We got back from Australia on Friday evening; for those who don’t know, we went to Perth for 3 weeks to visit Gemma and Johnny.

We had a fantastic holiday, staying at Gemma and Johnny’s apartment for the first few days, where they threw a “welcome barbecue” for us to meet lots of their friends. What a great bunch of people they were; Toni and Chris even brought a spare guitar for me to play. The apartment block boasts 2 swimming pools, so we were able to swim every morning, what luxury!

After a few days to recover from jet-lag, we hired a camper van for 9 days and travelled inland to Hyden, where we saw our first kangaroo, and visited the campsite museum, full of everything from biscuit tins to sewing machines and hand woodworking tools. There was also a collection of wax cylinder records and the machines to play them on, as well as old 78rpm record players and over 3000 records, all catalogued; the owner was more than happy to play anything for us, so we chose an Ella Fitzgerald and something by Frank Sinatra.The next day we headed down to the coast to Esperance. The town wasn’t much to write home about, but the beaches were incredible; pure white, fine sand, big waves and hardly a soul about! We climbed a “hountain” as Kieran called it – too big for a hill but too small for a mountain; Frenchman’s Peak was a huge lump of rock with a hole near the summit. The views from the top were breathtaking.

From there, we went to Albany, where we  had our first try at snorkelling. Nick’s moustache made the mask leak, so he had to give up, but I loved it and saw all sorts of fish. We visited some amazing rock formations and a huge natural bridge where the waves came crashing in, and saw the “blowholes” where big waves send great updraughts of air through holes in the rocks above, so strong they blew Nick’s hat off when he stood over them!

From Albany we moved on to Denmark, which must be full of elderly hippies; every other shop does tarot readings or aura readings or sells beads, crystals and joss sticks! A very laid back sort of place, though! Near Denmark is the Valley of the Giants, a forest of huge Red Tingle trees, where there’s a tree top walk. It was amazing to walk on a level with the tree tops; you could see for miles around. The next stop was the Gloucester tree, which Gemma was determined I should climb. It stands 61m tall, which didn’t sound that high to me, till we arrived and craned our necks to see the top. There were what looked like overgrown nails, 153 of them, hammered into the trunk in a spiral from the bottom to the top, where there was a platform. By the time I’d done the first 17 steps, I’d already decided that I didn’t like this game; but Gemma had gone to great pains to tell me about her work colleague, who was “even more of a scaredy-cat” than me, and who’d climbed it, so I plodded on, my knees like lumps of jelly. I did finally reach the top, where Nick kindly waited till I’d recovered a bit before taking a photo. Luckily, on my descent, there was nobody going up, as the person going down has to squeeze round the outside of the person going up!

The following day was a long drive to Margaret River, where Johnny would meet us. We tried to get fuel at one garage, but the van was too tall to fit under the canopy; we were very nearly out of fuel by the time we found another petrol station!

Margaret River is a very touristy area, with lots of vineyards, breweries, a lavender farm, an olive oil farm, chocolateries, coffee specialists, nougat makers and loads more besides. We spent 2 days tasting and testing as much as we possibly could, before heading back to Perth.

We arrived back in Perth on Australia Day, in the middle of a heat wave, so temps up to 42C. In the evening we went down to the banks of the Swan River with some of the other people from the apartment block, to watch the most amazing firework display I’ve ever seen, set off from pontoons in the middle of the river. Mother nature played her part, too, with thunder and lightning and a very refreshing downpour to cool us all down.

In the last few days we visited Fremantle, with its prison which only closed in 1991, played “supagolf”, or silly golf as we called it, and spent a day going to Rottnest, a traffic-free island an hour and a half’s ferry ride from Perth. We saw dolphins in the water, following the boat, causing great excitement to everyone on board. We hired bikes to get about the island, but it was too hot to do many miles, so we went swimming and snorkelling again in the afternoon, a great way of staying cool. Later that evening Nick and I went to the Ellington jazz club, withing walking distance of Gemma’s, to see the Chris Foster, Nick Abbey and Ben Falle Trio – brilliant!

So now it’s back to reality, the shock of sub-zero temperatures and even snow today! I hope you enjoy the photos if you can be bothered to look through all of them!