G'day from Down Under! Our tour of Australia features three regions
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| Western Australia | |
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Out of Asia at last - and into Western Australia, or as we prefer to call it, Cappuccino Paradise. Our first stop, Perth in Western Australia is a bit like Aberdeen in Scotland - small, slow paced and surrounded by a large amount of nothing. |
| Of course the two major differences between the two are the weather and the cricket ground..... | |
| After recharging our caffeine levels, we were off to Rottnest Island - home of the legendary Quokkas. Quokkas are marsupials that look stunningly like rats at first glance, but are actually a lot more cuddly. There are no cars allowed on the island, so much of our time was spent cycling around getting sunburnt (there's practically no ozone layer around here...). Sophie had her hair trimmed by a girl born in Sussex, but who now commutes to her salon by boat from Perth - such a hard life! |  |
| Back to the Australian mainland - with 3 days solid cappuccino drinking in Freemantle to put our caffeine levels critically high. Thankfully, hospitalisation was not required. | |
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Ayres Rock.... as you have never seen it before!!! |
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| Coming in to land at Ayres Rock, it was clear that the weather had turned: the normally dry and arid heart of Australia had been hit by tropical storm Abigail..... | |
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For those of you who have already visited Ulhuru, you will remember images of a dry, red desert with a huge redder rock in the middle of it. For us, we were 'blessed' with the sight of waterfalls trickling over a huge pink/grey rock which was lost in the clouds. Think Scotland (with rose tinted specs) and you're getting close. |
| I wouldn't quite say that we had a terrible time, but our star gazing dinner by Ayres Rock was cancelled, the food in the resort was extortionately expensive and it took 3 days to dry my shoes. Do you get the picture? | |
| As the plane took off for Sydney, we finally had a beautiful view of the colours of Ayres Rock as the sun finally came out...." |  |
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Sydney
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Our arrival in the big city coincided with more storms from the North, but that didn't stop us having a good time, checking out more cappuchino joints, Indian restaurants, and observing the Opera House from many angles! The best view of the interior was obtained when we saw the play 'Up For Grabs'.... |
| .....but the best view of the exterior was when we climbed the bridge! Not much fun if you're scared of heights, but anything Billy Connolley can do, we can do better! |  |
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But finally we travelled to the blue mountains and found what we wanted to see ...Kangaroo. Even Alex was kind enough not to eat this one! |