Coober Pedy - Perth

We're a bit behind on the blog! We've been travelling like mad things but also getting over a nasty cold...poor Iff caught it right when I was near the end of it. We haven't let it stop us, though!

I'll carry on from Iff's Coober Pedy posting. From there, we got the overnight bus to Adelaide. We arrived early in the morning and had all day to make further travel plans for the west coast. We caught the train that evening to head to Perth. The train was interesting...two and half days to Perth, me with the nasty cold and a small child (in the seat right in front of us of course) screaming pretty much constantly the whole way. Fun! On the plus side, no one mistook me for a man trying to enter the women's loo like on the train from Sydney to Adelaide. That was an interesting experience! I reckon that this time people were too busy dodging my cold germs to wonder whether I'm male or female. Ha!

During the train ride, we went along the Nullabor Plain, the longest straight section of railway in the world (478 km). We thought of Mary from the Koala Hospital, who once drove the road there by herself, yodelling at the top of her lungs, the wind in her hair as a wild emu ran alongside her car! Genius. The train made a stop in Cook, where only a few people live (as they're in the middle of nowhere, they rely on the train we were on to bring them supplies and even water -- it is amazingly desolate there). We just walked around there; there's not enough to warrant a tour! We also did a whistle-stop tour of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, a pretty cool place built up on gold mines.

We were very glad to arrive in Perth and escape the screaming child (and stretch our legs!). We spent the day exploring the city centre. The Western Australia Art Gallery and Museum in Perth are really cool. The museum even has a megamouth specimen; it was frightening to look at, but I still would rather see one live -- from a safe distance, of course!

We only spent the one night in Perth at that time. The next morning we rented a car for four days in the southwest corner of Oz. Iff has already posted about the Margaret River area and Walpole. We went to Albany (some amazing rock formations nearby), Walpole (with an awesome, rather scary treetop walk as well as the Swarbrick features Chris has mentioned), Pemberton (a base for loads of natural features and gorgeous scenery), Augusta (usually great for whale-spotting, but we didn't manage to see any), the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse (very cool, but again no whales spotted), Hamelin Bay (looking for giant rays, but no success -- still a beautiful beach), Margaret River (good food!), Bunbury (famous for dolphins, but we didn't see them -- par for the course really!), Busselton (with the longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere) and Clifton Lake (my highlight -- millions of thrombolite mounds AND some random guy walking two gorgeous husky puppies which I VERY NEARLY stole off him and would have gotten away with if Iff hadn't restrained me) before heading back to Perth. By this time, Chris had the cold really bad, so we didn't dawdle as much as we might have in the southwest. It was really beautiful, though! Oh, and Iff bought FINGERLESS GLOVES in Augusta, much to my dismay. He's also taken to wearing socks with sandals. But I digress!

So now we're back in Perth for four days. We've found a couple cool vegetarian restaurants. (Tom, one of them is a curry place where you eat as much as you like and pay whatever you think is appropriate -- we told them you'd be there as soon as you can!) We spent some time in the lovely King's Park, where we found a P Swarbrick among the list of fallen soldiers in the WWII RAAF memorial. That's one time I wish we hadn't managed to find a Swarbrick. We also went to hear the Swan Bells, which sound amazing. It's thrilling to know their history! We then checked out Freemantle (or Freo as the Aussies call it), a Perth suburb where we saw the biggest, clearest, fullest rainbow ever. It was absolutely gorgeous and made trodding through the rain worth it! I was actually strutting around in our bright green Wimbledon pancho...that's me, fashion icon!

Tomorrow we're spending the day on Rottnest Island. We plan to rent bikes and explore it that way, so hopefully the clouds have rained themselves out by then!

Then the day after that, we're heading up the west coast via Greyhound. I can't wait to see those whale sharks in Ningaloo Reef!!! We intend to snorkel with them. I AM GOING TO FAINT IF ONE COMES NEAR ME!!!

*For pictures of all this stuff, see the links to them in the right-hand panel.