Staying alive down under

So, from Singapore our next destination was Oz - for three months and the bulk of our trip. Our first stop was Perth in Western Australia. We had a great flight, leaving at 9.30am, lasting only four and a half hours and best of all - no time difference to adjust to. It took us nearly as long as the flight to clear customs - Australia has very strict rules on what you can and can't bring in - there was a lovely little beagle sniffing all our luggage and we had some wooden things in our bags that had to be declared and checked over by the customs officers.

Eventually we got through to the Arrivals Hall where David, and his son Sebastian were waiting for us. We haven't worked out exactly what we are, whether it is first cousins removed or second, third, fourth cousins - who knows - but what we do know is that David's father Lawrence and my Grampa are first cousins. We got in touch before we left the UK and despite never having met us before, David had offered not only to collect us from the airport but to let us stay with him when we first arrived. We left the airport and drove to Mount Hawthorn, a suburb of Perth, where we met the rest of the family, Kristin and Stefan. It is a long time since I have had to introduce Gareth to family members and good on him, he behaved himself well.

In case you have forgotten what we look like, it's from the left: Me, Gareth, Sebastian, Kristin, David and Stefan.

Unusual for us you might think, but we made no plans at all for our time in Australia (except that we need to get to Dai and Di, wherever they might be, in time for Christmas dinner and mince pies) so next morning we decided to start by getting the bus into Perth for a look around. It didn't take long before we found City Beach surf shop and Gareth was the proud owner of a new Dale Chapman 6'5" surfboard. I managed to restrain myself in the face of bikinis, flip flops, and beach bags on a scale I've never seen before.

Surfboard mission accomplished, we left the shops and walked off in search of inspiration. It didn't take long to find Swan Bells, an impressive looking building that was one of Australia's Millennium projects and is one of the largest musical instruments in the world. Twelve of the bells came from St Martin in the Fields in London. I have never thought of bell-ringing as the most dynamic hobby but it was pretty amazing to see this petite white-haired lady, who didn't tell us her age but gave away she was at least in her seventies, ringing one of the heaviest bells (weighing 863kg - same weight as a Daihatsu Sirion apparently). While we were there we had the chance to chime some of (much) smaller bells ourselves (and we have a certificate to prove this!). The main difference between ringing and chiming bells is that when you ring a bell it starts and finishes in an upside-down position whereas when you chime it you start in a normal bell position and really just wiggle it from side to side - so it is a lot easier (as our bell-ringer lady was at great pains to tell us - I think she wmight have been a battle-axe teacher when she wasn't bell-ringing). I'm sure that Gareth and I could learn to ring the bells too but apparently it takes between three weeks and three months and we only had that afternoon to spare.

Afterwards we walked down to the Esplanade and as I sat marvelling at the number of jellyfish in the water (jellyfish in a river??) Gareth was marvelling at a sight of his own. Sitting behind us in a posh looking restaurant was ... wait for it .. Toady from Neighbours.

Yes, Gareth and I do come with an in-built celebrity radar...

To finish the day we walked over to the Western Australia Museum. I'm not normally a big museum fan but I had read in Bill Bryson's Down Under travel book that it had a fantastic collection of stuffed animals - well you all know how I love something cute and cuddly. Best of all, entrance was free! It is quite a cool collection, they had a tiger, an elephant, a koala, a platypus, a seal, a sealion plus loads more - and in the middle of it all a massive bison that was a bit scary. I don't like the way their eyes look at you... There was plenty more to see in the museum, including lots of beautiful butterflies, information on European settlement and an explanation of the Dreaming (how Aborigines explain how Australia was formed) and I know I should have paid more attention but after the stuffed animals, the only thing that got me going was the lifesize Tyrannosaurus Rex replica. I was looking forward to seeing Megamouth, a massive shark that was supposed to be on display in a giant preservative bath but we never managed to find it. It was a bit disappointing as I had already discussed it with Sebastian who had told me it was very cool. Never mind, plenty more sharks in preservative baths to see.

David and Kristin live just off Scarborough Beach Road so next morning it was a short bus ride to test out Gareth's new board. The waves were pretty small and I missed Gareth catching his first wave as I was too busy texting Dai and Di but I got his next one and I think you'll agree that I'm improving in the surf photography stakes.

Next stop was a haircut for both of us. Gareth's hair had been getting a bit crazy and it's nice to be able to see his face again. Somehow I went in with long hair and despite just asking for a trim I was scalped. Oh well, it takes less time to wash now.

With much lighter heads, we headed over to Fremantle, a small port town south of Perth with lots of nice coffee shops and fantastic ice-cream, yum. Sebastian had already told us about the Maritime Museum there so we went over to have a look - got in free since it was the second Tuesday of the month (I love a bargain). If you like boats it's quite impressive - they've got Australia II - the yacht that won Australia the Americas Cup and Parry Endeavour - the yacht that took lone yachtsman Jon Sanders three times around the globe. Gareth thinks he can't have many friends. The museum really is a bit of a giant boys toy and at one point I left Gareth behind in the mock-up submarine muttering 'Captain, I have the con' to go and watch a video about the Swan River.

