Rain and Rocks

Guess what? We're in Melbourne! Sorry it's taken us so long to post but we thought that now we're here we should update you on what we've been up to in the last week.

When we last wrote we were in Perth and it was raining. Well the weather didn't improve much whilst we were there! We were hoping for a week of sunshine and beach life but intermittent showers and strong winds meant that we were in jumpers for a lot of the time. Cottesloe beach resort (where we were staying) was about 45mins from the city centre leaving us with little to do but fight the winds and walk along the coast. We did stumble across The Naked Fig cafe though where we were served nice coffee and even nicer cakes! (See pic - it was good enough to draw us back on another wet day). When we did make it into the city we sorted out our bank accounts before taking ourselves for a walking tour around the Western Australia capital. Whilst there wasn't much in the way of things to do on a tight budget, a definite highlight was King's Park. This gave brilliant views of the city as well as being an open air botanical garden complete with a 'tree-top walk'. We were even lucky enough to spot a Kookaburra in the wild!

From Perth we flew to Alice Springs for a flying visit to the Outback. We weren't expecting much from the city itself and thought that 2 nights would give us plenty of time to visit Uluru (Ayers Rock), however we were met with friendly, accommodating locals as well as pleasantly hot temperatures (32-36º). The landscape was surprisingly green (owing to unusually high levels of rainfall in the last 18 months) which provided a striking contrast to the vibrant red/orange of the rock and blue of the sky. It turns out that we left wishing that we'd had longer to explore more of the area and soak up the uniquely Australian setting. Our only full day was spent partaking in an 18 hour tour (billed as Australia's longest single-day tour) which took us to the famous Uluru and neighbouring Kata Tjuta (a striking rock formation of deep valleys and steep sided gorges otherwise known as the Olgas). This was undoubtedly the best day that we've had so far, despite the early start and high cost we were rewarded with a rich cultural experience, fantastic views and a champagne dinner at sunset! We discovered so much more about Uluru than it is possible to see from the front of a post-card, from the aboriginal teachings shared by our guides to the magnificent intricacies and undulations that simply have to be seen by the naked eye.

Anyway, that's enough for now. We'll keep you posted on how the job/flat hunting goes and remember to let us know how you're doing and what's going on back in the UK.

Lots of love

Leah and Mat

P.s. We're now 11 hours ahead of the UK in case you wanted to chat (e-mail us if you want our Aussie numbers).