Australia pt. 5 Western Australia

After a 5 hour flight across the entire width of australia we arrived in Perth at 2am sunday night / monday morning. Since we were picking up a campervan in the centre of town 8 hours later, we decided to setup camp in the airport departure lounge much to the amusement of hundreds of passengers arriving to take flights the following morning. It was actually pretty comfy apart from the woman screaming over the information PA and we got more sleep that night than we ever had in the tent.

Unfortunately however, Kasia's previously sore ear had turned into extreme pain during the flight which meant an early morning trip to the doctor to be prescribed pain killers and antibiotics. That wasn't the end of things however as the pain got worse still the next night and we had two more visits to hospital and 2 more prescribed antibiotic types which didn't work either. She's currently been using some industrial stength ear drops which seem to have done the trick, thank god. She's been very brave, the poor thing and hopefully we've seen the last of the infection.

Back to Perth, we picked up our "Wicked camper" after a bus ride into town. Although these vans are cheap cheap, each one is painted differently with some quite offensive wording. as such, we were just a little apprehensive about which one we'd end up with. As it turned out, the girl working in the office was called Sam Peet and did the helpful cousinly deed of swapping our alloted 10 year old "Harry Potter" van with a brand spanking new (50km on the clock) "Arctic Monkeys" van complete with added air-con, power steering and upgraded 2.4 engine. Although not the most discrete of vans (whilst parked in a campsite the first night, a car full of girls pulled alongside for a few mins with the Arctic Monkeys album blarring out, waiting to see who was inside. :D ) it's done us proud so far and is far far comfier than a tent.

We've travelled down the south-west corner of the state from Perth taking in the towns of Rockingham (where there are more Brits than most towns in england), Mandurah (long wait in the hospital), Bunbury (where dolphins visit the beach everyday... except the day we were there) and onto the sea-side town (yes, another) of Busselton where we stayed for 3 days during Ironman Western Australia to help out and spectate.

Having done quite a few triathlon races, it was good to see one from the other side of the fence. It also made me appreciate how long my family, Kasia and of course Chris ;) have to wait around, sometimes in the cold and wet.

The race started at 6am on the beach, with the 3.8km swim taking place up one side of the huge wooden jetty then back to the other side. This was great as it meant you could walk alongside the swimmers the entire length. The water was crystal clear and calm and with the helicopter swooping back and forth above the 850 racers, it was quite a spectacle.
We volunteered to help out with the bike catching which means that we took competitors bikes off them and racked them after they'd completed the 180km bike ride and were about to start the marathon. This was great fun for the first hour or so as the pro's and fasted age groupers came through but did drag on a bit late into the afternoon as the heat came down and the slowest riders of all shapes and sizes staggered through with pain on their faces for the next 6 hours. Oh, we also got free t-shirts and a dodgy sandwich for lunch. Nothing like the huge buffet I saw the volunteers get in Austria :(

Once all the festivities were over we trucked down to Dunsborough in the hope of doing some Whale watching. However, we'd missed the season by a week which was a bit annoying. We did get over this dissappointment however by our visit to the Margaret River where we spent two days feasting on freebie taster samples of cheese, chocolate, coffee, olives and wine at the many vinyards and farms about the place. Kasia particularly enjoyed the wine tasting, taking great pleasure sampling the entire list of white wines, red wines and desert wines before leaving with a spring in her step and a big smile on her face and longing to visit the next vinyard. I however was driving, so it was trip to the beach instead to try out my new wetsuit in the ocean. :)

Next on the list were the towns of Pemberton and Walpole where we climbed some huge 65m high trees and viewed the "Land of the Giants" forest from a 45m high walkway which had a tendancy to swing somewhat in the wind to everyones delight..

We're now in Albany which looks like our last stop before heading back north and seeing some of the West Coast before we fly over to Adelaide. I'm off diving on a whaling shipwreck tomorrow and possibly with some sealions which should be great.. Hopefully the weather will improve :/

Hope everyone at home is well and you're getting into the christmas spirit. Santa just came past outside on the back of an antique fire engine!