Today Tosh was at his conference all day, so we had a lie-in then headed to the Western Australia museum, where we spent a few hours looking around. We were particularly interested in the exhibition on the Aboriginals, as we haven't really learnt a lot about their history and culture during our time here. It's a lot different from New Zealand, where we couldn't help put learn about the Maoris who are very much integrated into NZ culture. We were shocked to read about the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families, which began in the early twentieth century and lasted right up to the 1970s. The purpose was to 'breed out the colour', preventing Aboriginal people from marrying each other and forcing them to integrate into a White Australia. The UN eventually got involved and ruled that this amounted to genocide - quite shocking that all this was happening only 40 or so years ago. In 2008, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, issued a formal National Apology, but Aboriginal people still face isolation and discrimination in many areas of Australia. They need to do better…

After the museum we had another wander around the city, browsing in a few shops and watching some dubious street 'performers' - one woman attempting to dance to a selection of songs from her ipod, and an old man dressed in pink, also attempting to dance - surely that's not how they earn a living??

We went back to the hostel and made an early tea, before going to meet Tosh from his reception with the mayor (the whole conference went, not just Tosh!), as we were all off to watch Perth Glory football club play Gold Coast Utd!

We got to the ground just before kick-off and bought our tickets which allowed us to sit anywhere! It wasn't a very big ground (attendance was 7000!), so we ended up sitting/standing behind the goal, underneath the 'shed' of die-hard Perth fans. Not long into the game, Dave realised that this is the first time we've been to a football match together in almost 8 years! Tosh wondered why I'd never been to the Boro with Dave, to which I replied 'why would I want to do that??'. Anyway, back to Perth Glory…they played really well (or maybe Gold Coast were just really bad) and comfortably won the match 4-0.

On the walk back to the hostel, we were stuck behind a mob of annoying teenage Perth supporters who managed to sound like Cockneys when they sang their 90s-style English football chants!
Back at the hostel we spent a few hours reading and writing the diary while Tosh finalised his presentation for his conference tomorrow.

Last day in Australia for us tomorrow…