Blog 18

Hey everyone, hope you're all very well. We're in Margaret River at the moment for a few days. The public internet here is pretty slow so unfortunately we can't upload any photos this week.

After writing our last blog we took the van up to Kalamunda and left it at the garage Irene uses for a service. We ended up missing the bus we'd hoped to get and that resulted in us missing the last ferry back over to Rottnest so we ended up spending the night in Freo and getting the first ferry over the next morning. We had a good night in Freo. We went to 'La Porchetta', the Italian restaurant we were going to work at for a meal then had a nice walk down to the beach.

The next day (Sunday) James was working but I was off again so Lilly and I went for a great bike ride up towards Strickland Bay and we saw a pod of about 8 dolphins. It was fantastic. The rest of my day was pretty lazy although I did jump off the main jetty 10 times. Every time someone finished work I went for a jetty jump with them. In the evening we had a 'family' BBQ and roast at the house. It was a good evening, the managers and supervisors came round and all the food was paid for by work.

Monday was a fun day. After we'd finished work we had a jetty jump then went down to the beach with Jenna. The start of the evening was pretty chilled, we all just sat in the garden chatting and Lilly and I went for a bit of a walk. James spent a couple of hours on 'Escapade', the catamaran we went on for the sunset cruise, with some people from work and some others who work at the pub. At about midnight a

Load of us decided to go for a walk up to the 'Basin' and at about 1am we all went for a swim. There were about 7/8 of us so it was great fun going for a night swim. James, Nikki, Jenna and a couple of others stayed up playing a huge game of hide and seek in the dark between the Basin and Thompson's Bay and didn't get back 'til early hours.

Going to bed at 2.30am and being in work at 6am the next morning probably wasn't the best of ideas but surprisingly I didn't feel too tired. I was on a split shift but managed to get on my break early so I had a nice rest then. James was only in work until 3.30 so he spent the afternoon at the beach and around the house. He also played football with a couple of people from the pub. Dani who used to work with us came back on Tuesday too so after I finished work we all went to the pub and had tea and a few drinks. We had an earlier night that night as everyone was pretty tired from the night before.

On Wednesday we both finished work around 4pm and went down to the pub (again) for an afternoon drink and Jenna, Mau and I went for a jetty jump and a swim. The evening was pretty quiet, everyone hung around the house. Lilly and I watched 'Shrek 3' then I took my laptop outside and we all watched 'Finding Nemo'. It was a really fun evening!

Thursday was Bonnie's birthday and everyone ended up getting really drunk. It wasn't to be the best idea, there was drinking lined up for the next few nights! Laura and I were supposed to be having our last night on Friday and Saturday was Australia Day, another major excuse to get drunk!

Friday was a very busy day. We got up early and caught the ferry over to mainland so we could pick up the van. It'd had a fair bit of work done - A new headlight, windscreen, and alternator were fitted and a full service had been carried out. The mechanic is now confident it'll take us all the way to Cairns but would like to give it another service before we leave Perth at the end of March anyway. James dropped me off in Freo and I headed back over to Rottnest to start my packing as we were supposed to be leaving the next day. James got the CD player fitted then left the van in the ferry terminal car park with a guy called Ryan who sprayed some designs over it for us. It looks amazing! We'll try and get the photos uploaded when we get to Albany. A group of us spent the evening on the beach. We tried to light a fire but it didn't really work.

I had a nice lie in on Saturday, I woke up to James bringing me breakfast in bed! We didn't do much, we watched a film in Lilly's room and her and Aaron managed to persuade us to stay another night. James was a little worried as our parking ticket ran out at 8am on Sunday and the ferry only gets in at 8.30 but as it turned out we were ok. It was a really relaxed day, and we finished it off by sleeping on the roof of the dorms, it was great watching the stars.

I ended up working on Sunday! Bonnie had planned to leave and her boyfriend Nat really wanted to see her off so I covered for him. James caught the 8am ferry back and picked up all our stuff from Irenes. There was no room to move in the van when he was done! As it turns out, Bonnie didn't leave after all. The ferry she wanted to catch had been cancelled and that meant she missed her flight to Adelaide. Out of the blue she decided to stay for another 3 months! Nat was over the moon! After work I quickly finished off my packing then jumped on the 6.30 ferry to meet James in Fremantle. He'd bought me some really good sushi for my dinner. We headed off for Mandurah shortly afterwards and spent the night in the van next to a beach.

The next day we got back on the road to Margaret River, we arrived late Monday afternoon and set up camp. We have our Hammock and Gazebo set up around us. We spent some time sorting out all our gear, then cycled in to Margaret River town and got some lunch. After that we drove down to the 'River Mouth' beach and had a walk and watched the surf. We didn't go in though. It was quite windy so the surf was very messy. We had a nice walk though. On the way back from the beach I had my first drive of the new van. It was pretty scary! I haven't driven for soooo long. Monday evening was quiet. We just spent some time on the site and watched a DVD.

Yesterday was a really good day. It was still very windy though so we didn't go surfing. After a nice lie in we cycled in to Margaret River again and had breakfast and wandered round the shops. In the afternoon we decided to kit out the van more so we bought some wood and hired some tools and have made a raised bed with storage area underneath and another storage area with worktop. That took up most of our afternoon but was fun to do. It felt like we were on the TV programme 'Changing Rooms' as we only had a few hours before we had to take the tools back so it was pretty rushed.

In the evening we went for another bike ride through some woods then we went out for tea. We found a pub that does proper 'pub food'. It was a cool evening but we sat outside and I had traditional bangers and mash and James had a burger and a pint. It really felt like we were in the UK.

Today is the coolest day we've had for a long while, it's pretty overcast and only about 17 degrees. I know that is pretty warm compared to back home but we've been having 25+ degrees for the last 3 months. Most days have been closer to 40! As I type this Okie is on his way down from Perth to join us, hopefully we'll get a surf in today or tomorrow.

More news, we have decided not to take up our new jobs in Esperance but we are still going to head down there for a few days holiday. We've decided to go back to Rottnest to work. We only have another 5 weeks to work now anyway before mum comes over and we want to spend some more time with our great friends on Rotto. There is also a bit more stuff we want to do on the van which we can only do around Perth. We're going to get back to Rottnest for my birthday then have 5 weeks of hard saving.

Expect another update by Saturday. Speak to you all soon, Love Laura and James xXx