Perth

Australia's west welcomed us into town with an electrical storm thundering wildly out in the Indian Ocean, making for quite a hairy late night landing into Perth International. Once the feeling of nausea had subsided, we took a taxi to our hostel where a quiet twin room awaited our weary bodies. On first impressions, The Underground hostel didn't look up to much, but for the sake of a couple of nights it would do just fine. It was upon check-in however that we were curtly told someone had royally cocked up our booking and that there wasn't a private room available, and only two spare beds in the whole building in a ten-bed dorm.

With little option but to accept this, we entered to find two Irish lads completely off their face and attempting conversation neither of us could comprehend, and one other girl looking equally bewildered. We knew we were likely to be in for a rough night, but nothing could have prepared us for the bloke who came in on two seperate occassions, at three and five in the morning, turning on the lights and sparking up loud conversation with whoever he could wake up. I could see Sarah across the room gradually losing control, but luckily things became quiet before she could let loose a volley of abuse and start a war in the middle of the night.

Swearing not to go through the same experience again, we managed to secure a double room the following evening for a discounted price and spent the first day in Perth getting our bearings and arranging some onward travel. Taking the advice of a couple of well-travelled and highly knowledgeable (?) pals from home, we booked a bus for the next day to the South West coast, and the small town of Margaret River.

Blessed with an almost perfect mediterranean climate, this stunning region is home to some of the world's most internationally acclaimed vineyards, wineries and chocolate producers, and boasts some of the best surfing conditions in Australia. We checked into our accommodation, the Surfpoint Resort, an incredible hostel about ten kilometres from the actual town but just a short stroll from the beaches, and generally chilled out here for five glorious days, spending much of our time simply sunning ourselves around the small on-site pool. Without a car it was tricky to get out and see much of the area and so for a break in proceedings we booked ourselves a day long scenic region tour.

Collected by our exuberant driver Andy, a portly fellow with a colourful history, he wasted no time in telling us all about his slightly questionable plans to retire to Indonesia and into the waiting arms of a young local lady who he had 'met at a party' on one of his frequent past visits. Either way, it was all entertaining stuff, and we pulled into our first stop at the cheese factory to await the arrival of our six other passengers for the day. The names of most of these people are beyond our recollection, but the fact that none were under sixty years of age meant we were by far the younglings of the group and spent most of the day jesting with the oldies and being a little cheeky. Cheese tasting completed, we were all then whisked off to the chocolate factory, where for the small sum of eighty pence you could buy a single gourmet chocolate, or for zero pence, you could fill your boots from the large bowls of white or milk chocolate buttons.

Next on the agenda was the wine tour, including a quick drive around the plant where the processes of wine-making were explained, and then into the store itself where the tradtional tastings occured. Myself a strict red drinker, and Sarah a strict non-drinker, we were surprised to find ourselves enjoying a couple of the dry whites and were quickly suckered into purchasing a bottle. After the old girls had had their fill of wine and browsing the random handbag sale, we were taken to our lunch stop, a 'sausage sizzle' in the midst of a small animal sanctuary, where we were able to stroke free-roaming baby Kangaroo's and Dingo's, and see some baby Croc's goaded into action by the Ranger's prodding.

The afternoon's festivities included a stop in at the Wicked Brewery, where some rather foul attempts at flavoured beers were their forte (note: leave the beer alone!), and a final rendezvous with one of the area's best ice-creameries. Altogether a rather nice day, admittedly consisting mostly of excessive eating and drinking.

We weren't exactly relishing the prospect of heading back to the city, Margaret River being the kind of place you could happily chill out in for a long, long time, but back at the hostel we sat chatting to Paul, an Aussie guy we'd previously had a drink with, and were offered a ride back to Perth with him the following day in his rental car. Not one to pass up on an opportunity to save a few quid and halve our journey time, we readily accepted, making it back into the city by late afternoon.

Doing much better on our hostel choice on this occassion, we checked into the Emperor's Crown (ultra-squeaky bunks being the only downfall) and settled ourselves back into city life. Being back in town for the weekend was ideal timing, and we'd promised to meet up with Grainne and Kit again. The plan was to have a cheap meal somewhere and then hit a few bars, but none of us really banked on what the evening soon became.

We arrived at the restaurant to find that our friends had brought their cousin Julie with them, a distant relative they had only met themselves a few days prior. Everything was going swimmingly, the Margaret River wine flowed, the meal was decent, and Julie even got up sneakily and paid the bill for us all which was very kind considering we didn't really know her. From here however, things went a little bit pear-shaped. Moving up the street to an Irish pub, we were met by Louis and Susan, another two close friends from their home in Dublin, and we all got the beers in and generally enjoyed the surroundings. Julie however had other plans. A plan which basically involved moving onto a different bar in the Tenerife-like Northbridge area after every drink. Kidding ourselves that she was just trying make our Perth experience a more varied one, and not suspecting in truth that a monster was being cultivated by the demon wine, we all went along a little unwillingly to the next bar on her agenda. Once again we settled in, but were soon being told that it was time to leave by 'Auntie' and off we went again to our third establishment of the night, a large cheesy pub/club called Mustangs, very similar to one of London's Aussie Walkabout bars. It was here that things went completely nuts, Auntie doing her best to cause upset by making some rather unthoughtful remarks to Susan and generally bringing the night crashing to an end. By this time, we were all pretty leathered anyhow, and calling it a night seemed like the best way to stave off any more uncomfortable showdowns.

Sunday came, and we'd been looking forward to going to the Big Day Out for some time. Basically a one day event, we would get to see a number of bands and soak up some summer festival action. On arrival, it was clear that this was going to be nowhere near the scale of the kind of events we see across the UK in the summer, but this hopefully meant we would be able to get a little closer to the acts. We'd been looking forward to seeing the Killer's who were disappointingly mediocre, but were thoroughly impressed by Muse who were much better than we'd anitcipated. Kasabian were the show-stoppers for us however. Playing on one of the smaller stages, we found ourselves amongst a majority Brit-based crowd and only a handful of rows from the front, getting us right in amongst the atmosphere. A number of Aussie and US bands also made appearances, making for an enjoyable day in the sun.

We spent our last few days doing the normal tourist thing, taking ourselves off to the old port area of the city in Freemantle, the white sandy beach in Cottesloe, and up to the panoramic views overlooking Perth from the lush greenery of Kings Park. Although it seemed like a nice enough place, it was one too many cities for us, and we were literally biding our time while we waited to hook up with our tour of the West coast.

Please check out my new website:
http://www.pwd-design.co.uk