anyway I digress we stayed for the night at the Witches hat which was to be our base for the third test and then hired an car and headed south. Our first stop was Fremantle known by locals as Freo where we had a little wander around and stopped at the famous Cicerellas for Fish and chips on the quay. They were delish, but you had to keep you eyes peeled for dive bombing seagulls!

Our next stop was at the Leschenault waterway for a walk around the wetlands which were packed with Cormorants and pelicans . A bit further down the road we went on a short hike through a Tuart Forest - these trees only grow in South Western Australia and are strikingly tall and cast a dappled shady over the forest floor. Our final stop for the day was Busselton which is famous for its jetty which runs for two kilometres out to sea unfortunately it was closed for renovation phew! We stayed in the town overnight then the next we went out to Cape Naturaliste which is a most beautiful coastline and we took one of the coastal walks. I had woken up to find I had got another horrid cold which was a bit of a bummer, but we travelled down to Eagle Bay which has a really beautiful beach and a cute little restaurant. More walks around the forests as the heat was pretty tough and a night in Margaret River full of cold pills yuck!

Next morning we had a trip down to the local birds of prey centre, where we both turned our hands to a bit of bird handling when some brown kites which were 'second chance' birds who had been injured and brought back to health. There were three kites in the group and they all had quite different personalities, which was fasinating to watch. We then carried down to the more stark coastline of Cape Leeuwin where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean and we had a lovely if blustery walk.

 We stopped at nearby Augusta for the night where we had all sorts of fun trying to get a room for the night as there was a

Dean was incredibly excited as not only were we only two days away from the third text, but his tour partner in crime Tubey had arrived whilst we were away. So we picked him up and headed off to Scarborough beach for the afternoon and then the pub - what a surprise!!

Back in town we hit the BA HQ - The Lucky Shag where a pint was $10 or 7 quid to you or me so we didn't hand around there for too long once we had caught up with 'wrong un' Ian and off we went to what was to be our hang-out for the rest of the week - Durty Nellies at $5.5 for a pint of Guinness which for Oz was a result! Suffice to say the night got better and much more hazy for the boys - hic
Night all

Hugs

Sara

'biker' convention in the town and it was loud bikes and leather everywhere! The lovely couple whose home we stayed at really looked after me squeezing lemons from their tree for me to take with hot water - yum. On our return journey we stopped at Margaret river and had a wonder around the very lovely Xmas market there. The big problem in this area is that they have had no decent rain for nearly nine years and as a consequence the whole local economy is in deep recession. Despite that it is still a beautiful place and the people and business that are still there were incredibly nice. Another night in Busselton after an afternoon of wine tasting in a couple of wineries - which would have been yum if I could have tasted them! (but we bought a sparking light rose for later when I could) Our final day of sightseeing was spent dolphin watching and walking around Freo where we spent our final night before heading back to Perth.