Categories

Recent Entries
Archives

January 05, 2005

Western Australia

After spending few weeks in outback of Australia it was nice to fly down to Perth, where temp was about 25C and nice clear day and no humidity to speak of. Perth certainly is very nice city with, particularly area around Swan river is beautiful.

Arrived in Perth on Dec 5th. When I checked into Perth YHA there was ODI (One Day) on TV between Aus & NZ. It was very interesting match, which NZ managed to win in last over. It is very interesting to see how big cricket is in Australia there are about two pages in newspaper dedicated to Cricket news, lots of ads on TV with cricket stars. This is totally different from NZ, where cricket certainly takes the back bench compared to rugby.


Next day got my scuba medical done for AUS$60. In Australia if you are going to get Open water certification you need to get medical certificate. Got talking to the doctor who did the exam about health care system in Aus, it is system similar to Canada. But now Aus is thinking of taking of cap on prescription drugs, not sure what it will do the insurance here. But Howard has to listen to hist master Bush, I guess.


Booked a trip to Exmouth with Adventure tour. Visited the Murchinson River Gorge and z-Bend Gorge. On the way to Exmouth stopped at Shark Bay and Eagle Bluff where you can see the black tipped reef sharks in the water. We also saw guy fish shark (about 1 met long). Visited Moneky Mia, interesting if you like dolphins. But it is interesting to hear people asking questions like what time do they show up and asking questions like its 8.30AM they are not here, why not? Visited Exmouth, small town, very good place to dive and snorkel.


Got back to Perth on Dec 14th. Spent next four days getting PADI certified. Nightlife in Perth is nothing to speak of, its the same deal as US where girls dancing around their purses!! I miss BA so much ;)


I actuall got PADI certified on Dec 16th, my birthday! On Dec 17th went to see second test between Australia and Paskistan at WACA, Perth. It was really nice day to watch cricket, bit hot during midday. The ticket was AUS$39. The food actually was not super-expensive like at baseball games. The Pakistani batsman have zero skills when it comes to footwork, they should probably go back and watch Zahir Abbas or Javed Miandad batting and learn few things on how to play spinners. It was first time I saw Warne bowling his leg spin, very interesting stuff, but his wrog one does not turn or bounce as much as Chandrashekar but he has good control and bowls right on off and middle.


After lovely day of cricket I rented a car, went to Fremantle, then made my way to Margaret River and Pembelton which are south from Perth. About 3-4 hour drive from Perth. Stayed in Margaret River for couple of days, nice small town, lot of wineries nearby took a wine testing tour. Actually some of the wine is nice. Its interesting to see that one can see Australian wine in American supermarket but you can not see California wine in Australian supermarkets. I asked guy at winery whats the deal with that, he said Australia puts 20% duty on imported wine, where as Aussie wine gets into US without any duty. Now there must be some really bright kids negotiating trade deals for the US!! While in Pembelton I actually worked on a farm for two days. I just wanted to experience how working on farm really is. I met the owner of the farm in the hostel and asked him if I can work just for the heck of it, since you require work visa to work on the farm. He gladly agreed. I was paid Aus$15/hour. I was picked up at the hotel at 6.30AM, and dropped back at 5.00PM. Two days of this work was enough for me. There were lot of kids from UK, Germany, Israel doing this work for close to a month... Interesting experience.


After Pembelton came back to Perth and took a flight to Cairns.
Anyway, came back to Perth and spent Xmas in Perth. Decided to fly to Darwin to dive to my heart's content at the Great Barrier Reef.

Posted by Subodh on January 5, 2005 04:32 PM
Category: Australia
Comments
Email this page
Email this entry to:


Your email address:


Message (optional):




Designed & Hosted by the BootsnAll Travel Network