After being with a friend in Perth then a group for the last ten days, to be finally left to my own devices was bliss! It's nice to share travel experiences with other people but most of all I like to do things alone. I love being independent, free to make my choices about what I want to do and when I want to do it without having to take anybody else into account, without having to compromise. I'm glad I had my time in Perth with Ellen and also that I did this to...

I spent a blissful day on my own in Coral Bay. After wandering around the extremely small settlement (just a couple of hotels, a backpackers hostel, caravan park, few shops and a handful of permanent dwellings) I headed to the beach. I waded out from the main beach, past some rocks and round a jutting point to find a beautiful deserted beach, aptly named Paradise Beach on my map. I left my backpack in the shade of a rock and went for a swim in the aquamarine sea....

After three days of grey and rain in Perth, we departed on the tour up the West Coast in clear skies and sunshine; poor Perth, I don't feel the rain did it justice, I think my view was biased by the weather and I am going to give this city another chance when I return there before flying back out: fingers crossed it is better weather then! I had been worried about making this trip in the Australia "winter" but it was only really Perth that was crappy and grey - f...

I was planning to write a whole heap of things about how stressful my journey was, how I'm never getting a bus to a flight again (gridlocked & stress inducing m5) and how 2 hours in transit is way too rushed for my nerves to remain intact, but actually the fact is that I didn't miss any connections, I got here in time and my luggage arrived at the same place and the same time as me, which is really all that matters.The only bit that stuck with me from the jou...

If I were to credit one thing with making this trip to Paris a success, it would be those city bikes - Velib! I have ended up getting a day pass on three of my five full days here, on three of my five days I have taken advantage of being able to pick up and drop off bikes on a whim at any of the numerous docking stations throughout the city and been able to experience the freedom of no-strings bike use. Both yesterday and today there were times when I had a slump...