Perth-Moora

I arrived in Australia with a jolt. A jolt from the plane suddenly aborting its landing about a metre from the ground. The girl sitting next to me whom I'd been talking casually with then burst into tears and threw up into her blanket. For some reason neither of us had sickbags in our tray. Mmm. We circled for another half an hour and tried another runway, that did the trick in the particularly windy weather.

Greeted by customs (yay, nothing got taken off me) and then Jen at the airport standing there with masses of helium balloons, the envy of every small child that walked past her in the last two hours. I spent the rest of the day pointing out things I hadn't seen in a long time "Wendys!", "Coles!", "Holden Commodores!" etc. It amused me no end, poor Jen having to put up with it.

We headed to Jen's home in rural Western Australia. It's not quite a 3 hour drive to Moora, North of Perth. It was an amazing drive, just taking in the colours on the ground and in the sky, everything is so dry but still has life. Except the roadkill on the side of the road, yep I'm in country Australia.

It was my 24th birthday on that first weekend back and Jen organised to go camping at Sandy Cape with friends and Chris' (her fiance) brothers. Sandy Cape has a beautiful beach that rivals Thailand's, except the water is much, much colder! The next day we went for a swim in the morning as well then off to the Jurien Bay Hotel for a counter lunch. And a birthday cake which somehow the group had managed to keep secret (and cool!) for the weekend. The icing read "Happy Freakin' Birthday" which apparantly the girl at the Cheesecake Shop had problems spelling. Always a joker, that Jen...

And the last week and a bit has been full of either full on on the go in Perth, driving to and from Perth, or flat out on the couch watching Foxtel in Moora. It's been great fun. Other highlights include seeing Ben Lee play with the Western Australia Symphony Orchestra at King's Park (pictured), going out in Freemantle, dinner at the Little Creatures Brewery and shopping at Myer (a girl can't help it!). Also helping Jen with wedding plans, seeing her try on dresses and having our trial makeup done - fake lashes included!

We leave Moora later today and have tickets to see Miss Saigon on Wednesday. Then Thursday I will be home in Adelaide. University has started and I have started to grasp the fact that I will have a lot of work to do in amongst trying to find a job, catch up with friends and family, and enjoy the last week of the Fringe Festival. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!