PADI Open Water Diver

This weekend marked something I've wanted to do ever since I can remember: SCUBA DIVING! I've fancied it whilst on holiday in places like Cyprus and Greece, but didn't feel like (a) taking time out of my holiday and (b) doing it with some dodgy company who can't spell 'skooba' correctly. So, my amazingly generous and wonderful parents bought me my Open Water (beginners) course for my 21st because I'm over here with plenty of time to take it! I booked the Friday off work for the three-day, intensive course and spent the working week getting pretty excited about my new underwater adventure.

John dropped me off at 8am on Friday morning on his way to work; the dive centre is a little unit on an industrial estate and I was half an hour early, so I spent my time sitting outside with a coffee waiting for other potential students to arrive. There were 5 of us on the course: Myself, Damien (a stocky, ginger, brilliantly foul-mouthed Irishman who's lived here for two and a half year), then three Aussie chaps, Sam, Matt and Ross. Good job I'm used to living in a male-dominated environment! The shop finally opened up and I had an explore of the dive photography and all the kit they've got for sale. There are so many accessories associated with diving it's insane, you could easily spend $5000 on just the basics. We headed into the classroom for the orientation and were given our log books etc, then it was straight out the back to get fitted out with our gear.

Day 1 comprised all the drills and safety checks in a swimming pool in Burswood. Our instructors helped balance the male to female ratio; Tina is an up-for-anything buxom Aussie lass who has dived for ages but has only just taken up instructing as a second job (her first is as a trucker up north in the mines - wicked!) and Alex is an English girl around my age from Tavistock of all places. Such a small world! First we had to do our 200m swim and ten minutes treading water (boy am I unfit), then it was time to practice putting together all our stuff and dismantling it again. We did it so many times that I can now do it with my eyes closed I reckon! Misconception about diving number 1: You'll be fine as long as you have basic fitness. I'd like to think I'm pretty strong for a girl, but this stuff is heavy; the wetsuit, boots, tank, BCD (jacket), regulators and weight belt probably equate to an extra 60lbs to lug around. Add to that your mask, snorkel and fins and take into account the fact that you need two tanks of air per day and I was very thankful that being the only girl meant I got a load of it carried for me by strapping young men. However, wobbling around on land made the second you step into the water feel like heaven. The first "dive" was on our knees in the shallow end of the lap pool, then we ate lunch and did the afternoon at 3m in the deep pool; the aim of the day was to run through all the emergency drills, which was mentally draining but obviously necessary. This absolute multitude included flooding the mask with water and clearing it, equalising the pressure in your ears, sinuses and mask, spitting your regulator out of your mouth and finding it again before you suffocate, signalling that you're out of air and breathing through your buddy's air supply, hand signals a-plenty, finding your neutral buoyancy, emergency ascents, safety stops etc etc etc. So much to think about!

Looking fit after day one at the pool

We finished ahead of schedule at 2:30pm and I headed home with kit in tow to rinse and dry it all out for the following day, much to the dismay of John and Vic when they saw the state of the laundry room. After a big day of information overload and sun and with another big day, I'm pretty sure I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Saturday was a 7:45am pick-up for the shore dives in Rockingham, around an hour south of Perth. We unloaded the cars and it was a quick recap of what we'd be doing before kitting up like the Michelin man and heading down to the ocean. FYI: Adding soft sand to the already difficult task of moving and I'm surprised I didn't sink. Both of the dives were at a group of artificial wrecks that have been put there to attract divers to the area; a boat and two planes. The bay is really sheltered and therefore never flushed out with fresh water, so visibility was absolutely rubbish. Also, filling my mask with water under 12 metres of water fully freaked me out and I embarrassingly had a total flap, having to get taken to the surface by Alex. She gave me a hug and a stern talking to about relaxing when you can't see what's going on, which seemed to do the trick and I did it perfectly the second time which I was chuffed about. I was still annoyed that I panicked though; I really wanted to hold my own among the boys! We had sushi for lunch and the banter was plentiful, before getting a second dive under our belts and heading back to the shop for a Knowledge Review. A couple of the lads grabbed a crate from the Bottle-O and we knocked back a few beers while doing the exam, as did the instructors; so brilliantly Aussie!

I got home from Day 2 just in time for Catriona and her Homestays (a Greek couple who have just emigrated to Perth) to arrive for dinner at the Billinghams. We had a gorgeous prawn curry and it was amazing to chat to some people from yet another culture; they're from Rhodes and were so surprised to hear I'd been there on holiday - apparently everyone there thinks it's a dump but I thought it was so beautiful! I had to leave them all to their wine due to the extremely early morning ahead; we were to meet at Fremantle docks at 8am to go out on the boat, which meant being picked up at 6:45. Not cool.

