Perth

Sat 8^th Oct – Nathan dropped Luca and Shirley off at their hostels in town and then took the rest of us to our “hostel” which was far out of town. I say “hostel” because it was a travel lodge / motel type accommodation, but the name was Comfort Hostel. We checked into 2 triple rooms, which looked like travel lodge rooms. I thought they were pretty decent and it was nice to spread out our stuff. We got ready and took the bus in to town to meet Luca. As I got on the bus, my friend Tiffany who I met in Darwin grabbed me. We’d been texting each other to arrange a time to meet that evening, but we didn’t think we’d bump into each other on the bus like that! In the end I didn’t get round to seeing her before she left for New Zealand so at least we got to have a catch-up on the bus. We met up with Luca and went to Brass Monkeys for dinner. We went to a few bars after that, but we didn’t find anywhere good to go and after a couple of hours of looking around, we gave up as it was really busy everywhere and a lot of places had long queues to get in. I had contacted a friend of mine from Bundaberg and she was out with some other friends I knew but my phone battery died as I was trying to arrange where to meet her. So we took a cab back, and as we were driving through town, I noticed a club called ‘The Library’ which looked interesting. When we got back to the hostel I charged my phone and had texts from my friend saying they were at the Library! Oh well!

Sun 9^th Oct – Today we all went to the Fremantle, or Freo markets which are very popular. The markets were okay, but not as special as the guidebooks had made it out to be. After that, we all split up. Wouter and Luca wanted to watch the rugby (Six nations/world cup was on, I have no idea which), Elinor and Hanna went to meet a friend back in Perth while me, Rens and Marjo went to the harbour and to the Maritime museum. They had a lot of exhibits about the first Dutchmen to arrive in Australia. After that, Rens and I had to do laundry so we went back to the city and back to the hostel, and took a bus to the Laundromat which was 2 stops away. They only had washers in the hostel and it wasn’t warm enough for our clothes to dry naturally so the Laundromat was the best option as I needed clean clothes for Bali. Rens brought his laptop and we watched Big Bang Theory, which I’ve gotten him into. We decided to walk back to the hostel as we knew the way now and only Marjo was up for going out to dinner, so the 3 of us took a taxi into town. The three of us met Luca for dinner and we went to Saigon Vietnamese restaurant. It was a lovely last meal with the four of us together.

Mon 10^th Oct – All 6 of us had to check out this morning and take the bus with all our stuff into town. I was pleased that the hostel said I could store my rucksack with them for free while I was in Bali, even though I wasn’t staying with them when I returned. So I just took my hand luggage bag that I’d need for Bali and went with the others to their hostel in Perth. It was called the Bambu hostel and it was horrible! It was dirty, and didn’t have a nice atmosphere. Later on, they told me it was awful to stay in. After dropping their bags, we found Luca down the street and went into Murray Street where I met up with Mitika who I would be going to Bali with. I hadn’t seen Mitika since Sydney! After I got some Indonesian currency, me, Mitika, Rens, Luca and Marjo walked to Kings Park. The esplanade by the river on the way to the park is nice and has exercise machines, so we all had fun on those. We then climbed up loads of steep steps called Jacob’s Ladder to get to the park. This was hard with my bag but I had some help :) We did a couple of walks around the park and then headed back to town. Mitika had her baggage at her hostel so we decided to go back there and call a taxi to take us to the airport. I said goodbye to Marjo, Luca and Rens on the corner of the street. I felt really sad to say goodbye to them. As we were a small group we’d gotten so close, and Rens, Luca and I had spent 23 days solid with each other, pretty much 24 hours most of the time. It was really hard to think when I come back from Bali they wouldn’t be around. Me and Mitika went back to her hostel to get her stuff then took a taxi to the airport. The flight was originally delayed by an hour. Then by 3. And all they gave us was an $8 refreshment voucher each and free TV in the flight (normally $10 which was hard to believe!). We eventually set off at 10.20pm.