Late in the Day

My extended period of relaxation, work and general laziness came to a halt early this week when I realised I had limited time left in Perth. I decided to get out of the house & city and so took a train ride down to Fremantle - the main port of Western Australia, and as such; a very historic town in terms of Australias short (Western) history.

I'd already been in to Freo for a night out and the beer festival, so a few of the sights were already familiar to me. On foot I took a walk around the market areas and then the marina; checking out the yachts before I stumbled across the Western Australian Martime Museum. As luck would have it, I got there right as a free tour was kicking off. It was really cool to hear the story behind how the Dutch first discovered the land of Oz, pretty much accidentally. The centrepiece at the museum is part of one of the Dutch fleets ships - 350 years old; it gave you a good idea of the size of the all-wooden sea-craft.

On Thursday I jumped on board a tour up to see the Pinnacles. Our first stop was a brewery where we got to sample 3 half pints of the home brews. After tasting the first beer I ever tried that tasted like Cherry Slush Puppy, we walked around the ranch and got a sample of about 6 wines, rather like down in Margaret River - except these were pretty grim. However with that much alchohol consumed in the space of about 30minutes, the tour group was rocking, and were chatting away like they'd known each other for weeks rather than an hour! We left Bassenden (Rolf Harris' home town) behind us and left the city limits; onward through the Swan Valley and out into the bush.

Mid afternoon we arrived near the Nambung national park (17000 hectares!), ordered our grub for the evenings dinner then headed onward into the park to see the Pinnacles. Lying 245kms North of Perth, the natural phenomenon can sometimes make you believe you're on a different planet. The rocks that rise from the ground are made from Limestone and sand, bonded together by Winter rain thousands of years ago when the area would have just been a large sand dune. As the winds blew the sands away, the rocks you can see, were left.

After a drive around the park from the comfort of our seats, we then had nearly 2 hours to go explore the area for ourselves. A couple of the girls on the tour decided they wanted to emulate Billy Connellys visit to this park by running naked around the place. Sadly the rest of the group weren't privvy to this display...

I'd walked a long way and taken more pictures than anyone would care to look at, and all that was left for this amazing place was to see the sunset. The sea breeze closed in and made for a chilly 30 minutes. The final shadows were cast so the group headed back for dinner.

After our food we headed off to get some sleep. The evenings accomodation was some of the best I'd had on the trip so far. A swag bag and sleeping bag formed my matress, pillow, sheets, covers, roof, room etc. etc. The view was simply amazing however, so good, that I only slept around 3 hours before being awoken at 6am for brekkie. Luckily I got no insect bites, didn't get eaten by a snake or pooed on by a wallaby. Result.

Our driver Bruce then took us to the sand dunes at Lancellen. After getting the honour to semi-deflate one of the trucks tyres (he must have heard about Essex boys before) we were ready for 4x4 mode. Bruce hammered the cumbersome looking truck around the windy sandy paths before roaring up to the top of the sand dunes, and tilting the van over a crest, much to everyone onboards nervous surprise.

Sandboarding was next. After a few goes seated on the board, I was feeling adventurous and so had a few goes standing up. It was a little trickier than snowboarding since I was bare-foot on a board with no bindings and much more friction under the base of the board. It was good fun nonetheless, though with sand now occupying every crevass it could find its way to, it was time for for a swim in the Ocean before getting back on the road for our final journey back to the city.

On my final day in Perth, I met up with Nick and his girlfriend Lucy for a funfilled day on Rottnest island. The island lies a good few k's off of Perths shores, and is famed mainly for it's unique inhabitants, the Quokas. This island is the only place on Earth you can see the large rodent looking creatures. The name Rottnest came from when the Dutch first discovered the place and thought it was crawling with giant rats - hence Rott-Nest or "Rats Nest". But they're way cuter and less vermin-like than rats.

So, on to the beach for a quick hours worth of rays and then Nick and I made our way to the dive centre for a West-Coast Scuba experience. We didn't take a camera this time, but barring a couple of cool sites (a large wall of stationary silver-pirahna-looking-fish that blocked most of the entrance to a swim-through archway and some brightly coloured sea slugs), there was nothing to write home about.

A quick wander around some of the island and an ice cream later, the day was over and time to get the boat back to the city. In the evening I was to fly to Melbourne, so I said my farewells to Nick and Lucy.

After finally making the full walk from Perth city centre to my home in Inglewood, I was 'backpacking' again, as I threw all my worldy belongings into my trusty sack. My housemates came along to wave me off at the airport which added an unusual sense of emotion to an otherwise routine task of moving on.