After a 5 hour flight we landed in Perth at 9:10 and, after no customs or immigration to worry about as it was a domestic flight, we made our way to baggage reclaim. Matt went over to the carousel to retrieve our backpacks, leaving me with our hand luggage bags. As I was stood waiting, I noticed a couple of officials walking around all of us arrivals with a gorgeous sniffer dog. The lady walking ahead instructed everyone to put any bags down on the floor so the dog could sniff them. Now, it's important to point out that the dog isn't searching for drugs or explosives, instead they search for prohibited items such as fruit, vegetables and honey as these pose a quarantine risk and cannot be transported between states! Of course we had been made well aware of this on the plane so we had checked we didn't have anything before disembarking. Nevertheless, as the beagle came to our bags he gave them a good sniff and then promptly sat down!!! What?!?!?! The lady moved our bags into a line rather than a circle and asked the dog to show her exactly where! To which the dog sniffed all the bags again and sat down in front of our Nike bag! The assisting lady then asked me whether I had any of the prohibited items, which of course I knew I didn't but couldn't help but start panicking! I opened up the bag and pulled some things out so she could clearly see there was nothing in there that shouldn't be and then when she asked if we had carried any of the items in there recently, it all began to make sense as that is the bag that, up until this flight, we have used to carry all our food in, including fruit! So there was probably still a pretty good scent of apples, grapes and bananas! Clever dog eh?!?! With the lady satisfied and me relieved, the collection of onlookers dispersed and Matt felt it safe to come back over to me! Thanks darling!!
 
We jumped in a taxi and made our way to Wickham Retreat in East Perth where we were met by a rather sleepy looking English girl named Chanice who checked us in and showed us to our room . We were having 5 nights here before going on some kind of road trip to another part of Western Australia, partly because this hostel was then full for a while and partly because everything on this side of Australia is so spread out, you have to drive for quite a few hours before you reach anything, making day trips pretty tricky! Therefore, the main aim of these few days was to find our way around Perth and to catch up with friends old and new who are currently living and/or working in Perth.
 
On Thursday, we met up with James Ward. Matt originally met James back in 2000 when they both left their hometowns and moved to Birmingham to begin their welder apprenticeships. They met as young 17 year olds at Birmingham train station with neither of them knowing where they were going. So after getting a train to the completely wrong town it turned out they were even going to be living together as they got put in the same digs. The next 12 months were quite eventful for them both as you can imagine for a group of 20 teenagers all away from home! They later lost contact with each other, mainly because at the time, James had decided he was 'underground' and didn't believe in commercial nonsense such as mobile phones or the Internet! Luckily Matt had successfully managed to track James down via Facebook through sending a random message to a girl who had the same name as his girlfriend, luckily he got the right girl and they had arranged to meet at 4pm in the city centre . We had great fun trying to guess whether each person walking towards us was him as it had been a nearly 4 years since Matt had seen him as he's been in Perth living and I'd never so much as seen a photo! Eventually, a guy turned the corner towards us and instantly Matt recognised him, apparently he had hardly changed at all! Not knowing any pubs or bars in the area we let James choose where to go and he led us over the bridge to Northbridge. We went to a few bars including Brass Monkeys and Irish pub Rosie O'Gradys where we got some food. It was really lovely to hear Matt & James recounting funny stories and sharing memories, you could tell what good friends they must have been back in the day!
 
Friday's get together was with James' brother Danny. Matt knows Danny through James but also has worked with him at AKD and at SLP. Matt had been messaging Danny before we left home as he now lives in Thailand so we were going to go visit him there, but he usually commutes to Perth to work for Australian companies, mostly on jobs either off shore or in and around the west coast of Australia . So we knew he was regularly in this part of Australia but it was pure chance that just as we landed he messaged saying he was stuck in Perth waiting for a job to start. We met up with him at 1pm in Moon & Sixpence and if I thought that now I had met his brother, I would recognise him when he arrived, I was in for a shock as they look absolutely nothing alike! We had a few drinks there and then moved on to The Lucky Shag down by the harbour. Again it was really lovely to hear their tales from the past and catch up on what has happened since they last spoke.
 
Charlie, the owner of Wickham Retreat does a BBQ once a week at the hostel for all guests plus the people who live in the various houses he rents out. Claire & Luke, who we had met on our Whitsundays trip over on the East Coast and have met up with on numerous occasions during our travels, actually live with Charlie in one of his apartments so they were coming to the BBQ too. It was lovely to see them and catch up on all the things that had happened since the last time we saw them, back in Byron Bay in December .
 
On Saturday, we planned to go to Fremantle with Claire & Luke as it's one of their favourite places. We jumped on the train at Perth and Claire & Luke got on the same train when it reached Subiaco. They gave us the grand tour including the market and prison. We then made our way to Little Creatures, which is a really lovely brewery that does great food too before we wandered down to the harbour's edge with a few beers in hand to listen to some live music in the park until around 10pm
 
We had arranged to meet up with James again on Sunday as his girlfriend, Laura, would not be working so we could meet her too. We met them at La Bohème and had a few drinks there before moving on to a Belgian bar and then The Aviary. From there, we caught a train to West Leederville where we had arranged to meet up with Claire & Luke too. We grabbed a bite to eat before meeting them at JB Riley's where a band were playing. We had a brilliant night chatting and drinking, it was excellent how well all 6 of us got on! So well in fact, we decided that evening that we would all go on a road trip to Margaret River in a couple of weekends time and check out the wineries!
 
It was so good to spend time with Claire, Luke, James, Laura and Danny and get to know Perth a little bit even if it did feel like all we had done is drink for four days. We are sure there will be plenty more adventures to come here over the next few weeks!