This horrendously early start was not helped by Damien telling me on the drive down that a diver's fin was bitten off by a shark up at Hillary's (less than 25km north of Perth) the previous day. Add to that the fact that Rottnest is both very close to Hillary's and notoriously bad for sharks and the thought of going down there became pretty terrifying. However, I then remembered that the odds of encountering one such beasty are so incredibly low that I may as well take my chances, right? My woolly head caused by the lack of sleep was instantly alleviated by the sea breeze as we arrived at Sardine Jetty for a bright and early start. Ourselves, other Open Water courses from various clubs and some more advanced divers just out for fun all boarded the same boat and, after getting all the gear on board and a quick safety talk from the skipper (who had a gigantic and very suspect scar on his leg), it was straight on to Rottnest Island for our first dive. It was dead flat and really sunny, so we couldn't have asked for better conditions under the water. The boat suddenly slowed down at one point because there was a group of whales cruising on by and playing in the water. So cool! Our first descent took us down onto a reef, where we practiced a few skills from the previous days before being let loose to explore the underwater world. Time flies by down there and this third day was when I first truly felt the amazing sensation of floating weightlessly among all the wildlife. We saw all sorts of amazing fish, lobsters and coral on the first dive, but after the barbecue lunch we moved around to a different area, went down a second time and saw even more. The surf picked up, so we were getting swept back and forth over the seabed and found the opening to a huge tunnel, which some of the boys tried to go through before being told off (or gesticulated at madly) by Tina. As you go deeper, the fish get loads bigger; going through a school of fish each at least two feet wide was pretty incredible. The best bit was seeing an absolutely massive ray moving underneath me and later feeling it go dark and looking up, praying it wasn't the shark, to see it gliding right over me. Amazing!

 

The are worse ways to spend Sunday 

After a long ascent, we surfaced for the last time. It was a shame that the adventure was over, but on the other hand I was absolutely exhausted from three long days and not a lot of sleep. The journey back to Freo was very rough and the boat was all over the place, which was great fun for those of us who don't get seasick. Back at the shop, we washed out and returned our kit and did one last review (with more beers) before being issued with temporary certificates until our official cards arrive in the post. Fancy! The group (or The A Team as we've been fondly named) got on really well; we've all got each other's numbers and are planning on going out in the city next weekend before organising another dive in the near future. Once you have your license, it's only around $50 for all the hire and the boat trip on a Sunday morning, which is incredibly cheap! After a lovely roast from the Billinghams and catching up on episodes of Lost, I'm well and truly ready to hit the hay before starting another week at work in the morning. Diving definitely brought a few unexpected surprises, but it was an absolutely incredible experience and I can't wait to get stuck in. Thanks Mum & Dad, best birthday present ever!

The A Team!

Messages from home

This afternoon, I arrived home from the first day of my dive course (a lot more on that later) to find a large dose of home waiting for me in the form of a stack of mail from both sides of the Atlantic. It was pretty special that all four packages arrived at once and it meant that I could have a little belated English birthday. At the kitchen table. By myself. Amongst the treats were a highly obscene card featuring fellatio from the lovely Mr Saunders, a gorgeous necklace from my ultibabe Rachel and a whole wad of cards from my grandparents, aunties and uncles. My wonderful parents managed to get Murphy to sign the card from them (and I call him a dumb dog) and got me a few little presents to accompany my main present, the dive course.

By far the most memorable package of the day, however, came all the way from Iowa, USA. My beautiful twin Chloe and I are finding our year of separation very difficult and her incredible card and present made me miss her company even more. A musical Taylor Swift (our idol) card is rather special in itself and I shall be replaying it should I ever need a little boost of girl power, but the piéce de résistance was the little box from Made with Molecules. As if the two of us could get any more geeky, we can now boast complimentary DNA base pair necklaces; guanine and cytosine to be exact! I am so excited to wear them to lectures together, we'll look pretty rad I reckon. Just the boost I needed after a long day in the pool, thank you friends and family!

Our awesome new jewellery

My 21st

I am currently experiencing a serious case of the birthday blues; I had such a nice day surrounded by lovely people! During the build up to it, I had real mixed feelings about being away from friends and family for such a milestone birthday and unable to celebrate with them, but turning 21 in Australia is something that very few people can claim and there'll be plenty of time for belated frivolity when I return to England; 6 months late is better than never, right?

