So we're in Perth and our first experience of Australia has been great...we touched down in a heatwave! Luckily we were coming from South Africa and not the UK because it was seriously hot! But we soon aclimatised to the way of life in Perth which involves going to the beach, alot!

Steve's cousin, Fiona is living in Perth so we met up with her on the first day and went down to Cottesloe beach for a walk and then to her apartment which overlooks the river, such a gorgeous place to live.

We also met up with Helen and Marty who happened to be in Perth for a few days, and so we spent New Year's eve with them in Northbridge which was great. I almost didn't get into the pub because I had flip flops on - devestating news to a backpacker who only has one pair of shoes! hehe. But we managed to persuade the doorman to let me in and had a great night out complete with nightmare wait for bus/taxi to get home - wouldn't be new years without that!

We've done alot of walking and have definitely walked Perth flat...anyone who knows Steve will vouch for his love of walking for hours!! The city has been pretty quiet because of the New Year holidays and then weekend that followed, so I think we have seen Perth at its quietest, but it's been lovely - it's a really clean and new city, very well organised, and you can get most places you want to go very quickly and easily, which is good when it's 40 degrees and you're dying to get to the beach! We found a favourite beach just south of the main Cottesloe Beach where we swam everyday - it was really quiet and only dog walkers and the odd swimmer, so a perfect place to chill out in the afternoon and watch the amazing sunsets over the ocean.

We took a lovely day trip to Rottnest island...caught the first ferry from fremantle at 7.30am and hired some bikes to get around the island. The round trip is about 25km in total and we stopped off at some beautiful bays along the way to do some snorkelling and to take regular dips in the sea. The water is so clear and the visibility for snorkelling was fantastic. All in all a great way to spend a day, and a very sore butt afterwards!!!

Then we hired a car for a few days and went down the coast towards Margaret River, the wine area and surfing mecca. The scenery was a little bland to start with but when we got near Margaret River it was really beautiful and we stayed in a great chilled out hostel (Margaret River Lodge YHA), mostly full of surfers spending their summer there. There were loads of broken surfboards hanging from the rafters, telling the tales of huge waves and surf legends. Went to watch the kiteboarders down at Surfer's Point and saw the real die hard surfers at their best. Back at the hostel we bought a bottle of (corked, unlabelled) red wine from a neighbouring vineyard and enjoyed it so much we bought another and went to bed feeling great!! If we'd had more time we could definitely have chilled out here for longer!

Then we headed towards the South-Westerley most point in WA, Augusta, and then on towards the forests. We stopped off in a place called Pemberton - a tiny town with basically one street in it. Our hostel was full of people working on fruit farms to pay for their travels...an option we may have to look into at some point! Pemberton reminded us of a amall American logging town you'd see in the movies...wooden houses and old cars....the only thing missing was the banjo player on the stoop. We went for a lovely 12km walk through the forests to the Cascades and also attempted to climb the Gloucester Tree - a 65m tall tree which used to be used by firemen doing firewatch over the forest. Now it's open to the public to climb up - on steel rungs like a ladder going up the tree to above the forest canopy. I'd love to say we made it up to the top, but vertigo kicked in and we only got about halfway before turning back...a bit embarassing when there were 10 yr olds doing it, but in our defence it was damn high and very scary. Steve probably would've gone up if there were a few lads with him, but not me!!

We heard that Joe McGoldrick was making a family tree, and on his recommendation went up to the WWII memorial at Kings Park, to see the record of Patrick McGoldrick, Joe & Tommy's fathers uncle who fought and died for Australia in WWII. Really amazing to see, and so great that we were in Perth to see it.

evening with Fiona, her flatmate Helen and Kieran at their flat for a divine lasagne dinner - a great way to end our stay In Perth.