G'day from Oz

Trip Start Sep 12, 2005
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Trip End Aug 15, 2006


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Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Touched down in Perth somewhere around 1am and we faced with our first dilemma... should we sleep in the canteen, arrivals lounge or the bar, being the shoe string backpackers that we are there was absolutely no way we were shelling out the 25 Aussie dollars each (10 quid) for a hostel bed for a few hours. "That corner over there looks comfy Conor." So there we stayed until the airport came to life 5 hours later. We packed up our make shift beds and went in search of a bus into the town. The bus we got dropped us off right at the door of our hostel and we grabbed another 40 winks before unleashing ourselves on Perth. 5 minutes walking out the door of our hostel we both agreed this wasn't the Australia we had been expecting. It somehow felt familiar... no white people, no European style restaurants and nobody speaking English! We were smack in the middle of the Vietnamese quarter. That wasn't a problem as we had already sampled all the food on the menus and more importantly knew how to say cheers in Vietnamese Doin a bita Chrimbo shopping in Perth
Doin a bita Chrimbo shopping in Perth
 ! We walked into the city centre which was only 10 minutes away. The city looked like any other city of its size with sky scrapers and high towers but as we walked into the CBD it wasn't the bustling environment we thought it would be. It was slow moving with a fairly quiet streets and very friendly people. Mixed with great weather and a lovely Indian Ocean breeze and lots of space it was the kind of city we could easily live in!

The next day we caught a train to Freemantly which is a small fishing village an hour away from Perth. We did some sightseeing which included a trip to Freemantle prison. The prison was built 150 years ago and closed in 1998. It was built by the convicts themselves, most of whom had been shipped out from the UK and Ireland. Inside the visitors centre there is a computer database that lists all the convicts and their crimes. Naturally we checked out our surnames. Conor's great uncle John spent 7 years at her majesty's pleasure for the theft of a horse. The O'Neills' crimes on the other hand were a bit more severe and two great great uncles served a total of 33 years between them. We scoffed some shark and chip suppers and caught the train back to Perth.

We got back to our hostel but didn't hang around too long, it was just too weird Perth skyline
Perth skyline
 . Every time we passed through the communal area the same seats were occupied by the same people doing the same thing since we arrived. The girl with her jigsaw, the guy just listening to his walkman starring blankly into space and the others on the computers. With no music and no conversation we just were not able for it. Groundhog day wouldn't be in it. We hit the road and walked down Northbridge to check out the night life. As it was only a Thursday the place wasn't in full swing but there was enough action to keep us entertained for a few hours. The first place we coasted into just happened to be having a salsa night. A mixture of oldies and the young and desperate, this was just what we needed to get our first feel of Aussie nightlife.. We grabbed seats at the bar which gave us full view of the dance floor and just sat back. They were all there, every style of dance from a half decent salsa to the full blown chicken dance preformed by the crusty aul boy who was obviously out to get a young chica. We sipped our first Aussie beer (Carltons) and laughed the night away.

Bring on Melbourne!
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