Marc & Nora ROUND THE WORLD 2005/2006 - Join us!

Perth (Marc writes)

What a flight!!! As we crossed over the Northern Australian Coast the views from 10000metres (30000ft) were spectacular. I was literally just like looking at an atlas showing the outline of a country.....good start!

Ok from up there the weather down here looked fantastic.....hmmmm..sun yes but warmth...no! The temperature here was a big change from S.E. Asia and for some reason we didn't expect quite such a difference. Australia, or the west Coast at least, had just come through its coldest winter ever so it was taking longer than usual to heat back again in the spring....still thats no excuse though is it?!

First things first however we had to get Nora to the doctor to see to this rash on her legs. We were afraid to declare it at customs as we feared that she she may be thrown into quaranteen for a month or two so we waited until we were in the city. Checked in to a big youth hostel called the 'Billabong Backpackers' in the Perth area of Northbridge. They directed us to the nearest surgery where Nora was given an appointment with the doctor there and then (There was no "Oh come back in 3 weeks" like back in the U.K). Not 100% sure of what this rash was he diagnosed the following: "Scabies caused by a mite calle sarcoptes scabiei. The female mite burrows into the outer layers of the skin to lay its eggs. this burrowing into the skin is usually painless; at this stage the infestation is not noticed. The intense itch and rash of scabies is caused by an allergic reaction to the mites, their droppings or their dead bodies..." What a nice thought (we hope you enjoy your lunch!) Well $50 in fees and $60 in medication later Nora was on the road to recovery with not 1 day spent in Airport quaranteen!

So...Perth. It is the capital of WA and is home to around 1.5 Million people. Its quite a nice small city which was easy to get to know by foot however all public transprt in the city area is in fact free. Compact city centre with a nice walk down to the harbour front.....nothing outstanding but 'nice' nevertheless. Overlooking Perth is the beautiful King's Park which gives you a fantastic view of the city skyline. Walking through the Park you could easily forget that you were actually in a city.

Aside from that I'm not really sure what else I can tell you about Perth to be honest......like I said before it is simply 'nice'....not exciting or entertaining but simply 'nice'.

what else.....ah yeah we met a nice couple in the backpackers, Glen (Irish) and Sylvia (dutch), who we later found out were actually on the same flight as us from singapore to Perth. So we hung around with these guys (kicking their arse at Pool) for the next week whilst we were all making our plans on what and where we were to do next. This included a night out with a bus load of kids (well, at the ripe old age of 30 I now consider 18 year olds to be kids) from the youth hostel to a night club/bar called 'Black Betty's' where we paid $10 each (4 pounds or 6 euro) and could drink as much beer or sparkling wine as you could before the guy running it said "no more".....obviously I can't remeber the point at which he said "no more" and in fact when I woke up the next morning I couldn't remember most of the previous night!

Well, Nora and I decided against our original plan of taking a hop on hop off bus ticket up the west coast in favour of a buying a van. Nora had been in touch with, through this website, a couple of Austrian guys (Hi Stefan, Hi Iris) who had actaully bought a van from a guy in Perth who then bought it back from them on their return to Perth 1 month later so he was one option. After looking a number of different vans and to cut a long story short I can tell you that we agreed a similar deal and decided to go with this guy (Hi Julien).....oh yeah and we gave the van a fitting name.....POSH (Piece Of SHit). She/He/It belonged to a car spray painter at one stage and was used as a work van so you can imagine how nice the interior is...no really she is not too bad at all and after spending a few hundred dollars fixing her up she was road worthy and good to go. We'll show a picture of her at some stage of this travel journal so you too can appreciate her beauty!

So Glen and Sylvia headed South in a rented car and we, after collecting the van and filling it with food and fuel ,headed North......and on into the unknown!