Since we've been in Australia, we've been doing everyday things like going to work, going to the bank, going to the beach, buying groceries....nothing really exciting to write about. Saturday though, we went to Nambung National Park to see the pinnacles, which was our first real touristy outing. We drove up in our rented car, about a three hour drive north of Perth. When you talk with Australians or anyone who has visited Australia about travelling here, they will all warn you that driving anywhere is long and boring with nothing to see on the way. My response to these people is: try driving in Canada. Although there really isn't a lot to see and the towns are few and far between, there are at least trees, sheep farms and heaps of dead kangaroos lining the roads. When you're used to driving for hours on end through the prairies, only seeing the occasional dead gopher or skunk, it actually seemed quite exciting.
The pinnacles were lovely. This photo was taken there. They reminded me a lot of the hoodoos at Writing on Stone in Alberta. We spotted an emu, although we couldn't get very close. Those things are fast. We saw quite a few sets of emu prints, and each step was about 2 metres apart, so they seem to have a pretty good stride.
As I said, we rented a car and we have it for a week. Driving on the left side of the road is pretty crazy. We've had to remind eachother several times to get back in the left lane after turning into the right lane by mistake. Luckily we haven't done that when any other traffic was heading towards us. The inside of the car is backwards too, and we are constantly putting on the wipers by accident when we're trying to signal. I have to admit though that it is quite fun. We are undecided still if we will buy a car. You get a whole different view of the city in a car than you do on foot or with transit. For the last few weeks, it seemed to me that Perth was pretty small. But in a car, you really get the sense of how big it is when you're merging from one freeway to another and driving through long tunnels under the river. It's a very beautiful city.
Sunday was our anniversary. Six years and counting...it's hard to believe. We went to the beach in the afternoon. We chose a different beach than we've been to before, and this one - Scarborough - was really nice. The waves were huge, and there were a lot of people out surfing and body boarding. I talked to a couple of guys there about body boarding, and they highly recomended it. I convinced Gary to go with me to buy a board, but the stores were already closed when we got there. One thing I can say about Perth is that their stores are closed more than they're open. They all close at 5 or 6 on weekdays (even malls and grocery stores) and aren't even open on Sundays. I often wonder when they have the time to buy groceries. Anyway, I think sometime this week I will buy a body board. Gary wants a surf board instead. I'd like to try surfing, but I'm quite confident that I'll have more fun with a body board since I've never been surfing. Maybe it'll be easier than I think, but I doubt it.
In other news, Gary found work with one of the temp agencies he went to. He'll probably want to write about it himself, but needless to say he's really glad to be working, and he's especially glad that he found office work and not labour work. I decided to work Monday to Friday this week so that my schedule can match Gary's. With the nursing agencies, an am shift is from 7 til 1:30, and it was quite nice to be back from work before 2 today. I think I could really get used to a M-F day job.
-Tracie
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