After a hearty breakfast and smooth bike ride in the sunshine, the day at work was spent finishing off my experiment. Everything went to plan and I successfully stressed, stained and monitored my cells without a hitch. It must be said, however, that spending a considerable amount of my 21st birthday in the company of one Michael Bradshaw in a confined space was not exactly the dream, bless him. Mr Bradshaw is a member of the neighbouring chemistry department who, in his desperate struggle to disprove the stigma that chemistry guys are total sociopaths, does exactly the opposite. Lanky, ginger and absolutely honking of body odour (his potentially imaginary girlfriend must be completely devoid of an olfactory system), he couldn't simply get on with his cell culture at the adjacent station without disturbing my peace. He switched off the radio, plugged his phone in and began blasting out a load of shitty club tunes, to which he sang along in a particularly irritating, monotone voice. I thought my ordeal was over when I fled tissue culture to begin staining in the histology lab but, to my dismay, coincidence meant that the next phase of his experiment took him to the station opposite, dumping me straight back in the wafting line. Lunchtime could not come soon enough, where things took a turn for the better. I came back to my desk to find treats left by people in the office. The lovely Carole noted what I said about working my way through all the classics and bought me a novel called The Moonstone, Ivana got me some yummy coconut dark chocolate and I enjoyed a delicious cupcake, complete with "key in the door" decoration, from Tamasin for lunch. Those girls know the way to my heart!

The afternoon dragged a little, but before too long it was 5 o'clock and time to head over for Varsity Bar for a few long-awaited bevs! There was a nice little group of us; from work Tamasin, Ivana, Alex, Ryan and his girlfriend Rhianna, from Cornish connections Lucy (claim to fame: niece of Sir Alec Jeffreys, inventer of DNA fingerprinting and owner of the little cottage next to the café I work at), who's over here from Leeds University studying at UWA, and her friends Milly and Anni, plus Sian and Jess. Sian got me a pair of cute earrings from Freo markets and Jess passed on a gorgeous little collared top from her Mum and Dad; so nice of them to think of me! I sampled some fine Aussie cider and had a real taste of home when hundreds of smashed students in fancy dress at various stages of homemade rolled in. The lacrosse club would have put them to shame on both the costume and boozing fronts though!

What with work/uni the next day and all, it wasn't a very late one. After an entirely unsuccessful shot at trying to cram my bike in through the back doors of her car (the boot is of course broken), we gave up and Jess drove me home. Back in South Perth, the Billinghams presented me with a set of Canasta cards (everyone back home, be prepared to learn this smashing game) and a white "21" ornament with a pen for messages. Bless them! Unfortunately, due to either Australia's postal system or my family forgetting about me, no parcels from England or the USA arrived on time, but I'll hold out hope that they still love me! All in all, a very pleasing day and all the fun of learning to dive this weekend to come. Yippee!

Feeling very spoilt by my Australian family!

This birthday post is dedicated to the lovely Mr Bryan Atkins, fellow Scorpio and pint-downer extraordinaire, who coincidentally turns the ripe old age of 24 today. I hope that he spends his special day the thing he loves most: Bullying cheeky fresh into consuming immense quantities of alcohol. Never trust a fart. Ever.

The perfect birthday-eve

Tonight I was well and truly spoiled by my lovely host family. Seeing as I'll be going out with friends from work on my actual birthday, they treated me to steak and wine at this lovely pub called the Byrneleigh, followed by a quiz hosted by their friends' daughter. This might sound like a bit of a weird idea, but anyone that knows me will know that I love a good quiz! Catriona came too and it was nice to catch up with her; she's moved into her own place now and has a Greek couple staying with her as a homestay, so she's promised we can go over and eat Greek food one night which should be lush! Sadly we didn't win, but it was nice to meet Shelley and Simon, Aussie friends of Vic and John, and their daughter Izzy, who's studying medicine at UWA. Simon, like John and Jamie, is really into his sailing and said I can come out with them on the boat and learn the ropes (literally) someday soon. I've always wanted to sail! They even bought me a glass of champagne when they found out it was my birthday, which I thought was really sweet of them considering they'd just met me. A nice, relaxed evening was just what I needed with my big experiment and post-work drinks looming.

Am I a responsible scientist?!

