Not written for a while now....but not really been up to anything exciting.

The last two weeks has pretty much been looking for work, places to live and just normal life bits and bobs.

Arrived in Perth to what has been described as their coldest winter in history....great....esp when you have no warm clothes for sub zero temperatures! Didn't help that I flew in from Broome which was 34oC nice and warm. Here I have to wear all my warm clothes at once when walking around town - layering certainly works. It still not quite as bad as winters at home in the UK. Just to show you how big Australia is the flight from Broome to Perth took over 2.5. hours and they are in the same state. 2.5 hours in the UK would get you to Spain - crazy!

Stayed initially at the Witches Hat - a quaint hostel in the Northbridge area of Perth. It was a nice and small place to get to know people although it was pretty open and therefore freezing all the time. Central heating does not really exist over here at all so you just have to put the aircon system up to 30oc, which just seems silly as it still seems to be blowing out cold air. So after a week of sleeping in my hoody I moved to the Perth YHA, which is so nice and warm and saves me about 20 mins on the walk into town.

Managed to find a job in MacPac an outdoor shop here in Perth. It is a bran new store and the only one on the west coast but is originally a NZ brand...check out the website....http://www.macpac.com.au/ I seriously can't get over how expensive the shop is.....backpacks are a few $100 even in the sale. To be honest Australia as a whole is very expensive especially food. Even the locals think the cost of food has increased significantly recently. By the sounds of it the east coast is a lot cheaper so hopefully things can only get better from here. Only working 20 hours week, which is considered a casual position and majority of my shifts have been on the weekend so far but get double pay on a Sundays which is good. There are only 5 of us who work at the store - 2 aussies, 1 scottish, 1 english guy and me...so all we need now is someone from ireland and we will have the whole mix. We are meant to greet the customers as they come into the store....however my 'good morning' seems to cause a few chuckles as it sounds so British therefore now I have resorted to the strange aussie saying of...'how you going? which seems more like a transport question than a greeting but hey when in Rome ( or...Oz) and all that! Everyone who I work with are really nice and the company provide an activity budget so we are going rock climbing tomorrow night after work...wish me luck! Have not been rock climbing since I was 17 and wasn't much good then so can't see much improvement. Oh well I can be the entertainment:)

Been also looking for some admin work to add a few extra hours but here I am over qualified for admin work....strange as I apparently wasn't in the UK but never mind. So I'm thinking I need to 'dumb' down my CV to help a little. Will see how it goes. I have also recently managed to find a room to rent in an area called Subiaco which is really close to the centre and is THE place to be for going out and eating etc. So really excited about my move there next weekend. It should be really good to finally have my own room and semi settle somewhere as although hostels are ok you are surrounded by people who are constantly moving on and therefore it is impossible to build up any sort of friendship.

Regarding future plans I am thinking I will go to Adelaide come mid october and then to Uluru (Ayres Rock). I wasn't that bothered about seeing Uluru initially but heard so many good things about the red centre I thought I had better see for myself. Then I plan to fly to Cairns and work my way down to Sydney for new year and then try and work there or Melbourne until my visa runs out in May 2011. The onto NZ......

My old housemate Danielle from Winchester is visiting in August and we are planning on hiring a car and heading down to the south west coast of Western Australia. This area is known as St Margarets river and is famous for its wine....need I say more about our reason for going there! Super excited about her coming as it will be so nice to see someone from home and not have to go through the trawl of questions of...where you from? How long you been in Oz? where you going next? etc etc its like being back as a fresher at uni and the repetitive questioning then. So will be busy planning things for us to do, which so far includes visiting the casino although I will have no idea how to play any of the games....I wonder if they play snap?

Will blog next week once settled into my new place :) bye for now xxx