September 2012

So we have been in Australia for over a month now, it has gone really fast!

Perth is the capital and largest city of WA. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia, with an estimated population of 1.74 million living in the Perth metropolitan area. Part of the South West Land Division of WA, the majority of the metropolitan area of Perth is located on the Swan Coastal Plain, a narrow strip between the Indian Ocean and the Darling Scarp, a low coastal escarpment. The first areas settled were on the Swan River, with the city's central business district and port (Fremantle) both still located on the river. Perth's metropolitan area is formally divided into a number of local government areas, which themselves consist of a large number of suburbs, extending from Two Rocks in the north to Rockingham in the south, and east inland to The Lakes.

The weather has gotten a lot better since we first arrived, it has hit 30 degrees a few times and we've been able to go to the beach!

We have both managed to find jobs, which Stu has now left since it involved ridiculous long hours (which I told him but didn't listen) so Stu has been job searching again! I am working in credit services for a company that sell liquor to all the liquor stores, hotels and bars in Australia, but the office here only deals with Western Australia, Northern Territory and South Australia. My geography of Australia is getting better every day; they do have some really weird suburbs and town names here!! I have been here for three weeks and I was only employed for one month, but they have 'unofficially' told me I am staying much longer. Woo hoo! I was brought on to take the work load off others and help set up new customer accounts as they have won a huge contract for all the customers from a previous competitor that has gone. Even though it is a stressful time, it doesn't seem to show, they all seem to be pretty laid back still. Which is great, and all my colleagues are great fun.

The commute to work is an hour which involves a 15 minute walk to the station, one train and a bus. I don't mind the travel; it is just standard in Australia that it takes longer to get everywhere due to its size! Or maybe I have the patience of a saint since experiencing Asian travel, who knows! I unfortunately have to share the transport with the weirdo's and odd people of Perth. The other day someone shouted at me and told me to turn down my music of my iPod. I was not impressed and turned it up louder just to annoy them more. The journey is quite enjoyable; I travel along the Kwinana freeway, along the Swan River, which is beautiful when the sun is shining so I spend most of the journey gazing out of the window. Along the river you'll see a fair amount of black swans and the Australian pelican! Huge birds!

On my way home there is a swarm of green parrots that roost in the trees near the station, which make one hell of a racket!! Also the crows here are mega noisy! I miss the British crow, less squawking! You can also spot white and pink parrots which are really pretty and black cockatiels flying in the sky, it is a little odd thinking parrot are native and common, but we have gotten used to it more!

We have got really used to the prices here, even more now that we are getting paid in Australian dollars! I don't think paying $10 for three peppers is expensive, even though 6 weeks ago I did! The only thing I find expensive is beer and drinking.

We have moved into a house share now West Perth in a suburb called Leederville, not too far from where the bars are in Northbridge (but far enough for the trouble to stay there!) and the lovely little coffee shops down the road. We have our local supermarket a 20 minute walk and two train station both within 15 minutes from the house. We have seven people in total, us, an Irish couple Shelly and Simon, another British couple Tom and Charlotte and Tom from the East coast of Australia.

Our first weekend, I went to the rugby at Subiaco Oval to watch the Wallabies play against the South Africans! It was a pretty awesome and the stadium was pretty big! We got tickets right next to the pitch and we could see how big the players were! It was a good match with the Wallabies winning in the end! On the Sunday we went to the beach a bit further on from Scarborough, Trigg beach. We went with our house mates and their friends and enjoyed the sun and had a BBQ. The water was a bit too cold to venture in, but the sun was good!

Two of our house mates left on the Monday and were replaced by Tom and Charlotte, so we now have no car owning house mates!

The following weekend we went to Cottesloe beach, since we had no car and the buses on a Sunday to Scarborough are always packed out towards home time. We took the train and headed down with our Irish roommates Shelly and Simon. It was really hot, 30 degrees, hot enough to venture into the freezing water. Once in it was actually quite refreshing! Shelly said Cottesloe was a calm beach, but however not today. The waves were pretty big and the pull on the tide very strong! We all laughed as we kept falling over from the waves.

