We're back at our home base. We had to come back to Perth to go to the Jack Johnson concert (which was mellow and great and everything we expected it to be) and to drop our friend Kathrin off at the airport. Max is in the shop today getting a 4000 point inspection which turned up the need for 4 new shocks (which we knew as it corners slightly worse than a grocery cart with a gimp wheel) and some new front brakes so we've blown our budget yet again, but we'll be h...

Well - for a change we actually do have a few things to report... most important news first: we would like to introduce you to MadMax - the Warrior, our new Mazda 1991 van. We bought him of a private owner (not crazy backpackers....) just south of Perth this past Friday. He is a 5-speed with 174'000 km on it, A/C (!!!!) and a MASSIVE kangaroo-bar on the front - which explains his name. We spent almost all day Monday cleaning (it was FILTHY), fixing little things ...

Well, I just played my first tennis matches on grass courts. Man, is that civilized. I was invited out by the hosts of the place we're staying as they have open sets on weekends, and this last weekend was a 3 day weekend so I went out on Saturday and Monday. Except for a few impromptu matches with Barbara this past summer, I haven't played tennis in about 18 months so I was a little worried, but the people there were extremely nice. Even the guy I hit on the head...

What's he doing? Praying to Mecca? Doing the wave? Yoga? Nope, he's trying to avoid (further) brain damage and keep his core temperature down. Don't get me wrong here, we're not complaining, but Holy Hot Batman. It's supposed to get up to 39C today -"but it's a dry heat...er whatever"! Luckily we don't have anything really to do, no people to meet and no deadlines to make so we've been keeping our exertion to a minimum. It's supposed to cool down to 30C...

Just a quick update from our first two days in Perth. Our apartment is even better than what we had hoped for. It's roomy, has a well-equipped kitchen (very important) and a fantastic terrace with views of the sand dunes and the ocean. The weather so far has been great, around 25C during the day but nice and cool at night. Today we decided to take our hosts up on their offer to lend us bikes. Helmets are mandatory and did NOT come in Jason's head size . His bike...