This week I’ve realised that, despite it being my birthday tomorrow, I’m going to have to stifle the usual excitement I feel on such a day, especially my 21st, behave like a proper adult and focus on the job at hand. Sorry to bore you all with science again, but this is kind of a big deal I have on my hands. I’ve already explained that the main focus of our lab is to explore ways to “heal” damaged nerve cells, and this solo project will focus on the use of some samples that a collaborator in France has sent to Lindy. Just playing with hugely expensive compounds sent halfway across the world, no biggie…

In short, I’m testing the potential antioxidant effects of calixarenes on stressed PC12 cells. That probably doesn’t make very much sense to anyone (including myself the first time I heard it), so I’ll do my best at explaining. PC12 is a cell line derived from the rat adrenal medulla (center of the adrenal gland in the kidney). The purpose of cell lines in general is to study how body cells would react with the convenience of being able to culture them in a dish, allowing a much quicker rate of study than if you were to raise them in animals individually. The special thing about PC12s is that, as well as being robust and able to take a lot of bashing around/changing conditioins etc, they allow us to stress them and monitor their recovery with treatment in the confidence that cells of the nervous system would show the same improvements in a live animal (in vivo). Clever, eh?

As for the calixarenes coming from France, they’re the most interesting part because so little work has been done on them in this field to date. I say little, I mean maybe 3 or 4 papers worldwide. They’re organic molecules (made primarily from carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen) and, most importantly, their name is derived from the word “chalice” because they’re shaped like little cups. This is biologically significant because they can hold small molecules, including drugs and other therapeutic agents, and deliver them to our traumatised nerve cells. This could have huge implications in the medical world; we want to start with the first step, however, and see what happens when they get to cells without anything inside them and whether this alone has any positive effects.

So, on with the big plan. This morning, I took my PC12s out of incubation, calculated the volume required to give 10,000 cells per well and transferred this miniscule amount to 100 wells along with media. Hello armache. Overnight, they’re going to “get happy and comfortable in their new home” (everyone here talks about cells like they’re children) and should be ready for the second part of the experiment. Tomorrow, I’ll begin by treating them with a very high dose of glutamate. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter, a group of compounds that neurons use to communicate with each other by releasing them from their terminals to be received by their neighbours. Although the release of neurotransmitters is essential in coordinating behaviour, exposure to too much is highly toxic to cells. Some of my stressed cells will then receive calixarene at various concentrations for thirty minutes and the rest won’t. Lastly, I’ll stain all the cells with a dye that fluoresces in the presence of any oxidative stress caused by the glutamate and a plate reader will translate this into numerical values. Then comes the statistical analysis to see whether adding the calixarenes actually helps the cells in any way, but I suspect that will be a very hungover, post-birthday-celebrations Thursday job. It’s all go in Experimental and Regenerative Neurosciences!

Ain't nobody got time for that

I learnt from day one here that performing tasks that other researchers are too qualified and, more importantly, too busy to do themselves comes with the territory of "placement student", or "lab bitch" as one of my colleagues eloquently put it the other day. I feel it necessary to share what I consider to be a prime example of this. Carole had taken some images of samples of spinal cord treated with various drugs. The microscope takes an image every few micrometers and collates these into one 3-dimensional picture of a tissue several millimetres thick. A piece of tissue that thick requires maybe 100 images, all being analysed for three different dyes to locate the axons, nuclei and nodes, which causes a huge amount of interference in the final product, making any further analysis difficult. In layman's terms, they're really blurry.

My happy Tuesday afternoon job, therefore, was to sit in a freezing cold (for cell storage) and pitch black (for cell protection) room with an ancient computer that still uses Windows 98 and a whopping great cell-central microscope, find each of Carole's images and hit "deconvolve", which removes the interference but takes about twenty minutes per image. You'd think that working in a state-of-the-art laboratory such as this one, kitted out with multi-million-dollar equipment and run by some of the pioneers of the world of neuroscience, would eliminate mundane tasks such as this, but no. There were 16 images, so that was my afternoon wholly occupied by the agonising cycle of Open - Deconvolve - Wait - Save. The only bright side to this hell was that the outrageous amount of waiting involved gave me an excuse to watch The Untouchables on my laptop; replace the wheely plastic stool with an armchair and would have been just like going to the cinema.

My companion for the day

Although this kind of work isn't exactly what I signed up for, I understand that jobs like this are part and parcel of every scientist's career, even for people as high up as my supervisor Lindy. At the other side of the scale, I'll be carrying out my first solo experiment on Wednesday, a.k.a. my birthday. It has taken a huge amount of planning and, with four days to go, there's still a lot I'm unsure of and I'm pretty terrified. Happy 21st to me eh? Talking of my birthday, I'm spending this gloomy weekend doing the online theory for the Scuba Diving Course my wonderful parents have bought me, which I'll be doing next weekend. It's something I've wanted to do for as long as I can remember and I'm so excited to get started.

