On the Thursday the weather was very windy with very occasional spots of rain.

We spent the morning in Margaret River Town doing some retail therapy- I ended up with 9 bags. I sought a coffee at one stage but was soon pressured back into service. Rather than hang around the rest of the day we decided after a snack lunch to drive back to Mindarie (Greg and Liz's house which is about 25 kilometres north of Perth centre but still in its suburbs!). Perth is a vast housing building site with suburb after suburb being extended, principally in attractive one off houses with most not too far from the coast. But even land which originally was part of the coastline is being developed, so if you had a sea view 5 years ago, you may not in the next five years!!

As we left Margaret River we took the minor road to Dunsborough which was full of the wineries. It looked strange the vineyards every kilometre or so for a distance of some 50 kilometres surrounded by bush and trees obviously in need of water. The road from Dunsborough to to Busselton was a strip on the left side of fabulous houses that faced the sea, withe shoreline being their frontage and the road being at the back of their properties.

As the coast road was so boring back up to Perth we went on the inland road which was far more interesting - we even had hills most of the time on our right hand side. As we reached the southern outskirts of Perth we joined the freeway which took us straight thru Perth and out to the north to Mindarie. One thing they have done here is to build the freeway with the central reservation taken up by the commuter train track. So every 5 miles or so you reach a station in the centre of the freeway which was accessed by bridges on either side for buses and pedestrians. Also each station had major parking lots on the side of the freeway for the commuter's cars.

Yet again we noticed a high proportion of Land Cruisers here ( as in NZ) most white or silver so we felt at home.

On Friday Greg joined us in the morning for a wander around Kings Park in Perth which is a major park and botanical area looking down over the city and the river. We plan to go back as we did not have time to wander around it all. One thing we did find, unlike Singapore, was a memorial to the Bali Bombing which listed the 14 young people from Western Australia killed, including it appeared from the names - two sisters. So we were able to think of Neil and pay our respects. The memorial was designed so that as the sun rose on the 12th October - the day of the bombing - the rays hit the face of the memorial's stone plaque.

After lunch in the park we dropped Greg off at the station for him to go off to Swann River wineries with some friends. We attempted to do some more retail therapy in the shopping centre, but to be honest it was not very different from any other shopping centre in the western world. One thing we did notice was that with the Easter break coming up, all shops including supermarkets are closed all day Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday. So I can see mass shopping next Thursday and Saturday!! We stopped on our way back from Perth at a Woolworths, which similar to NZ, is a food supermarket chain here. If you buy booze, which we have been known to do, you have to go into a separate part of the store and through its own tills, you cannot pay for it with the rest of your goods, which seems very quaint!

Weather has cooled a little with temperature in mid 20s which is fine for shopping and wandering around parks. Off tomorrow Saturday with Cat and James to buy pressies for birthdays.

As with NZ number plates here (although most are standard) can be any mix of letters or numbers - I guess it depends on what you have to pay. I cannot remember if I highlighted one number plate in NZ which was TISHO -you need to see it in your rear view mirror. One we have seen here in Perth is one which would not be allowed in PC England - it was "WOG CHICK" !!

Keeping out of dinner preparation by writing up the blog!! But my name is being called.

Bryan