The poor river has taken a bit of a battering over the years with parts of the bank blasted away to make it easier to navigate boats through. All of this has caused the river to change from freshwater to saltwater - with a significant effect on the original fish and plants - explaining the jellyfish I'd seen the day before. Outside the museum is the Thank You wall where the names of all the first European settlers to reach Western Australia are listed on gleaming tablets. I liked that but I still think Gareth's favourite bit was the submarine.....

Wednesday we got up early for train journey and a morning of education - at the Western Australia Aquarium, or AQWA. Sebastian had primed me for this so I knew what I was looking our for - sharks, rays and most importantly, the Danger Zone. This was going to give me all the information to let me safely get into Australian waters (I stayed firmly on the sand at Scarborough the day before - you need to be informed here before doing anything reckless like paddling).

Well I'm not sure whether it was a good idea to walk through the Danger Zone as it certainly confirmed one thing - there are a lot of nasty things in the sea out here - and they're not all sharks. As we walked through we passed tank after tank with nasties - I think this was the full list: sea snakes, lion fish, cone shells, blue-ringed octopus, and a stonefish plus big displays on sharks, box jellyfish and pufferfish. A lot of these little critters sit quietly in their tank looking harmless so they also play video footage so you can see them in action. The blue ringed octopus is titchy but can kill 10 people!

Luckily the Danger Zone didn't affect our appetites too much so after AQWA we got some fish and chips at a cafe overlooking the beach and then got the train back into Perth for a look around Kings Park.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet is Perth's fantastic public transport arrangements. Apart from the fact that buses and trains run on time, are clean and the staff are friendly (which would be a good start for us in the UK), within the centre of Perth there are three CAT bus lines, that take you from place to place for FREE! There are also other free buses that service other areas. Guess what, Perth doesn't seem to suffer very much from traffic jams and you don't see many cars in the centre. Isn't that a clever idea? I think we could learn a thing or two from other countries public transport services y'know.

So we got our free bus to Kings Park, which is four square kilometres of natural bushland in the city, and is beautiful. I could have spent hours there. Perth is a long way to go for a beautiful garden but if you're near here ever, visit it. You approach the park down a tree lined avenue - the trees here are nearly eighty years old and all have plaques to say who planted them. At the entrance you get a spectacular view of Perth and the Swan River. This is one we did on the timer - as you can see, the view is pretty fab.

The park is so big there was no way we could see that much of it in just a couple of hours but we did the Tree-top Walk (16 metres above the ground at its highest point) and came back through the Water Garden walk. We made another exciting discovery at Kings Park - in Australia you can get Cadbury's Picnic ice creams - yum again.

We'd already decided that on Friday we would head down south by train so we spent Thursday on Rottnest Island, which is about 20km off the coast from Fremantle. We took the ferry across, it took about 45 minutes and was much smoother than anything we'd been on in Thailand. There are hardly any motor vehicles on Rotto so we hired bikes and snorkelling kit and headed off to explore. It's a great place to cycle for someone like me, (who really can't cycle very well) because despite there being a few hills, they're quite gentle and you can normally work up enough speed coming down the hill below to fly up the next one. We didn't get very far though before we ran into trouble - Gareth's bike had a flat tyre.

Should have taken the bus.....

Gareth was about to cycle back to the settlement on my bike when a Ranger (wearing a polo shirt and driving a little jeep, not on horseback and wearing a poncho) came past and radioed the bike shop to send a replacement. Twenty minutes later, we were back on the road. We stopped at a beach called Little Salmon Bay, to do a bit of snorkelling, sunbathe and eat our picnic. Except that the 'picnic' was really just a giant bag of crisps and I'd eaten most of them waiting for the replacement bike. Snorkelling it was then.

The memory of the Danger Zone from AQWA was still raw in my mind so I was a bit nervous getting in the water but it looked so inviting - crystal clear - it reminded me of gin! In only knee-deep water, when you looked under with your mask there were fish a foot long and when you swam a little bit further out to the reef you started to see loads of colourful tropical fish and we saw a cute red octopus - I don't think he was venomous but as soon as he noticed us he wobbled off to hide in some rocks. After diving, snorkelling feels restrictive because you can't swim into the water but it was still very good. We spent the rest of the afternoon sunbathing before cycling back to the settlement, spotting a few quokkas along the way. Quokkas are small marsupials - like kangaroos and wallabies they carry their young in a pouch. They're normally quite shy - but on Rottnest they're tame and friendly and there are loads of them - although we only saw four between us - but they were four very cute ones. I would like to bring one home for Owen if I could but I can't see us getting through customs. Then it was the ferry back to Fremantle, the train to Perth station, and finally the bus to Mount Hawthorn.... public transport is great but it will be nice to get a car!

So, a busy first week in Oz and we have packed in quite a bit in Perth. Now we head south to Margaret River and beyond in search of surf for Gareth and wine for me. Bring it on!