Hi Everyone

We spent the weekend in Margaret Rive, it’s about a 4 hour drive south of Perth. We hired a car for the weekend and went on Friday afternoon. It was really weird driving again after 5 months but it felt great. Margaret River is a beautiful area, its where most of the wineries in Western Australia are.

We set off from Perth at about 2pm and got to Margaret River at about 6pm. The was long but very nice, we took the Old Coast Road and saw lots of new suburbs being built with amazing house, then once we got past the Perth outer area it was just fields and ocean for miles and miles and miles.

The lodge we'd booked was lovely, set back in the 'bush', it had a spa and bbq out back, it was a very nice treat. On the Friday night we went for a meal in Margaret River town centre (which was very touristy). I ate OYSTERS. I can’t' believe it. We had Kilpatrick Oysters to start and then I had fillet steak with prawns and Ant had three types of venison on a bed of sweet potato mash! How posh eh! It wasn't that expensive either.

Saturday we went on the Wine for Dudes trip was excellent. They're a company who have made the wine tours more for the younger generation, so you can enjoy drinking the wine rather than just finding out how to smell it and spit it out properly. We went to four wineries and tried LOTS of wine. We were both very drunk; we also went to a brewery and a Chocolate factory. It was a great day and we made lots of friends on the trip, nearly all of them were English and were over here traveling. Quite a lot of them we're near the end of their trips and would be going home to England soon, so it was nice to hear their stories.

Saturday night we had a BBQ and SPA, back at the lodge. I finally saw kangaroos today. Lots of them in fact, all in a field near the lodge. At first I thought the field had rabbits scattered about (there were so many) but then I realized they were Kangaroos. We saw quite a few dead on the side of the road as well; a lot of them get hit by cars! We had to drive really slowly at night time which is when they seem to go walkies on the road.

Sunday morning we went down to the beach and watched LOTS of surfers out on the waves. The waves were quite big and it was the first time I had seen so many surfers, it was really cool. We had an added bonus that day of seeing dolphins in the ocean just near the lookout point of the beach. It made the weekend really.

The drive back was just as long as the drive there but it was nice to be driving. We got back to Perth about 4pm on the Sunday. I wish we could have stayed down there for longer but we had to get back for work!We are going to go back for the Easter holiday weekend. This time I will remember to take my camera. I'm afraid I forgot to take it this weekend so we have got no photos of the wineries or kangaroos. One of the couples we met said they will send us some that they took of us, so hopefully I will be able to post a few.

Perth is still beautiful and amazing. Both plodding along in our jobs earning some good money to save up and carry on to the east coast. Ant has got a job as a pipe fitter for an air-conditioning company, which he is really enjoying, especially considering the site he is working on is 3 buildings from our flat!

Speak soon

Nic & Ant