Friday 21st May - Perth

Hotel tv shows various films throuhout the day so watched one this morning before going out in search of onward travel possibilities . It's raining today and although this is the Australian winter, it's like a rainy summer day we'd get back home.
Our thoughts have mainly been on hiring a camper van which we thought would be ten a penny, especially as we are travelling 'off peak'. However, this was not the case and many places didn't have anything available. As a last resort we took a bus to a company outside of the city centre and luckily they were able to oblige. So at 8am on Sunday we pick up our little camper and will head north. It costs about 32 pounds a day to hire and if we park at campsites overnight that will be another 8 pounds, so we have travel and accomodation for 40 pounds a day which we don't think is bad. There's a gas hob and microwave so it will be nice to cook our own food again after 3 months of 'eating out'. We can't wait to get going we are really looking forward to it.

Saturday 22nd May - A nicer today weather wise today after we got soaked walking home in the pouring rain last night. Walked down by the river and found a nice little place for some brunch . Derek had the allday breakfast (what a surprise!) and Sue had a spicy lamb pitta bread and we both had a couple of 'smoothies' - very tasty both! Onwards into the city centre for some afternoon browsing and shopping - the only thing was that you would not think you were in a city centre - the place was so quiet - it was like a small town but this made it all the more appealing really! We bought a phone card which allows us both to ring home from here for peanuts - about 0.5p a minute or thereabouts so we made use of it and rang Derek's Mam and Dad and Auntie and Sue's friend Jan. Cost us about 1 pound 50 for about 2.5 hours of chat - not bad really! Out in Northbridge part of the city in the evening to catch a beer or two (and a blues band playing a local bar) and some very good food at a local restaurant (last one for a while mind you!)

Sunday 23rd May - Perth to Binnu - Picked up our campervan at 9am and headed off to find the only supermarket open at that time in Perth - Farmer Jack's - got slightly lost and stopped to ask a local the way - 'Yeah, it's right in front of you' he said and so it was! Swallow us up please. Anway off we set in our van and our adventure - we covered 329 miles on our first day which isn't much round there parts but at least the driving is easy with straight roads and little or no traffic. We passed many road trains today which are essentially lorries with 3 or 4 trailers in tow that nearly blow you off the road when they fly past - stay out of our way seems to be the message! Parked up at the side of the road at 5.30pm (it's dark here at 6.15pm) for the night as the wallabies and kangaroos are likely to stray onto the road at dusk time we're told.