For anyone that didn't get the reference in the title of this post, first of all, shame on you. Here is the lovely Sweet Brown (yes, that's her genuine name) to explain its origin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGxwbhkDjZM. Too good, right?

A comprehensive Australian dictionary

I've been meaning to compile a list of Aussie slang for a long time and have finally got around to it. Whether it's from conversations with colleagues and friends or overhearing people in public, I've come into contact with a lot of bizarre language that I've had to get my head around, either by asking what the hell people are talking about or, more embarrassingly, looking it up online when I get home...

This is just a snippet of the gobbledygook these people chat!

Arvo n. afternoon
Avago v. to have a go
Baben adj. sexy, hot (for a woman)
Bathers n. swimming attire
Bluey n. ginger person*
Bogan n. similar to a chav**
Devo adj. devastated
Dinky-di, fair dinkum phr. the truth
Goon n. cheap wine that comes in a plastic bag***
Heaps adj. very
Hey phr. added to the end of sentence to emphasise a point (the equivalent of "isn't it?")
How you goin'? phr. How are you?
Maggot adj. extremely drunk
Pom n. English person
Ripper, bonzer adj. excellent
Septic tank n. American person (rhyming slang for yank: amusing)
Thongs n. flip-flops****

*Opposites and inaccuracies are often used in Aussie slang; calling a short person lofty etc

**The internet provided definitions of varying sensitivity:
Wikipedia: "An individual who is recognised to be from an unsophisticated background or whose speech, clothing, attititude and behaviour exemplifies a lack of manners and education"
Urban dictionary: "A fascinating beast. The majority of the species are hideously repugnant and unintelligent, yet they manage to breed in ever-increasing numbers and populate an area known as the outer west. It is quite common to find five or six offspring in each family group, often with a different father for each new baby. The habitat consists of a weatherboard or brick-veneer dwelling and is characterised by an early-model Holden or Ford in the driveway surrounded by a group of males discussing the results of last night's footy. The female of the species, while smaller in stature, is far louder and more aggressive than the male and spends time in supermarkets and shopping malls, using a high-pitched call to discipline their children and contact other females. Males and females rarely interact socially except during mating season, otherwise known as Friday night. During this time, females and allowed to enter the male-dominated area known as "the pub" and display their coloured plumage to a prospective mate. Herein lies an interesting phenomenon: males will often fight over a particularly attractive female who will mate with only one male, whereas some less attractive females have been known to have several partners simultaneously"
Basically Bodmin folk then...

***The tipple is featured in Goon of Fortune, a drinking game in which four goon bags of various strength and flavour (red/white/rosé/port...) are hung from the four corners of a rotating washing line. A player stands before the washing line and spins it, having to consume directly from the tap of the goon bag that stops in front of them for a predetermined period of time. A perfect fair-weather beveraging exercise and certainly one that the Lacrosse Club should adopt.

****This is an example of how a word in one country means something completely different elsewhere. Explaining that thongs are G strings in England shocked one of the ladies in the office! Other cases include soccer, which is Australian for football, whereas football in Australia refers to Aussie Rules, a completely different game. Pants are Australian trousers, but Aussies also call trousers daks, which means underwear in New Zealand. Confusing!

So, there you go. If you come across an Australian in the near future, now you'll be able to understand some of what the crazy kangaroo is talking about.

Rottnest Island

We have just spent the weekend in paradise!

After work on Friday night, I packed a bag with the essentials (suncream, bikini, snorkel), then Jess and Candice picked me up and took me to Jess' in Peppermint Grove. With nothing planned until the ferry on Saturday morning, we decided to head into the city with some friends for a few drinks. The only footwear I have with me in Australia is flip flops and trainers, so I was very grateful to be lent some gorgeous wedges to hit the bars on! All dressed up, we caught the train over to Swanbourne for predrinks at Darcy's, an old friend of the girls from Dunsborough. There was a nice little group of us and we ate guacamole and drank champagne... a lot of champagne. When the bubbles ran out, we nipped over to the liquor store for more supplies. They stocked St Austell Brewery Proper Job, which I hate but it was funny seeing Cornish beer there! After the last train into the city went straight through the platform without stopping, we resorted to booking taxis and proceeded to wait outside the house swigging from a gin bottle like yobs. This was glorious in its scabbiness and produced some interesting behaviour, including a delightful jig fondly adopted as the "gin dance"!

La-la-la-la gin dance...

