We arrived at our hostel Thursday morning. It was stressful driving the enormous motor-home through Perth CBD in rush hour, but better than dropping it off first and paying for a taxi. Our hostel is in Scarborough (everything in Oz is named after a s*** place in England, apparently) which is a beach side town just outside of Perth. It's famous for it's surf and the waves are ridiculous. We were staying in a six-bed dorm and the hostel was just someone's house at the end of the street, which was huge and really nice. The weather was lovely when we arrived and the receptionist at the hotel told us they hadn't had any rain in 6 months, so we were optimistic that we could top-up our tans... Unfortunately, the next day it rained.

As soon as we dropped off our stuff we rushed to the beach. The beaches in Perth are incredible. Scarborough beach is pure white sand and turquoise blue sea. Just what you see on the postcards. The Indian Ocean is really warm too, so we went for a dip and did some body-surfing on the crazy waves. Nothing demonstrates the Australian laid-back attitude more than the beach life-guards joking with each other as children are smashed about by ten-feet waves.

We had forgotten about the Easter holiday, so we had only booked in for three nights thinking we could easily extend our stay if we wanted to. When we tried we got a bit of a lecture from the receptionist who told us there would be no way we could find anywhere in or around Perth over the Easter weekend, as Australian's go crazy over Easter. Panicked, we quickly booked whatever we could and made arrangements to do a day trip to Rottnest Island and get flights to the Red Centre.

We had a week in Perth. Most of which we were going to spend on the beach. The weather had other ideas, but whenever we could we were there. The hostel had boogie boards and surf boards you could use if you wanted, so we tried a bit of boogie boarding on the waves. If you managed to get far enough out to avoid the breaking waves you could catch some enormous ones. We both aren't very good at it though and almost drowned several times. We wanted to go to Hilary's Boat Harbour that was north of us. We'd heard the food and cocktails there were good. The receptionist told us it was an hours walk so we thought we'd go that night. Dressed-up we started walking there. The walk is actually really nice as it goes right along the Ocean. Some of the houses are incredible too. Anyway, four hours later we arrived, paid $30 a pizza each and then started the walk home... Siobhan had brought her nice sandles, so after 20 minutes her feet ached and she preferred to walk bare foot. By the time we were walking back her feet were in pieces, so being the gentleman I am, and once her moaning became too much to bear, I offered my comfortable shoes for her to wear. By the time we got home we had both walked about 5 miles in bare feet. Our feet still tingle.

On Saturday we decided to go down to Fremantle. Probably a bad idea over the bank holiday weekend. Most of the public transport to get there was closed and most of the locals were already drunk, so getting there was a ball ache. Fremantle is a famous port south of Perth and has some really nice bars and restaurants. There were street performers there for the weekend and there were some really good dancers and comedians and one called Whiskey Lee, who was w***. We had fish 'n' chips (again) and took in the performances. We tried to get a drink at the famous Little Creatures brewery, but it was so busy we would have never been served.

We were due to check-out of our dorm room and move to Perth. As we were checking-out though the manager told us we could move into the private double room and have it at the same price as the dorm if we wanted to stay. Since the hostel was really nice and we were loving the beach, we jumped at it. As it turns out it isn't that difficult to find somewhere to stay over Easter!

After a couple of days sunbathing and surfing, we decided to go for a stroll through Perth. The city is really nice, but we couldn't afford to buy anything, only a few postcards. We took a stroll up to King's Park, which overlooks the city. You get an incredible view of the city with Swan river wrapping around it. We bought two chocolate bars and a bag of crisps and had a 'picnic' before the heavens opened. Once it calmed down we took a walk through the botanical gardens.

The next day we went to the Pinnacles. These are natural rock formations that no one in the world knows how they were created. We went to a nature reserve first and fed some kangaroos and patted some koalas, which we're becoming pro's at. Then we went to the Lobster Shack, which is basically a lobster cleaning factory where millions of lobsters are caught and dropped into cages and kept in salt water, before being shipped off around Australia and the world. We had lunch here, took a walk along the beach just outside, and drove off to the Pinnacles. Our coach driver was a nice guy and felt like he should educate us as we were with him. Sadly, he felt like he should educate us on anything he could think of. We now have a better understanding of Bio-char, the limit capacity of wind turbines and reverse osmosis. The Pinnacles are pretty interesting but a lot smaller than both of us thought they'd be. We got some cool photos and wandered around. There are hundreds of them scattered around the desert. After this we took a ride down to a beach that had enormous sand dunes. We went 4x4 driving over the dunes and then went sand boarding down them before watching the sunset. All in all a good day. As we were the only people being dropped off in Scarborough we were on a coach by ourselves on the way home. This was nice to start with, before Len, our driver, who was in his 60's bless him, decided he wanted to sing us a song... Nice Guy + Terrible Singer = Longest Journey Home, Ever.

After spending a couple more days on the beach our time in Perth is coming to an end. Perth is a really cool place and we both had an awesome time. The city is just amazing and the beaches are perfect. We got a lot done in such a short time and our money is already running out again! Going to Rottnest Island tomorrow morning, which we've heard nothing but good things about and is supposed to be an idyllic island with even more perfect beaches than here. Looking forward to it.