Perth

Dead on time, our train pulled into Perth, our final destination on this continent. We'd booking an apartment down in Fremantle for five night, as our friends John and Ciara were arriving late evening on their way to Melbourne for a wedding. We picked up hire car number three (another bloody Toyota Corolla), and cruised the 16km down to Freo.















Fremantle is an attractive seaside suburb, with a plethora of bars and restaurants. Our apartment sat on Challenger Harbour, facing west to the Indian Ocean and affording great sunsets behind the mass of yachts. Of course all this nightlife pulls in the Saturday night crowns, and driving out to the airport at midnight involved playing dodgems with the pissed folk (I really wish I'd ran that fat t**t over). With John and Ciara safely back at the flat, there was just time to cane a bottle of port before hitting the hay.















The next day, rather late, and after a lazy lunch, we drove out to the beach at popular Cottesloe. Here John and I consumed a bucket of ice cream each, before braving the icy sea. The waters here are beautifully clear, but after Queensland, dam chilly – still no jellyfish is a plus (I think they have some sharks, but what the hell).















To continue the water based fun, we booked in for some sea kayaking down in Rockingham. Armed with double kayaks, we paddled around Seal Island before stopping for lunch on Penguin Island (you have to hand it to the Aussies, they're very inventive with names). Unfortunately the wild penguins on the island are a bit shy, so we had the settle for the rescue penguins at the centre. The birds, supposedly the world's smallest penguin species, are sooo cute, but not very clever – one bird spend 20 minutes with its face pressed up against the glass swimming for all its worth.















After lunch we snorkelled off the island, before paddling back to the mainland. Given that our car was parked in a fairly deserted carpark, I'd taken the wallet and phone out of the glove compartment at the last moment and stuffed them in the dry bag . This was lucky as some **** had smashed the back window and gone through the car. I blame this on the curse of John Danes, who seems to drag a mini crime wave around the world with him.














We spend the penultimate day with John and Ciara in Perth itself, which like all of Australia's capital cities has a stunning setting. Thanks to Kirsten's guidance we gravitated to the more expensive part of town for lunch, after which we boarded the tourist 'tram' – a bus, decked out to look like a tram – for the city tour. For only $30 each, we did what we could have done in the car, which was sitting in a underground carpark. Still JD insisted, and the view from the park overlooking the city is pretty good.















One of the big tourist draws in the Perth area is Rottness Island – literally boatloads of people come across from Perth and Fremantle, to walk or cycle around the car free island, to their perfect little beach with crystal clear water. Kirsten doesn't ride, so while the three of us slogged up to gunnery hill before dropping down to a beach, she found a spa.















We dropped JD & CD at the airport for their flight to Melbourne, then came down a notch to our city backpackers. The rest of the day was spent cafe hopping, and trying to find a firm that would hire us a car in Windhoek and let us drop it in Cape Town - keep reading for our big African adventure.