The taxis arrived and we cruised into the central business district to surprise Mia, who works in a bar called The Apple Daily. It's on one level of The Print Hall, a huge, fancy building right in the middle of all the skyscrapers. It was jam-packed with smashed corporate jerks in suits showing everyone how rich they were, but Mia was so excited to be visited at work that she saved us a big table and set about making us loads of delicious cocktails to taste, including some extra strong ones she invented herself. This girl we were with, Jackie, had a bit too much to drink and was vomming in the toilets, which definitely was not OK in such a fancy bar, so a few of the girls escorted her home, leaving us to stay for one more beer before paying the ridiculously discounted bill (thanks Mia!) and heading home to bed like good girls, despite the temptation of a big house party nearby.

As the alarm went off at 6:45am, boy am I glad we didn't go to that house party. We crawled to the kitchen table for mugs of tea, which just about gave us the energy to shower and throw the luggage in the car before driving down to Freo. The car was so full that none of the back seats would flip up, so I enjoyed a delightful ride in amongst the bags and bikes. The little cafe at the ferry port provided pastries and coffee, which we wolfed down before hopping on the Rottnest Express for the 9:30am crossing. The seas matched how we felt: Rough. As the waves smashed against the boat and little kids screamed as we lurched about, the three of us exchanged some queasy glances! I feel very thankful that we were only at sea for twenty five minutes, put it that way...

My seat is in there somewhere...

Struggling on all levels! 

Rottnest is 18km off the mainland and its circumference is only 25km; perfect for hungover cycling!

Our moods and the feeling in our stomachs instantly improved when we stepped off the boat and the clouds began to clear. It's such a beautiful little place! With a couple of hours to kill until we could get into our accommodation, we grabbed our backpacks and bikes and headed north form the port for a little explore. We worked our way around several little bays, stopping off at a few along the way; with it being the end of the holidays, nowhere was too busy and we had one of the beaches completely to ourselves! We unpacked at our hut, grabbed some supplies at the General Store and hit the restaurant for an amazing, hangover-busting Fish and Chips. Yummy! For dessert, we bought an ice cream and walked out to the end of a little jetty, which was really pretty.

Nooooo Candy!

With our bellies full, we spent the afternoon sunning ourselves on Pinkies Beach. I certainly fell asleep for a considerable amount of time at this point due to a lack of sleep the night before. As the sun started to go down at the temperature dropped, we returned to our little hut in the woods for a shower before dinner, revealing a nice bit of sunburn sting in the process. The name Rottnest stems from "rat's nest" due to its abundance of Quokkas, a small marsupial which is not found in the wild anywhere else on the planet. I discovered these creatures on Twitter before I flew out from England and was very excited to meet them (they're known as the happiest animals on the planet - how could I not be?!), and they are pretty cute, but the reality is they're really tame and confident with humans and actually quite a nuisance, especially when they're trying to get into your house to steal food! The girls said one got into their hut when they brought friends over last year and it pooed everywhere when they tried to usher it out; eww! I do like how all the stores have little swinging doors with "no quokkas" on them to keep them out though.

I had a lush greek salad at the Rotto Hotel and, as we settled down with some after-dinner drinks, a hilarious stag party turned up and started dancing around like lunatics to the band that was performing; as someone pulled up his skirt, we learnt that the groom's drag was complete with G string. Nice. Because Candice won't be able to come up mid-week for my real birthday, the girls presented me with a surprise early birthday card and gorgeous silver bracelet with funky tassels and charms on it and we shared a cookies and ice cream dessert instead of a birthday cake. They're the best! On the cycle home, the combination of having a few pints and the pitch blackness resulted in a few close shaves with the wheels of my bike and some unfortunate quokkas. Sorry little guys! We hit the hay feeling all sunned-out and ready for our second day of island fun.

The next morning, we cooked eggs for breakfast (with quokka encounter included!) and packed up all our stuff before cycling the 10km down to the south side of the island; the route took us up and down loads of steep hills, but having the little red boom box in the basket of Candice's bike blasting out Bastille kept us going all the way to Salmon Bay. I can't even describe how beautiful this beach is; white sand, crystal clear water and a huge reef. We sunbathed for a little while, before donning our snorkels and hopping in the water. Snorkelling is one of my favourite things to do on holiday and both the wildlife and the water were better here than anywhere else I've been. At one point, we heard Jess' scream come out of her snorkel and we all freaked out and swam up onto the coral; she said she'd found herself in the middle of a school of huge fish with big teeth "smiling at her"; creepy! That didn't put us off though and we got a lot of exploring in before we snacked on a lunch of gluten-free cookies.

