Still in Perth

Still in Perth and still having a great time - I hear the weather back home isn't so good...that's a shame....anyway, nice and sunny here in Perth and life is good. Only joking I can just imagine what the weather must be like back home - nightmare - all I can say is I am glad we are missing it this year. Having said that it is strange but you really do miss the air quality back home and yes, believe it or not I am missing the rain slightly as well. I remember the same thing happening in North Carolina - it wouldn't rain for a while and then when it did I was compelled to go out in it and suffer the wet and the cold - must be something in built to scottish genes or something.

Anyway, you'll be glad to hear that it's not always scorching hot over here - we went out to Katie's friends (Nicholas Peach) the other night for a barbecue and once it got dark I was blinkin freezing sitting outside - apparently it doesnt get really hot here for a god few weeks yet. Great just in time for us to be sleeping in a big tin can oven by the side of the road. (it actually will still be cold at nights in the van and during the day we will have air con anyway so we won't suffer.)

Today we are back in the library - free internet here although you are usually restricted to an hour if it is busy. Most hostels will give you some kind of varying quality of internet access but generally they charge anywhere from $4-5 an hour so that's about 2 quid but it all adds up. there is also no real certainty that the computers are safe in a hostel at least you can trust the ones in a library or specialist internet provider on the high street a little bit more.

I went for my first run last night since the "holiday" started - I haven't had the energy really but I managed to get out last night for an hour. I ended up going a lot further than I had planned as I got an idea into my head to jog to the Western Australia Cricket Ground and I was feeling pretty good. Unfortunately by the time I got to the cricket ground I was miles away from home and starting to get tired. Made it back in one piece though and really felt good, and really enjoyed my dinner too. Jogging is a great way to see a place and I saw quite a lot on my route - in fact we had been looking for a few things that I now know where they are so we can go back and visit today.

Tonight we are seeing Nicholas again, it's his birthday so we are off out for a bite to eat and a few beers which may help us sleep at the hostel - for anyone who hasn't stayed in a hostel before (and we are staying in some of the better ones) there are a number of reasons that you won't sleep all night but my biggest annoyance is snorers - I think they should all be put in a soundproofed room together to let us non snorers get on with sleeping peacefully.

I do have some sympathy for snorers because they can't possibly be sleeping all that well but I am afraid they annoy the heck out of me when i am trying to sleep - just ask my brother who has on a couple of occasions had something hurled at him when we;ve been camping.

Luckily we will only be hosteling for another couple of nights and then we will have our own camper van to sleep in - probably only to be disturbed by our imagination that some wild Australian creature is trying to get in or something.

Ok, best go - I will try and post some more pics soon.

SB

Just an addition to this story - on our last night in Perth we ended up having to sleep in our camper van outside Nicholas's house as his wife went into labour. We saw him the next day at the Red Bull Air race which I have to say was absolutely fantastic and I am not usually into these kind of things.