Stu and I enjoyed our first fish and chips in about 8 months, it was really good! The best part of the day was when a seagull managed to poop into Shelly's bag on her top. I couldn't stop laughing for the entire day! Around 4:30 we headed home as the sun was going in and it was getting chilly.

This week, Stu quit his job which is good as I can now see him more and actually spend a full weekend with him! On the way home from work we popped into one of the coffee shops in Leederville called Greens, I ordered a drink and we both asked for a slice of homemade cake. They brought us out the BIGGEST slice of cake I have ever seen my entire life! We couldn't eat dinner we were still that full! We have made this out Friday ritual! It is damn good day on Fridays!

We went to the zoo on Saturday which was good fun, until a bird pooped on my jumper; Shelly said it was karma from me laughing so much last weekend! Oh well, I properly deserved it, at least it wasn't a seagull! The zoo wasn't as good as Singapore, but was still good fun! I was disappointed there wasn't more spider/snake exhibit as I wanted to see what the dangerous ones looked like!

We have gotten used to that we are in Australia and are enjoying it more since we have moved out of the hostel.

We decided to have 'games night' with our other roommates, which was good fun and we got to know each other better. We played s*** head, Irish snap (possibly the best game ever!), Spoons and horse racing, were we all got pretty competitive!! I am so glad we have a detached house otherwise the neighbours might not have been happy!

We went to Mandurah on the bank holiday weekend, it was a good day. Mandurah is the second-largest city in WA and is located approximately 72 kilometers (45 mi) south of the state capital, Perth. The waters of the Peel Inlet and Harvey Estuary (one of Australia's larger inlet systems) form the centre of Mandurah. The estuary is approximately twice the size of Sydney Harbour. The city lies in and around this freshwater system which in turn feeds into the Indian Ocean. The city and its suburbs have many kilometres of ocean coastline most of which is sandy beaches. Mandurah also has a number of suburbs built around artificially created canal systems that extend from the Peel Inlet. The Noongar (or Bibbulmun) people, who inhabited the South West of WA, named the area Mandjar ('meeting place'). After European settlement the name changed, possibly due to mispronunciation, to Mandurah.

We had our weekly dose of fish and chips! While we were enjoying our fish and chips trying to avoid the seagulls a little girl decided to go for a swim. I don't think she enjoyed it so much! But all ended well thank god! We booked ourselves on the dolphin tour; we jumped on board the boat and went along the waterways and little canals. There are some pretty amazing and beautiful (not to mention very expensive) houses. Most of these houses are just holiday homes and cost between 5 - 12 million dollars! OUCH! Too much money and not enough sense that's what I think! We actually managed to see some wild dolphins which was very cool. They use the shallow waterways to help catch fish. After our boat tour we sat on the sea wall watching the dolphin swim out into sea. There are a lot of boats berthed here, all very nice and posh!

On the Sunday we went to Kings Park, the whole population of Perth seemed to have come down too! We had a wonder through the Bush lands before finding a nice grassy spot to have a picnic and play some cards! Kings Park is a 4.06-square-kilometre (1,003-acre) park located on the western edge of the central business district in Perth, WA. The park is a mixture of grassed parkland, botanical gardens and natural bush land on Mount Eliza with two thirds of the grounds conserved as native bush land. With panoramic views of the Swan River and Darling Range, it is home to over 300 native plant varieties and 80 bird species. It overlooks the city as well as Perth Water and Melville Water on the Swan River. It is the largest inner city park in the world and the most popular visitor destination in WA, being visited by over five million people each year. The park is larger than New York's Central Park which is 3.41 km². Besides tourist facilities Kings Park contains the State War Memorial, the Royal Kings Park Tennis club and a reservoir. The streets are tree lined with individual plaques dedicated by family members to Western Australian service men and women who died in WWI and WWII.

We also had our first Sunday lunch, we decided to try some Skippy (kangaroo!) it was amazing! Best meal I have ever had!

I love it here in Perth wherever you go you can always see the city, from our street you can see the sky scrapers and it looks really pretty at night. I can see the city from the station at work and I am always wandering around smiling to myself thinking how much I love life here! I think we made the right choice getting a working visa.