So, I have now been in Australia for over six weeks and my goodness is the time flying by! I am still in Freo in Western Australia and I am still staying at the Old Firestation Backpackers. I am really enjoying myself here so no plans to change anything for the time being as I aim to stick around for another six weeks or so and then head up north on a trip through the likes of Monkey Mia, Exmouth, Broome, The Kimberleys and Darwin. The plan after that is to catch the Ghan Train down to Alice Springs and see Uluru (Ayers Rock) and then catch the second leg of the Ghan train down to Adelaide. It's a long journey down from Darwin to Adelaide - it take something like two and a half days. But I figure it will be worth it!

Anyway back to now and a fair bit has being going on since I last blogged on here four weeks ago. First of all there was the job situation. I was hoping to get a job asap to earn some money as I have been slowly eating into my savings since I got out here, mainly down to rent and the price of beer, which is 8 bucks a pint (around 4 quid). I have managed to secure my self a job working in Perth until the end of September. It's working for a multinational oil and gas company in one of the large skyscraper type buildings in Perth CBD. It appears I have fallen on my feet there. I have been working there two days so far and the people are really great and the job, although quite familiar, is more challenging than your basic data entry job that I was longing not to get. Funnily enough it's in HR! So theres no escaping it! The temp rates out here are very good too. So all in all things are looking good for the next six weeks or so to replenish my funds and have some money to cover the next few months or so and the trip I have got planned mentioned earlier. I guess when I get to Adelaide I will review the situation as Christmas/New Year will be around the corner and that will be expensive, but for now it's just good to be working.

Mentioning Christmas/New Year brings me on to my plans for that. I decided to book my hostel last week for Sydney and it looks like it will be fantastic. The hostel is on Collaroy which is a beach north of Sydney. Darren & Tom, who I met in the hostel in Freo, were there last year and had a great time and by chance Andrea and Phil were there as well and gave it a good recommendation. Also a couple of the boys in the hostel Charlie and Tom are staying there so it will be good to have some mates there as well. It promises to be a great two weeks!

So what have I been up to since my last blog? Well it will come as no surprise to many that I have been busy socialising. We have had some brilliant nights frequenting the likes of the Newport pub, Metros & Clink (both nightclubs in Freo). We also celebrated a birthday at the hostel by going horse racing at Belmont races, the winter racecourse in Perth followed by a night at the casino and the adjacent nightclub called the Ruby Room. Needless to say it was a great day, made even better by the fact that I actually won gambling so it pretty much paid for my day (and night). The Burswood Casino we went to was one stop on from the racecourse and is the biggest casino I have been to. Apparently there is one in Melbourne which is bigger so may have to pay that one a visit when I get over there! The complex itself has bars and a club so ideal for a night out. Not if you are wearing plimsoles though - or so we thought......A few of us actually queued up for the best part of a hour for the Ruby Room to try and get in, only for two of the London boys to be turned down for not having shoes on. In any normal nightclub that would be the end of it. However the way the nightclub is designed means that people can walk through from the Casino area to the club, as long as they have a stamp which you receive when you pay. If you have a stamp the bouncer at the stairs doesn't care if you are not wearing shoes as he assumes that the bouncers on the door have let you in. Anyhow, the london boys decided to try and blag their way in one of the biggest blags I think I have ever seen. They decided to try and find young ladies in the Casino who had just had received their 'stamp' from the nightclub, ask to lick the stamp and try to put their stamp on to their forearm. Well, after a lot of hard work they managed to do it and got into their nightclub in their plimsoles. Unbelievable. And so we all walked in and had a great night......

Other than getting drunk I have been doing a bit of sightseeing too. Last week I visited Fremantle Prison of which pictures can be found on my facebook. It was a really worthwhile trip. I decided to do two tours - the 'Doing time' tour and 'Great Escapes' tour. The tour guide was excellent and it was fascinating to see the inside of the prison as well as hearing many of the stories of some of the characters of the Prison. Apparently one of the only successful escape attempts involved some Irish fienens. Some were released from the prison and they decided to come back and pose as British officers and planned an escape with the rest of their comrades. Apparently Steven Spielberg is going to making a film about the escape so that will be interesting when it is released. Other notable escape artists included Moondyne Joe and some guy whose name escapes me at the moment who actually escaped many times from Fremantle prison, was sent to another prison on the East Coast and escaped from that one, after Fremantle was shut down and opened to the public. The story goes that he actually went in to Fremantle as a member of the public while he was an escaped prisoner and did a tour of Fremantle prison. Apparently he signed the guestbook saying that they would never catch him! So the Fremantle Prison Tour was very enjoyable and really worth doing.

I also visited the Maritime museum this week and did a submarine tour which was very informative. Very interesting to see how the submariners lived while on the submarine and how it all worked. The museum itself was focussed on many of the ships and boats which were used to get into Australia over the years as well as the types of vessels used for fishing by the British, Japanese, Aboinginals etc.I am planning a trip to Rottnest island soon and also would like to do a few day trips down south as I don't think I will get the chance to go down there once I go north. There are some really nice places down there which will be well worth seeing so here's hoping for some nice weather over the next few weeks.

So that's about it for now. The next six weeks I should be working solidly during the week trying to earn enough cash to get me up North and down to Adelaide and having a good time while I'm doing it. Rottnest Island is on the list of things to do, as is catching a Perth Glory FC game, perhaps an Aussie Rules match and going down south to see some of the towns there. Many of the people I have met so far have moved on already, but people are coming and going in the hostel all the time and it's a great place to get to know people. I am really enjoying myself and I am so glad to have made the decision to have come out here!