Blog 13

Merry Christmas Everybody! Only 4 days to go! Hope you all have lots of exciting plans for the festive period. Enjoy eating lots and being merry!

Sorry it's been so long since our last blog, it's just the way our days off worked out. We've had a fairly busy week or so. Work has been quite crazy. Saying that though, we have managed to finish early on a couple of occasions.

After our blog entry last week we went up to Irene's for a bit to wish her a Merry Christmas as she has gone to Bali now for Christmas and New Year. James and I then went back to Fremantle and spent the night in a youth hostel and went out for a really nice meal at a Mexican restaurant which had been recommended to us by Sarah (mum) from work.

On Tuesday morning we did some more Christmas shopping. We are doing secret Santa at work so we needed to get some presents for that. We also got a few nice bits of Christmas food such as Shortbread and mince pies and James also got a mini Christmas pudding and cake. They're really tiny. We bought some almond icing and chocolate too so we can make Lindsey's Christmas sweets.

We got a fairly early ferry back on Tuesday because James was in work at one. Everyone here was quite emotional in the afternoon because Frenchy left on the 4.30 ferry to continue his travels. He will be greatly missed here.

A huge amount of people have started here in the last couple of weeks. We now have a new English girl called Tasmin, an Italian girl called Sara, a Taiwanese girl, Kate, two Welsh girls, Helen and Dani, and another Aussie guy, Simon. Last week a guy called Ricky from Hong Kong started but he only stayed here 3 or 4 days. There are quite a few people planning to leave after Christmas so I expect we'll be getting even more staff then.

On Wednesday I finally got to go to the West End. James and I headed out with Blondie, Jenna and Lana but only me, James and Blondie made it. The others had rubbish bikes so ended up turning back. It's quite a long ride. I think it's 10km from Thompson Bay, where we are staying, to Jump rock in the West End. It took about an hour to get there because we had to keep waiting for everyone. It only took us about 25 minutes to cycle back though. James and I probably have the cheapest bikes here but they seem to be the best. Everyone else's has something wrong with it.

We had a good time in the West end. We went to Jump Rock and Sarah (blondie) jumped in twice. Me and James chickened out when the sun went in and the wind blew cold, maybe another day! James says you can liken the experience to 'Oblivion' at Alton Towers.

I haven't done that much else this week. Work has been so busy I've been really tired when I've got in. Been to the pub a couple of times but I haven't been drinking. Desperately trying to save now ready for our travels.

On Friday James went to the mainland with Sarah (blondie) for a party at her youth club. Megan went with them too and they then spent the evening at a bar in Subiaco. I couldn't go because I had to work on Friday morning so I spent the evening with some friends from work.

We have had some really miserable weather this week. Sunday morning and Monday were really windy and rainy. Every time I went outside at work my hat blew off J

It has brightened up a lot now though, in time for Christmas! On Sunday evening James and I headed up to Oliver Hill again. It's beautiful up there. It has such fantastic views of the whole island.

James has found a really nice cove this week while exploring off the beaten track, it's not shown on any maps and doesn't appear to have a name, so to everyone at the house it's now known as "James Cove". It's a really secluded and beautiful little place, where you can pretty much guarantee there will be no tourists calling the space their own. Gonna try to keep it quiet.

We are still having lots of fun on Rottnest which is good. We are going to the church on Christmas Eve, either for the 6.30pm vigil or midnight mass. We haven't decided yet. We are both working on Christmas Day in the morning so we'll have plenty of time to enjoy the day and make our Christmas day phone calls.

Apologies for the photos this week, there's a real mish-mash from the last 3 weeks and we weren't sure which ones you guys had seen already! We'll try to tag them as best as possible.

Merry Christmas to everyone from both of us, hope you all have a great time and hopefully we'll have another blog up before the New Year.

All our love, Laura and James xx