Perth!

Where has this past month gone? I cant believe I have now been in Perth over a week, i have a week and a half left in Australia and Kirsty leaves tomorrow :-( Crazy!!

Another interesting Western Australia (WA) fact for you; WA has a population of 2 million, and Singapore 4 million, but Singapore can fit into WA, 4,000 times!!!! This is a massive state! Perth is said to be the most isolated city in the world, for its size!

I had heard so much about Perth before i arrived, all great things! And its been a really good week, but i think its safe to say now that im a Sydney girl at heart! Perth is very laid back and chilled and small really, the sun shines most days and its all very nice, but im not sure there is much happening for a 20 something!!

Saying that, we have done lots since we arrived, and its the longest I have stayed in one place since Darwin. We arrived and i just crashed out last weekend. There was no accomodation left for the weekend where we were staying and so decided to go to Freemantle for the weekend. Its really nice there, we went back for the day yesterday, and did a cruise down the Swan River rather than getting the train and I appreciated it a lot more as i was a lot more with it! I think Freeo also felt very European to us last week, which took some time to get used to after 2 weeks of the outback! They have a great market there though and stocked up on some lush fruit both weekends! Im really going to miss the fruit here! Its amazing, im not a fruit person at all at home, but here i dont go a day without eating at least 3 pieces!! Yesterday we also treated ourselves to lunch out, being Kirsty's last weekend and we went to Wagamamas!!! it was SOO good, I have never been to wags before, and sat outside with the indian ocean in the background!! Yaki Soba is still number 40 and it went down a treat! We had a lovely day yesterday and after chilling around Freeo, came back and then took a picnic up to Kings Park and watched the sun set over the skyline, with a bottle of wine. It was really nice and the park was full!! Lots of weddings and school proms and lots of people just enjoying the evening sunshine!

What else have we been up to this week? We had hoped to do a tour to Margaret River although there was no avalibility this week, so instead we opted for a wine tour around Swan Valley and what a great day we had! 5 wineries, a brewery and a chocolate factory later, we were more than giddy!!! We also thought it would be a good idea to buy a bottle of port!! So thats going back with Kirsty tomorrow and will be cracked open when I go up to Liverpool to visit her when im home!! The port is so good though, and Jen and I had really loved it on our Barossa Valley tour in Adelaide, so maybe its not just a drunken thing ;-)

On Friday we went on a day trip to the Pinnacles, a national park a couple of hours north of Perth (we had driven past it on our way down but didnt have the time to stop) with 1,000s of limestone formations. It was a really eiery experience as black clouds loomed, but a really cool sight to see! Unfortunatly, this tour was a bit disappointing. It was the worse I have been on since I have been away, which was a shame as Jen used the same company when she was here and had a great time. It just shows you what a difference a good guide makes. Never mind, you cant win them all and one out of all the day trips I have been on isnt bad at all, its just a shame it was my last one.

So thats been it really, we have enjoyed the sunshine in the parks and did a walk around the city and been mesmorised by shops and skylines and people, which we havent seen for ages!! Its been a great week as usual!

Tomorrow I am getting the bus down to Albany for the week. Six hours south, its going to be a bit fresh down there (21/22degrees!!) but is meant to have a beautiful rugged coastline and i really want to see some of the south west before i leave. Then I have 5 days back in Perth before i fly to Singapore. I cant believe it! Its top 10 time again, i have done too much to have a top 5 like New Zealand! So i need to get my thinking cap on and go back to last year and my time in Melbourne to start with! It seems like yesterday!

xxx