Hello there!

The wind changed at midday and Salmon Bay got really windy, so we moved back over to Pinkies for some sheltered sunbathing until it was time to pack up, wave goodbye to our little house and head home. By this time, we were hungry enough to need another ice cream and sat by the ferry, watching the world go by and munching away. Due to the glorious weather, the return crossing was much calmer and there were no churning stomachs, thank god. The girls bundled me back into the back of the car and dropped me home; by 6pm I was sitting up to a Sunday roast with my host family and ready for a much-needed sleep having had one of the best weekends ever. Oh, and this was my view as I packed my bag for work. It's a tough life!

First trip to Dunsborough

I apologise for the length of this post, but a lot happened!

This Saturday marked something I've been looking forward to for a long time; my first weekend away in the McKiernans' hometown of Dunsborough. I've loved living in Perth so far, but being in the city 24/7 can be a bit hectic, especially for a country girl! My excitement about getting away had been building throughout the week when I learnt that my excursion was to be extended from two to three days, as the Queen's birthday (Monday) is a national holiday in Australia. Cheers for an extra day in the bar Liz! Plans are in place to spend several long weekends and all the big holidays (including the two weeks we get off for christmas) down there and, after seeing it for myself, that's something I'm pretty excited about!

The distance from Perth to Dunsborough is 250km, or around one 180th of Australia's circumference. Not much of an accomplishment for a three hour journey...

We set off bright and early Saturday morning for a straightforward run down the freeway. This took us in land and the trip was a little boring and straight, but a roadside stop at Miami Bakehouse for coffee and cake and great playlists on Archie's stereo meant that we arrived in Dunsborough in high spirits. I'm loving being turned onto loads of new music here; I've finally made the decision to sack off going to the Hopman Cup in the city over New Years in favour of Southbound Festival in nearby Busselton; I love my tennis, but the combination of Tom Odell, London Grammar, Vampire Weekend and The Wombats plus many more was just too good to miss. Sorry Novak, our fateful meeting will have to wait 'til another time!

Driving through Dunsborough on the way to Jess' reminded me a little of Tintagel in more ways than one. The shops/cafés look quite similar, but more familiar than that was the number of absolute idiots stopping their cars in the middle of the road/fighting over parking spaces/walking around in the road with no concept of people trying to drive. Jess tells me this long weekend marks the start of summer and this is basically the norm for months now. Just like home then... The McKiernan house, naturally, is gorgeous and beautifully decorated with a mix of local and Cornish landscapes. The pool didn't look too inviting in the spring chill, but it'll do for christmas morning I suppose! I also met Johnny (short for John Lennon), the family dog, who is just adorable.

With the aim of filling our time, we donned our trainers, hopped in the car and parked up at Moses Rock on the coast road, all wrapped up for a very blustery hike along the dunes and down to Quinninup Falls. The weather has been uncharacteristically bad for this time of year and so much of the ground was flooded that it proved to be a very interesting walk. Puddles the size of lakes kept forcing us to take detours into the bushes and even then I managed to almost lose my shoe in some pretty grim black mud. We also saw a few lizards and my first snake (well, we decided it was either that or a mouse's tail); I followed Jess through the undergrowth with her Dad's words of "the first person startles the snakes, the second person gets bitten" ringing in my ears! The descent to the waterfall involved lots of sliding down dunes on our feet/arses and we arrived at the falls out of breath from exercise and laughing in equal measures. The waterfall was awesome and running pretty quickly considering that last time Jess saw it it was barely a trickle; also down to the wet winter. We sat ourselves down in the spray and ate our lunch with a few other, much more serious-looking walkers. There was even sea spuff threatening to blow into your face just like Trebarwith! The walk back was uphill and a little more taxing; you had to pretty much sprint to get the necessary grip to get up the dunes and an awful lot of falling over happened. You'd think we'd have been more successful at avoiding the bogs the second time round, but unfortunately there was just as much tottering over rocks and swearing with each misplaced step on the way back to the car.

First slip into the bog (about two minutes in)

A little worse for wear at Quinninup Falls

From there, we continued to drive south and Jess showed me tonnes of beautiful beaches and bays, most of which we've bookmarked for various occasions over the summer. The less sheltered areas boast some of the biggest waves in the world, but Point Picquet is really protected and good for beginner surfers. There's also a beach that's protected from sharks by a big reef, so that'll be useful; I'd rather get my legs skinned going over coral than gobbled up by a shark!

