Hooray! We made it to Perth! No more do we have to have cold showers, sleep in huts or eat rice everyday - okay so we loved all that stuff but it is such bliss to feel properly clean! Having landed in Perth, first we had to conquer the Australian customs. We have never seen anything like the ruthless efficiency of this system. If your biscuits, apple (or in our case wooden chopsticks) are not caught by the sniffer dogs or officials, they will definitely be got by the xray machine. Poor Cheryl had carefully carried the chopstick dinner set - a present for Julie and her dad - all the way from North Thailand only for it to be unwrapped and unpacked in the airport - doh! Our hostel was fantastic and even picked us up from the airport at 2am. This was good because with a half decent nights sleep we were fresh to explore the sights of Perth and, most importantly, do what we had been anticipating for weeks - get our hair cut! Don't laugh, you have no idea of the traumas of having big hair!!! That evening Ian flew in to join us (yey!) and Liz unashamedly abandoned Cheryl to be treated to a night in the Hyatt Hotel - very nice it was too (sorry Cheryl). Thankfully Cheryl is a sociable sort and befriended Mary who too joined us in our Perth explorations. Perth itself, though very nice with a good zoo, a fab park and a beautiful skyline, was small. We therefore moved our growing party further afield to Freemantle. This little port town had loads to offer. Unlike ourselves who were just getting back into the habit of opening a guidebook, Mary had it sussed and she led the way on a walking tour. This brought back dubious recollections of past walking tours in Shanghai and Beijing where crucial landmarks and major roads were left off the so called map making the walk nye on impossible but thankfully Mary even knew the way! The tour took us to the market (where amusingly you can buy horny goats weed?!), past some beautiful buildings including the tower and a little fort and to the prison. Ian had been best man at a wedding in Devon just days before and coincidentally the happy couple (Kath and Rich) was in Perth at the same time as us so we all went for a drink in a very cool brewery bar on the seafront. It's a shame Liz hates beer, the atmosphere was good enough to compensate for its revolting choice of beverage though! So much for being done with the scum! Cheryl and Mary's dorm in the Freemantle hostel was like something you would not believe. Just two other blokes shared their dorm and yet their stuff was spread from one end of the room to the other, plus they had felt the need to set off toilet roll bombs out of deodorant cans in the lockers. This was nothing however compared to the bed bug bites the acquired during the night - ew! By morning we had picked up yet another comrade, Dan and the five of us went to catch the ferry to Rottnest Island. Although the island is almost solely renowned for its beaches (quite right too they are stunning), Liz and Ian forgot their swimmers. The despair and disappointment was short lived however as we hired bikes and the trail we followed around the island took pretty much all day. Do not fear though, the beaches were (of course) not entirely neglected and we sat on our fair share of them - there is ALWAYS time for sunbathing! It's a good job Liz is good at sunbathing because her cycling was not so hot....check out the photos! He he he! Despite feeling deservedly physically exhausted from our days cycle, there was no way Cheryl and Mary were going to get back into those bug infested bunks of Freemantle so it was back on the train to Perth. Here Cheryl and Liz for the first time in nearly 3 months parted company (boo!) Cheryl excitedly flew off into the sunset for her movie like reunion with her dad in Sydney (she hadn't seen him for 15 months!) Liz and Ian meanwhile drove off in their hired car southward towards Margaret River.