What a rubbish night – despite being in bed and asleep
before 10pm, we were both wide awake again at 1am and I managed to see 5am
before feeling there was any chance of dozing off again. I thought we had beaten this thing??! It
would appear not.
When the alarm went off at 9am it was time to mobilise and
keep active. We had some admin to take
care of. Off to a local Medicare centre
we went to enrol. Their website informs
visitors to Australia from the UK can enrol to enable us to get reduced or free
medical care if required. However,
having secured a parking space near the centre we were quickly advised that we
shouldn’t worry about enrolling unless we need to make a claim after we have
needed to utilise their services.
Meaning that if one of us needs an ambulance or a hospital stay the
credit card will have to wear it for a while!
That was easy. On to
the next task. We headed to the nearest
Telstra store where we invested in two SIM cards and bought a pack of data,
texts and calls (including unlimited international) for only AUD$40 for a month
so that’ll come in handy for navigation, booking campsites AND potential calls
home. Aussie phone numbers sorted.
We did a touch of essential shopping at Anaconda
mega-outdoor store. We managed to only
splash out on fly nets to protect our heads when the flies get too much in the
middle and some 80% deet mosquito protection.
I had pre-arranged an afternoon bike ride around Joondalup
Lake with Lisa. We met at the house
after she finished her shift and following a little tweaking to the height of
the saddle on Ken’s bike we were off. It
was a beautiful sunny spring day and we both enjoyed being out on a ride with
someone else who really wanted to be there rather than our other halves that
had probably been bribed or pressured into it instead! It was just over
19km to do the whole circuit. We saw a
skink, lots of parrots and gallahs and even some waterfowl when we stopped at a
viewing spot. In just over an
hour we were done, and I felt much better having had some exercise for the
first time in days.
 |
| View of Joondalup lake |
After a speedy shower, the rucksacks were hastily re-packed
and flung into Lisa’s car which she is kindly lending us the use of until we get
our camper on Friday. Then it was off to our next hosts in East Freemantle, or
Freo as it’s known round these parts. Simon knows Linton and his wife Daniella
slightly better than I do. In fact, I
think I may have only met them once and that was during a very drunken night at
a Walkabout Bar in Temple, London and that was about ten years ago! It would
take far too long to explain how we know them, let’s just summarise that it’s
through our network of mates. Nuff said.
We arrived at the Allen’s house about 6pm. They had been busy preparing for Halloween
and, boy, had they done an excellent job?! The place was covered in cobwebs,
spiders and bomb tape. We met their
boys, Daxton (5) and Bailen (3), Daniella’s parents from Pitsea who were also
staying and their Boston terrier, Winston.
We had a lovely BBQ along with lots of beer, wine and even fortified
wine for when wine alone is just not enough! It was quite a late and tipsy
night.
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