We arrived back in Perth on Monday afternoon and, as all he hostels were either full or crazily expensive, we checked in at Perth Central Caravan Park. We were quite prepared to have another night of sleeping in the car but James came to our rescue and offered to lend us his Swag (which is basically a tent but smaller & easier to assemble!). 
 
Once we were all sorted at the campsite we decided to treat ourselves to a drink at Moon & Sixpence and a KFC! We felt we deserved it after such a mammoth drive! At about 6pm, we made our way back to Wickham Retreat to say goodbye to Naomi as she was heading back to Canada in the morning . When we got there we discovered Charlie was doing a BBQ so we needn't have bought food after all!! After having a few drinks and saying our farewells to Naomi, we made our way back to the caravan park, where James had kindly been and set up the Swag for us! At a first look, we weren't sure how we were both going to fit inside, let alone sleep in there but after a few manoeuvres a contortionist would be proud of we managed to squeeze in! Unfortunately for us though, it would prove to be one of the hottest nights so far as it was 34 degrees still at 10pm so we had to sweat it out and had quite a restless night's sleep!
 
The following morning, we were up and out as soon as the sun rose! Once we had packed up the Swag and dropped it at reception ready for James to collect later on, we made our way back to Perth city to drop our bags off at the hostel and then take the car back to the depot. It was turning out to be a pretty hot day, even at 9am it seemed too hot to walk back so we popped to the shop to grab some bottles of water and fruit . We quickly showered before making our way to King's Park where we crashed out under the first tree we saw as had hit 41 degrees by now and it felt every bit of it. We woke up about an hour later, mainly because of some very noisy crows and decided to venture further into the park where we discovered a lookout point that offered spectacular views of the city and the Swan River. Below this was an aboriginal art gallery so we had a wander around that, taking advantage of the air conditioning for a little while whilst admiring some of the beautiful artwork. Once we had finished looking around, we made our way back into the park and found another shady spot, where I fell asleep for a while again before making our way back to the hostel for pastries & pies (every Tuesday & Friday Charlie buys all the leftovers from a local bakery and brings them back to the hostel for us to enjoy!). Matt treated himself to some beers with it being so hot and he quickly drank nearly all of them!
 
After a boiling hot day, it was a very hot night and we both struggled to sleep! In the end, Matt gave in at 3am and went into the lounge to watch the football, thinking it was Man U Vs Real Madrid . Unfortunately he was a day early and it was, in fact, Celtic Vs Juventus so he was quite disappointed! He returned to bed about 5:30 when typically, as soon as we were actually falling asleep it was then time we should be getting up! So we did and made our way to see the WACA (West Australia's cricket stadium) then off to another park: Queen's Gardens which were absolutely beautiful with duck ponds, trees and little bridges! We found a nice spot to sit next to the pond and under a tree where we relaxed, read and ate a picnic! After a few hours, we made our way back to the hostel to freshen up and change as we had plans to meet Claire & Luke at their apartment in Subiaco to organise accommodation for our weekend away before heading to Fremantle to go on the torchlight tour at the prison with them, their friends Daniel & Jamie and their cousin Ollie. The tour was great fun as our guide led us around the grounds, inside the various wings, cells, exercise yards and punishment cells, recounting facts and interesting stories about some of the prisoners and how some met untimely ends, throwing in a couple of pretty badly told ghost stories for good measure! There were a couple of scary moments though as things fell from above and actors crept up or leapt out at you but most scary of all is that the prison actually only stopped functioning as a prison in 1991!!! After the tour, we decided to go for dinner and found a lovely Indian restaurant just off the main road where we enjoyed a feast all for a very reasonable $45 each!
 
On Thursday morning, we spent some time reorganising our rucksacks and packing for our weekend away . We had decided to leave most of our things at the hostel as we were going back there after our trip and as we were going to be squashed for space in Laura's car boot we didn't want or need to take all our belongings! Once we were sorted, Charlie gave us a lift to his house in Subiaco as the hostel was full but he had a room there available for the night. We spent most of the day doing laundry, having cuddles with the very friendly house cat and sorting accommodation for the weekend. This proved to be a very stressful job as most of the cottages require you to make an online enquiry but no one was getting back to us to confirm or arrange payment! Eventually, Matt insisted we go out for a wander as he was getting cabin fever and it was like having a child in the house! With it being Valentine's day, we stopped off for a few drinks before stumbling across one of the theatre pieces for the Perth festival: La Marea. This was a performance made up of 9 short plays in shop windows or on the street each with subtitles rather than speech . As we were walking between them we bumped into Claire & Luke so we watched the rest with them. They were very clever, captivating mini shows with the intention of making you question the assumptions we make when we see people through their lounge window or someone stood waiting for someone. When we got back to the house, I was relieved to discover that the owner of the house I had liked best had replied to my email saying it was available and she would be happy for us to stay there! Yay!
 
The next morning, Matt treated me to a Valentines breakfast at Dome cafe, this was our first proper fry up since being away so we both enjoyed it a lot, before going for a stroll around Subiaco to look at the shops, the Oval and to get some alcohol for our trip. At about 3pm we made our way over to Claire & Luke's apartment, where we waited for Laura to come and pick us all up to set off on our trip to Margaret River!