Australia!

So, after an extremely uncomfortable flight from Singapore I finally arrived in Perth. First thing I thought when I arrived is 'wow, it is COLD in this country!'. Obviously, I have not been in the UK for a while as it was 11pm and about 17 degrees... It is the end of spring here, so evenings are still relatively cool but lovely clear cloudless days. I am currently staying with Izzy, a friend from university, and her boyfriend Darren. She rocked up to the airport in an enormous truck-like car, which everyone seems to have here. Living in Perth, they both work in the mines. This seems to involve using vulgar language (!) and a lot of red dirt. Izzy has not picked up an accent but she has picked up a few choice phrases. 'Giving you the sh*ts' does not mean the same thing in Australia, and they talk about 'capsicums' and strange things in the supermarket.

The first day was spent helping Izzy move (this is the girl who helped antifoul Flycatcher...) from the archetypal Australian house a bit in the country (not bush) to a very modern bugalow more in the suburbs. The first house is small bungalow with a big veranda and a LOT of land with scrubby trees that all just looked Australian. For example, we refreshed ourselves with grapefruits from the tree growing in the garden. Incidentally, moving furniture from houses and barns, as we were, is a lot more exciting in Australia; you constantly have to check for spiders, particularly red backs. (As Izzy had found out earlier! Not bitten but hadn't spotted it) Suffice to say, I was extremely brave but also extremely careful of everything...

Following this, we spent a day in the Swan Valley which has lots of wineries and, slightly bizarrely, chocolate factories. We did a lot of wine tasting which was actually really good fun. Izzy has the act of knowing what she's talking about down to an art, and we ended up coming away with a few bottles (I would recommend Lancaster's 'Shed Red'). Slightly embarrassingly, I did get ID'd and failed to have any, but fortunately they still let me have some. Besides, I put it down to Australians ageing early in the sun!

We then spent a slightly more touristy, historical day in Fremantle (or Freo, because you have to add an o to everything here). Started off with breakfast at Hillary's boat harbour and then we went on to Fremantle, starting with the Ship Galleries Museum. This was mostly to do with Dutch ships that were shipwrecked off the West coast, of which there were quite a few! Lots of surviving cargo that was on its way to Jakarta and some horror stories of Lord of the Flies like behaviour from the stranded Batavia crew. Also a very enthusiastic section on how the museum led the way on iron conservation and iron underwater from an engine brought up about twenty years ago. All round quite interesting, particularly to people like my father...

Fremantle has slightly older, colonial buildings and a bit more history. The buildings, despite being older, all look super clean and therefore newer, I'm not sure if this is the result of the weather, or if they just look after them properly! The most significant building is the prison, which we visited. It was deemed uninhabitable in 1899 but continued in use for nearly another hundred years, until frequent revolts in the prison led to its closure. There were some fairly harrowing details about the high proportion of aboriginal prisoners, but it was very well done.

Izzy and I then went into Perth itself, which is surprisingly small. It is evident that it has grown up quickly - there are endless amounts of suburbs that are all laid out with a bit of green, then a shopping centre, then a load of bungalows. No corner shops, two storey houses nor terraced houses at all. The city centre is extremely modern and reminded me slightly of the skyscrapers of KL or Singapore. However, Perth has King's Park which is an enormous and stunning park with botanical gardens. There is a vast boab tree (see picture) that was trucked 4,200 km from the north of WA down to the garden, as well as lots of other plants native to WA (but not necessarily Perth). I'm lucky enough to have caught the end of spring, so people still have roses in their gardens and there are lots of wildflowers, including in the gardens. Plus there is still green, apparently this will disappear! Mostly, though, it was nice to sit high up in Perth and get some good views and eat a picnic. Hopefully will have a chance to see an outdoor film there, too.

Finally (we've been busy, but I hope the pictures help), Izzy and I went down the coast a little to Rockingham. It has a very shallow bay so marine life flourishes there and we saw an awful lot of terns (crested and something else, bigger than the arctic ones), an awful lot of loud gulls and some Australian pelicans. These were huge and I found very exciting. We caught the ferry over to Penguin Island, as well, which has the largest population of Little Penguins anywhere. They are tiny, only about 30cm high or so. We saw the rescued, unfit for the wild ones being fed, and then we saw two more in the wild hiding in a cave! Very pleased with ourselves, as you don't always spot that. The rescued ones are so unfit for the wild that they get fed dead fish; when they were fed live ones only two were brave enough to go in the water with them and those two got chased by the fish! Beautiful weather, although extremely windy off the Indian Ocean, so lots of lovely views and turquoise water.