Making Leanne camp in swags and asking her to eat food cooked on campfires comes with conditions. The condition manifested itself as a 5 star hotel in Adelaide.
We actually hadn't accounted for Easter and all the hostels were booked due to a big open air gig on the sunday, and so we searched lastminute.com for hotels. Surprisingly the cheapest (well, one of the cheapest) was a 5 star luxury hotel right in the heart of the city. Beautiful. We got the transit bus with a couple of very well dressed ladies who were very keen on telling everyone they were staying at the Stamford Plaza (the same hotel we were in). Their jaws hit the floor when we said we were staying there too. Clearly our sandals, my cut legs, Leanne's big hair and our general appearance didn't make us look like the correct clientele. The four of us got off the bus and we checked in at the same time. For some reason, Leanne and i were upgraded to an even nicer room, at which point the two ladies practically burst in to flames. It was classic.
Adelaide was generally closed over Easter, but we did manage to walk around the botanical gardens, which was beautiful, although i was hungry and so pretty much ran around dragging Leanne behind me. We were only in this city for a couple of days and as it was holiday time we were pretty much limited to sitting around the rooftop pool or sitting in the hot-tub looking over the city. Backpacking can be brutal.
We flew on to Perth and chose to lastminute .com it again and once again found ourselves in a hotel at the heart of the action. We had a day trip to Rottnest island which is a crazy place full of Quoccas (small marsupials mistaken for rats by a dutchman back in the day) and people on bikes. We saddled up and cycled around, occasionally stopping for food, drinks or to snorkel. We had lunch at Geordie Bay, actually next to a bunch of Geordies which was mad.
Next day, and to soothe our aching limbs we went on a one-day Indulgence Tour, where you visit wineries and chocolate making establishments. We arrived at the first winery a little after 10.30am and were presented with 8 wines (a selection of red, white, rose and port). This set the scene for the day. Safe to say we tasted a lot, and figured out which wines we do / don't like, but then instantly forgot as we were a bit drunk. We finished the day around 5pm knowing that Leanne likes chocolate and i like most wines. Money well spend methinks!!!!
We visited Fremantle (Freo) to the locals, which is the port town of Perth. It's the cappuccino capital apparently, but we stopped for a cup of tea as we both dislike coffee. We had fish and chips for lunch in the number one fish and chip shop in Freo, which isn't difficult to find as they all say they're number one. A bit of false advertising on the part of some of them possibly but we ate up anyway.
It's now time to leave Australia and head to Singapore to start our South East Asian adventure. We're both really going to miss Oz. It's a brilliant place that we both very much fell in love with. But time and tide waits for no man and it's time to pack up and move on. There's trouble in Thailand so our original itinerary may need a tweak or two but it gives us a chance to go a little off-piste and explore a bit. Am sure after all the hotels and luxury, Leanne won't mind rolling her sleeves up and getting knee deep in South East Asia. Probably best i don't tell her that's the new plan though!!!!