Back at the McKiernans, we emptied our trainers of sand and showered in time for Jess to go to work at Malt, a bar in the middle of town. I felt a bit like a child being shipped from one parent to the other as Candice finished her shift and took me over to hers and Chris' place. I should probably clarify the link with Cornwall here for anyone who doesn't know: I know the girls through Chris, who's the son of the Boundy family who run the shop next to the café I've worked at for years. He met Candice while travelling over here years ago and they've been together ever since; both girls have spent summers in Cornwall over the years and we now have loads of mutual friends which is great. I got chatting to Jess this summer about my placement; turns out she goes to university in Perth and had a spare room to fill when her friend graduates. Hey presto! It's all worked out pretty perfectly. Chris was over in Cornwall for the first time in years when I came out here and only returned to WA last week, so we caught up with news of the Trebarwith lot and, most importantly, I met their gorgeous miniature bulldog Walter! I love dogs as it is and, although playing with him made me miss Murphy a lot, he is such a little character and I loved seeing all the awesome tricks Chris has taught him!

Dinner was at Clancy's on the outskirts of town and my second visit to the chain of Fish Pubs did not disappoint; I had a pulled lamb roll with chips and salad plus tasters of mussels and oysters from Candice's seafood platter. Heaven! My mission to taste all the Little Creatures Brewery offerings continued with a pint of "Pipsqueak" sweet cider. We headed to the bottle shop (you can't buy alcohol in a supermarket here) and the plan was to drink Crabbies and wait for Jess to finish work, but by half 10 we were all falling asleep in front of The Wedding Singer so Candice dropped me home. Good job we gave up, as the long weekend meant Jess didn't finish serving the drunkards until 2am!

Sunday began how every good Sunday should; a Terry McKiernan breakfast cooked on the barbecue. Candice, Chris and Ollie came over for it as it's such a tradition, yum! With full bellies myself, Maggs and Jess ventured down to Margaret River in the car to continue my education of the west coast. Number one thing to note about MR: It's a wine region. Vineyards and breweries everywhere. It's a given that many a tasting session and tour will be done when the weather improves!

The town was a bit touristy and really busy despite the rain, but we browsed a couple of cute boutiques and surf shops (So. Much. Temptation) before looking for a venue for lunch. The bakery that Maggs recommended was closed, so we went with our second choice of Sails. I had eggs benedict because breakfast is good at every meal. I really should stop eating. On the way back to Dunsborough, the tour continued with a visit to the chocolate factory for free samples and a smorgasboard of smells at the Natural Olive Oil soap factory before heading to Simmo's ice cream. Eating ice cream has taken up a hefty chunk of my time in Australia so far; I had burnt caramel with a salty swirl and oh my goodness it was good! There's a funny little play park there and an emu, which was deinitely after Jess' ice cream.

Jess and her new mate

Sunday night was a little strange, but great fun all the same. Jess went to work and Candice messaged me saying she wasn't coming over as she was shattered from the night before. So, I had dinner with Maggs and Terry then watched The Notebook. As you do! I bloody love that movie and Maggs and I both shed some tears throughout. Terry's only comments were that the cars were nice and those long boxers Ryan Gosling wears are pretty snazzy... typical man. I bet he cried really!

Another early start on Monday morning wasn't so bad because 1) I wasn't going to work and 2) we had a few more treats in store before I left for Perth. We went for a coffee with Candice before she started work, then Jess and I headed down to the beach on foot for another walk. We covered a few gorgeous little bays that are only accessible by footpath, so they were all really quiet and the sea was crystal clear as the sun made an appearance. Back home, Maggs cooked us some gorgeous slow-cooked lamb, cous cous and roasted veg, of course accompanied by wine! It was then time to head to Bunbury train station, around an hour's drive back towards Perth. I waved goodbye to my lovely hosts and hopped on the train having had a lovely weekend, but glad to be getting home for some well-earned sleep as I was knackered. Sleeping on the train was a no-go however as, just like in the UK, public transport is the domain of the scum of the earth. Sitting behind me were a couple of bogans (I really should make an Aussie dictionary; a bogan is like a chav) with a kid that screamed/kicked my seat the entire time. Add to that the fact that they had a domestic, with the girl shouting "I don't give a f*** if everyone's listening" at one point. It's hard not to listen when you're shouting your dirty mouth off, love. Not that I'd have said anything along those lines; she was bloody terrifying!

Hopping off the train in the city centre as the sun started going down was glorious; I walked down through the city to the jetty and got the ferry over the river to South Perth. A little stroll along the esplanade and I was home having had a lush break from city life, but ready for another week at the work house. Well done for surviving this epic post!