Perth,

G'day cobbers! Well, We are now in Australia. We've arrived in Perth, the capital of Western Australia. We landed really late at night having had a 6 hour stopover in Singapore. Its definitely the best place to have a time delay in as its such a great airport. As it was so late, we had to grab a cab and headed to our hostel for the night. We had actually booked one in Scarborough, a small beach town just outside of Perth, but didn't get to see much of it before crashing out asleep. When we got up and ventured to the beach, it was exactly what you would imagine Australia to be like. Warm autumn sun, long beaches with crashing waves and full of surfers. We took a stroll along the beach, and were really impressed by the thought that had gone into the beachfront.At the centre of the beach, near to town, there are concrete steps and a sort of atrium that you can sit on and relax by the sea. There are also regular public toilets and shower facilities dotted along the beach. It waslittle disorientating though as it was a much slower pace than we had just left behind in Asia and this was particularly obvious for us as we had arrived on Sunday and most of the town was shut!! It's a bit like England in the late 80's. Despite its many visual attractions, there was nothing to do there after our first day so we headed back in to Perth.

This was our first taste of hostel living and it was every bit as hellish as we expected… Nah, it wasn't that bad. The place we stayed in Perth is called the Old Swan Barracks which is perfectly suited to use as a hostel. The old drill hall is used as a TV room, with sections divided off into gym. Internet area and the kitchen is tucked on the side. The only thing about this hostel, most of the people in it were long term tenants and working in Perth. As a result it was more cliquey than we expected and the lack of an attached bar meant it didn't have an automatic focal point to meet people.In Perth we also did our first food shopping andone thing we have noticed in Australia, is the lack of choice for supermarkets….there are only 2 - Coles and Woolworths/Safeway. It makes a change from home where there are loads of different ones all trying to outdo each other. There is actually a government inquiry into the food market in Oz and I'm sure it would recommend another big player in the market…this must be one of the few places on earth that doesn't have a Tesco and the higher prices reflect that. After a few brief "discussions" in the aisles, we managed to select our dinner for the first few nights….unfortunately it didn't get any more exciting than the backpacker staple of pasta and tomato sauce!

One of the coolest things in Perth is the CAT. This is the Central Area Transport system, which is basically a set of 3 buses which run in a set loop all day long for FREE! One runs north-south, one runs east-west and the last one does a loop around the shopping and business districts. It's really handy and you can jump on and off them at different spots around town for free. Saying that, there isn't a huge amount of stuff for tourists in Perth, so its not a long journey round town.

About 30 minutes from Perth is Freemantle, which is a quaint little harbor town, which is one of the must see places when you visit Perth. It's a really nice town……well, I'm sure it is normally, but the day we turned up it absolutely bucketed it down so we didn't see a lot of it. It was nice though, just a little damp, despite the fact its a small town, I still managed to bore Emma quite considerably by visiting the maritime museum in town...I enjoyed it but she definitely seemed a little bored J

One of the main tourist attractions in Perth, and indeed Western Australia is the Pinnacles. This is a series of rock formations in the desert which have developed over thousands of years due to unique environmental conditions. Or as our tour guide told us……It's a load of old rocks.!!! We had a great tour going to the pinnacles and if anyone is in WA, then Aussie Adventure Tours (www.aussieactionadventures.com) are well worth your money. Sometimes guides on this type of tour are a bit annoying, but Richard who owns the company and only ever runs small groups of 6 or 7 was a blast. I ended our day wishing we had booked into a longer trip to monkey mia as it was so much fun. We started early at 8am and headed to the national park first, which was about 40 mins outside Perth. This is where we first got to see Koalas and Kangaroos in reasonably wild surroundings. Koalas are definitely very cute, although they are hugely lazy = a bit like me then!!! We then headed out for another hour drive to the Pinnacles. They were very cool, although slightly shorter than imagined and that was a little underwhelming. However, there are absolutely loads of them as far as you can see into the desert and it's the only place in the world with something like this, so its pretty damn impressive. When Billy Connolly came here for his TV show he streaked through them. Thankfully, for all parties involved, I decided to refrain from this and just wandered around for a while.. We then went for lunch - at a beachside bbq.You have to love a country that places free bbq's at most beaches and parks. Anyone can turn up with some sausages or burgers and cook a bbq while at the beach-great idea. To finish the day trip, we were heading slightly south to do some dune bashing and sand boarding.

The dune bashing wasn't entirely a roaring success; however it did develop into a great afternoon with lots of surprises. Me and Em and had done this before in Dubai, however this was a very different kettle of fish. In Dubai, you are part of a large group of around 30 -40 jeeps that all follow each other around the dunes. In Perth, there were just us and a HUGE amount of sand! We had about 15 mins bouncing around in the back of the jeep when it all came to an abrupt halt at the top of a dune…..we had beached. At first we weren't sure if this was part of the trip and our guide was just having a laugh, but when we all had to get out and let him try again, it was clear we were stuck.In the end we simply had to start digging it out. (Well, when I say we….I mean me and 2 of the other girls. Emma and the others were fairly content to watch for a while.) I have to say that digging sand out from under a hot jeep, is harder than I expected as you have to move a lot of sand. While we were doing this, a dune buggy had passed by and 1 of the girls in the group caught its attention. He came up to the dune to help us out, but by this time, the jeep was clear of the dune. It did start a long conversation between our guide and the bloke running the dune buggy. Basically he was about to start a business doing dune bashing in his custom made dune buggy which cost 100'000 dollars (50'000 pounds) At the time, this was just a quiet conversation and we set off to do our sand boarding afterwards. This was REALLY cool. You grab a board like a snowboard and slide down the dunes whatever way you feel like. The photos and video don't really do it justice, when you are on the board, it feels SOOOO fast and is loads of fun. While we were doing the sand boarding. The dune buggy got stuck on a rise, just like we had. As a favour we helped get him out (much easier than a jeep) and the driver offered us a go in the buggy - This was 100 times better than dune bashing in a jeep. Its faster, more aggressive, you do actual jumps through the air and the sensation is amazing. Even though you are actually much safer than we were in the jeep as there is extra seatbelts and special helmets.It was definitely an added bonus to the trip. We got back into town that night and had a quiet few beers to wind down at Brass Monkey which is a microbrewery in Perth. Good night overall, and great beer.

We decided to leave Perth after 5 days as there wasn't really anything left for us to do there.Whilst it seems to be a great place to live, it's a little dull for the tourist passing by; particularly at the start of winter. I would say that its worth doing, and if anyone else reading this is heading to WA, then you should also look further north from Perth as the attractions at Monkey Mia and the diving at Exmouth are all supposed to be excellent but we were unaware of them until we arrived and werent able to squeeze them in unfortunately. Our next stop is Melbourne, on a flight that we barely made! We had decided to get the bus to the airport as the shuttle buses were quite pricey, however I severely underestimated our journey time and as a result spent the entire journey driving myself mad checking my watch and avoiding accusatory stares from Emma. We eventually got to the airport 30 minutes before our flight and 5 minutes before the desk closed. After running through the airport to check in at the last minute……we were told that the flight was delayed for 2 hours anyway. ! It was time to settle into a chair at Perth airport and just wait!