MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
It's been a crazy one here!!! Emma arrived from New Zealand on Sunday night, so Christmas Eve we went into Fremantle (a kind of funky, young area with lots of cool shops, restaurants and bars!!!) - for some last minute Xmas shopping and an explore!!! (I hadn't actually even started my Xmas shopping so it really was last minute!!! Should have paid attention back in August when the sensible people did theirs!!!)
So our shopping trip was uneventful - I made a lame attempt at getting some budget presents, we picked up a few small bits for our South America adventures from Fremantle market, and then decided it would only be fair to pay a cool bar-come-brewery a visit!!! Our drinks made the grade... Fremantle is great!!!
Christmas day arrived - 38 degrees... hot - but we survived the beach!! (well... it had to be done!!!) Headed down early, which was a god job as it was packed!!! Even the journey to the beach was bizarre... for someone who back home has travelled half the M1 on Xmas day and barely seen another car... a 10 minute ride to the beach that you could mistake for rush hour was totally mad!!! After doing the typical 'Brit in Oz' thing of writing Merry Xmas in the sand then queing up to take our photos next to it, we had a chilled few hours, swimming and sunbathing... before heading home (via the icecream shop... an adventure in itself... they even had 'christmas pudding' flavour... although I avoided that!!!)
Xmas dinner (keeping with the apparent true oz experience was a 'barbie' - shrimp of course!!!) then a relaxing evening around the pool!!! I had made an amazing discovery earlier in the week - cheesecake shops!!! Wow! Therefore instead of the usual christmas cake / pudding (though I was sad to miss out on the brandy sauce!!) we sampled a selection of cheesecakes until we all felt a little sick!!!
Boxing day... we were a little over zealous!!! We had planned to visit Rottnest Island, an amazing island of (more) white beaches and clear oceans which is a short boat trip from Perth, in order to explore, cycle, swim and snorkel!!! Sounds great hey?!? It was... but it would have been soooo much better had boxing day not been the hottest December day ever on record for Perth... (44.2 degrees!!!) To say that the 15km cycle was hard... would be an understatement!!! To make matters worse Emma and I (how we are going to survive the next 3 months is beyond me!) had slightly underestimated our water requirements!!! We were therefore forced to ration out occasional drops of water for the second half of the cycle!! (OOOOPPS!!) Regardless, the beaches were great, and the sea - after all that cycling... ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!!!!
Anyway... here's hoping that your christmas was as fun filled... and we'll fill you in with the Adventures from Perth soon!!! First... we're having a well earned glass of wine and Chinese!!! (Typical Boxing Day fare then?!? - Like I say the whole Xmas thing is totally 'different' out here!!!)
