A Postcard from Perth Those of you who have seen the photo of me (Stu) at Singapore airport will have seen the state we were in as we left SE Asia for the land of Kangaroos and cuddly Koalas (and of course home to the defeated Aussie cricket team, hoorah!) The 5½ flight goes by in a flash with the usual dilemma of whether to stay awake and watch the movies or to catch up on some much needed sleep. At least our itinerary for Australia doesn't include any long bus rides or overnight train journeys, we have had enough of those for now. On the flight over Stu watches the "40 year old virgin" for a few hours - no not some good looking fella sat next to me but a very funny movie (Ken R you should watch that one mate it's dead funny). So Stu proceeds to laugh out loud all the way through and totally embarrasses Amy (signs of what's to come in the later years of marriage me thinks). For our stay in Perth the weather is very hot, a minimum of 30 degrees rising to a max of 35 degrees. It is more of a dry heat than what we were putting up with in KL so we manage to fight our way through the days, still sweating the proverbial's off of course. Immediately we notice how great it is to be back in an English speaking country and we also notice just how friendly the locals are and how set up Perth is for tourists just like us. As we arrive we are greeted by local people who have volunteered to work for the local tourist industry and they helped us and others out by recommending hostels and booking them. Great service. As we get into Perth we notice how spic and span clean it is and it doesn't really look like a city large enough to hold 1 million people. There is hardly any traffic on the roads and on just about every corner there is a pub. Fantastic!! As we are staying in yoof hostels (which by the way are pretty good) we had to get used to cooking our own meals again. What an absolute bummer! Breakfast only but there was a look of bewilderment between us when that first cup of tea had to be made. Maybe it's the way we look or something coming from SE Asia but everyone round the hostel looks like a supermodel or something, it's quite off putting really. I thought travellers in the most were supposed to wear crappy clothes which hadn't been washed for ages (that's what I've been doing for the past 3 months anyway). As we sat in the dining room it was like the set out of Hollyoaks. We slowly integrated ourselves back into the western culture by having a variety of western dishes for dinner over the next few days (from a restaurant of course). We visited some museums and learned about some Aboriginal history and their persecution by the white colonists, which was fascinating. We couldn't believe the way the Aboriginal children had been forced to leave their parents in order to assimilate them into white society. It's scary looking back now with hindsight and the damage it has caused to Australian society. We also visited the Fremantle prison museum which was great and the tour guide was a former prison guard which made it all the more interesting. The bit where we saw the death chamber (by hanging) was pretty sordid, 14 people have never walked out of that room but we managed it alright. We have loved being back in a country where the wine is of a genuinely good quality and not too expensive (10 Aussie dorrar for a bottle) and just about every evening we have forced ourselves to indulge in a bottle of plonk. We'll keep you posted of course of the latest stories and hot gossip (44 degrees) from Ayres rock soon, lots of love Stu & Amy.