The flight to Australia was uneventful, with the exception that we managed to have 3 little bottles of wine at 10am and still managed to get through customs. There was an unexpected sniffer dog at the baggage area, luckily my bamboo chopsticks weren't deemed a national risk!!

My immediate impressions of Australia were positive, although the cost of everything was a massive shock. Despite the warnings given by everyone about the price of everything, paying ten dollars for a pint was still a wrench, handing a note over and getting no change almost brought tears to my eyes.

We spent two weeks in Perth, totally taking advantage of Lauren and Abi's generosity and reshaping their giant corner sofa to the shape of our backsides. It was brilliant to have a couple of weeks where we didn't have to pack our bags up and move on, in fact we were so relaxed Nina managed to pick up the flu and had a good few days dying on the sofa. Most of our time was spent looking for a job, wandering into the town centre, watching horrendous daytime tv (I will never complain about Jeremy Kyle ever again) and sorting out bank accounts, phones and blog updates!! There were a few nice evenings spent together with Lauren and Abi, basically involving lots and lots of food, one of which we termed 'schmalentines' (for Valentines day). We spent one day in Freo (Fremantle) going round the market, which had some nice, albeit overpriced, local trinkets, then somehow, I'm not sure exactly how it happened, ended up at the Little Creatures brewery drinking their pipsqueak cider. Who'd have thought! This was also the day we all ate so much fish and chips we couldn't sleep. The sign of a true feast.

Cottesloe beach was another lovely day, although irritatingly it wasn't as sunny as every other day we spent in Perth! The beach itself is beautiful, although full of skinny Aussies with perfect tans - damn them! The people here generally are very aware of fitness and healthy living - it has made me very self conscious of the weight I've put on so far :-S With this in mind I bought some trainers and started jogging on an evening with Abi, although they rub my feet to death so I've been using plasters like a maniac whilst I wear them in! God only knows how I'm going to squeeze everything back in my bag when we move onto the East coast. I managed to get a job down in Katanning, in the central Southern area of Western Australia, and Nina picked one up in Esperance on the Southern coast so we'll be separated for a couple of months whilst we top up our funds to continue our adventures!

Becca