I've finally come around to writing some of my adventures down! There is no particular reason why I did not manage to do so before, other than my undeniable laziness :D

On the 28th of June, I arrived to a warm welcome in Perth after a 24 hour journey. Perth is the capital city of Australia's largest state: Western Australia. I don't mind flying at all, quite like it actually. So I was happy as a squirrel when I saw my family ^^ I went through customs in 5 minutes, it was ridiculous. I blame the awesome e-gates. I just scanned my passport and had to look in a camerathingy and I was free to go! Yay no scary interaction with a person who is trying to figure out whether or not you're actually a dangerous criminal! Seriously, I hate trying to look innocent, I think I sooner come across as having a guilty conscience with the twitching eye and all...

The first weekend I stayed with my relatives -my dad's cousin and her husband: Annelies and Peter Geary. They are lovely people and it has been awesome to get to know my relatives a bit and talk about familystuff with them. For example, I got Annelies to tell me what she remembered about my opa, who died when my dad was 18. I didn't have the time to go visit Pemberton, the place where my dad was born. I did already go there once, but it's not the same, as I was a silly 13-year-old girl. However, I expect this not to be the last time I've visited Western Australia. Next time, I'll make sure to go south and go to Pemberton.

What díd I do then, you might wonder. I went north! Travelling along the westcoast in a minibus with a lovely tourguide - Shaz. This trip was amazing! I can't believe how much I've seen in one week. We went all the way up to Exmouth ( I passed the tropic of Capricorn a.k.a de steenbokskeerkring :D ). It's 1260 km from Perth to Exmouth. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in the bus that week.

The roads here are very weird. It's only one lane for each direction, but everyone drives 110 km/h on it. Passing a truck is scary. There are a lot of them out here too, as the road network is very important for transport in Australia. Their rail network is virtually non-existent outside of Perth. Driving from destination to destination on this tour gave me an idea of how EMPTY Western Australia is. There was one stretch of road on which you can drive straight for two hours! There is nothing but bush as far as the eye can see for hours and hours. Amazing.

The places we went to visit were well worth the traveltime though! Some highlights of the tour: Natures window, dolphins in Monkey Mia, the idyllic Shell Beach (EVERYONE should go there), Turquoise Bay, snorkeling at Ningaloo Reef with a Manta Ray(!) and Sea Turtles and SO MUCH native wildlife.

I saw wild emus (one with chicks!), koalas (in captivity, as they are very rare in WA), sharks (while snorkeling... apparently they are 'harmless', but I'm sure they can still chomp off your foot of they really wanted to. Heck, even dolphins can bite! The thought going through my mind at the time "that thing had better not swim towards me or I will s*** bricks"), dolphins (they did not bite, fortunately), sea turtles, a Manta Ray with 3.5 meter wingspan (they can go up to 4, snorkeled with it <3), whales, dugongs, heaps of birds, a rare rock wallaby, jellyfish (yikes!) and boatloads of kangaroos!

Yes, many kangaroos. Especially the night I was on Spotting-Duty. Kangaroos are nocturnal - they come out during twilight and are by far stupidest animals I've ever encountered. These idiots graze next to roads (apparently, the most luscious grass grows there, due to moist brought in by cars). When traffic approaches, they sort of freeze and stare at it, before jumping on the road at the very last moment. Seriously, what is the problem, are they suicidal???! So, kangaroo-spotting-duty consisted of sitting next to the driver and yelling "THERE ON THE RIGHT/LEFT/BEHIND THE BUSH!" whenever you saw a sand-brownish blob in the distance. Us girls would start yelling "SHOO! GO AWAY YOU IDIOT! ", honk the horn, go full on the brakes; the kangaroo would calmly hop over the road at the last moment; we would miss it by an inch and the other passengers would applaud us. This happened 53 times within a couple of kilometers. Meh, good fun ^^

We did hit one, but it had hopped of when Shaz went out to check on it/put it out of its misery. I prefer to think it was completely fine and continues to play kangaroo-chicken with cars along with its similarly idiotic friends until it dies of old age in its sleep.

We also went sandboarding once, which is not all that exciting, but the spot was beautiful. The 4-wheel-drive bus we took to get there got stuck in the sand though, that cost us around 3 hours, lots of digging was involved.

Anyhow, after this trip I came back in Perth and spent some more time with my family, saw a game of netball (sort of like korfball, but different), met up with my cousins, went up to Fremantle, visited the prison there (creepy s***, those stories the guides tell there… Rosa, you would have loved it ;) ) and wandered around Perth.

The perving tourguide of one of the tours at the Freemantle prison made me volunteer for a lot of stuff.. (Not sure what his accent was, something UK? Any thoughts?) Despite that, it was a lot of fun. I recommend visiting it :)

Apparently, Perth is the most isolated capital city in the world. Lonely Planet describes it as relaxed and laidback. What that actually means is that there is NOTHING to do there. I mean, I'm sure it's lovely when you actually live there, but OMG boring center. For a population of 1.7 million people, there is remarkably little to do. Which is interesting in its own way I suppose. Anyway, Western Australia is amazing and breathtakingly beautiful, but definitely not for its urban areas. I like Sydney better =) For me, Perth was more about family and a starting point to see some more of Western Australia. WA holds a special place in my heart, which probably has something to do with having roots and family here and, oh I don't know, maybe the fact that IT'S AWESOME!!!!

I want to go back someday, for sure.

Allrighty, this was the first 2.5 weeks of my stay here, after that I flew to New South Wales - Sydney!
But more about that later =)