Hi All We have been a bit slack in updating our website recently, and we have just found some time to update you with what we've been doing since leaving Adelaide for Perth. We lived on the great old Indian Pacific train for 45 hours, sleep sitting for 2 nights. It was quite interesting as we got to stop off at an abandoned town called Cook where there used to be over 200 inhabitants until they fled overnight after hearing of a gold strike in Kalgoorlie. Only 4 guys remain in the town. It gave out an eerie feeling after seeing a swimming pool covered in dust and sand dunes, a school with cobwebs everywhere, books and chairs strewn all over the floor. Our next stop was Kalgoorlie for a couple hours break, a gold mining town full of drunk gold prospectors wandering the streets. We thought it not very exciting to explore so we stayed in a chinese takeaway shop until it was time to reboard our train. Andy later heard that most of the local pubs have barmaids serving in bikinis! Doh. Perth was nice and compact, in fact there wasnt that much to see but lots to see in the surrounding areas. We got a campervan for a week and headed to Margaret River region which was very green. We didnt bother with the wine tasting and instead went to a micro brewery with some decent beers then decided to head off to see the tall tingle trees along the south coast. Next stop was inland to Wave Rock which was a bit disappointing but worth seeing when passing through, it was basically like a big frozen surf wave! Yep thats it... On our way back towards Perth we needed to stop somewhere and ended up in a trailer park with 2 sheep shearers and a loner who lives in an air conditioned shed. We decided to do a runner early the next day without paying as it was such a dump. Our final stop was the Pinnacles which was a desert of rock pillars dotted everywhere, but the sunset made it magical and I'd definitely recommend visiting there. Back in Perth we decided to stay in the beach area of Cottesloe to chill out for a week before heading to Alice Springs. There was the yearly Rottnest Channel swim. 20km over to the island so we decided to get up at 5.30am to watch the crazy ozzies set off for about 6 hours swim over. It was pretty chilly and there were 3m waves out in the distance, so it was no surprise when most of the swimmers gave up due to exhaustion and hypothermia! We took a ferry to Rottnest Island for a few hours bike ride around the island. It was a small island and saw quite a few quokkas coming out to greet us - a cross between a rat and wallaby! Andy and Rachel