One of the Japanese men staying at the YHA in Margaret River looked confused this afternoon as an Englishman asked him Genki desu ka?. However, he replied politely and they exchanged pleasantries. The Japanese man seemed very surprised that the man next to him had been to his hometown of Kamakura. Twice. The aforesaid Englishman is usually a bit more keen to try out his linguistic skills when he’s had a glass or two of something alcoholic, which is about where we are in our tales of our journey around the South-West of Australia.

Yesterday morning, we got up long, long before our breakfasts to dash down to the Dolphin Discovery Centre to try to catch a glimpse of the wild dolphins that are reported to visit the beach there and swim among their fans. It was a bright summer’s morning, but the water seemed very cold as we waded in up to about our knees (or at least my knees, which may not be as far from the sand as those around me). Right on cue two dolphins (Tangles and her calf Turbo) came up and swam around for a good forty minutes. While we didn’t go swimming, as such, with the dolphins, this was definitely worth getting out of bed for and certainly worth the $2 admission fee.

Even with one activity under our belts, we were able to load up The Beast and check out of The Dolphin Retreat YHA in Bunbury well before ten o’clock.

From Bunbury we headed to Busselton for a wander around the town. Down at the beach, near the big water-slide, they have a lengthy jetty. This, K had read is 2km long! There’s an admission fee (isn’t there always?), but we figured that it’s not every day that one gets to walk over a mile out to see without getting their toes wet. The sun beamed down on us as we walked the mile along the disused railway line, past the fishermen and fisherwomen and those diving in off the pier. The ocean was wonderfully clear down below us. Towards the end of the pier, there is an underwater observatory that you can go in (again, for a fee). We opted just to take photographs back along the jetty to the coast. If you see these photos, see if you can count how many flies were there that day, it seems like there were rather a lot, if not all of the flies in Western Australia.

Cape Naturaliste was our next stop, famed for its lighthouse and splendid views. I shall now remember it for the following reason: That is where I locked the keys in The Beast in the blazing afternoon sun. Miles from anywhere.

Thankfully, there is a little shop at The Cape, where they had part of an old coat-hanger to lend me. After a good little while of fumbling around with the coat-hanger inside the skin of the passenger door, pretending that I knew what I was doing, I effected my first ever car break-in! I was surprised at quite how easy it was, to be honest. Thankfully, people in the car park took an interest in what I was doing and the keys were clearly on display in the ignition. I feel assured that had I been up to no good, that this would have been obvious enough to passers by and that I would soon have my collar felt by one of the local constabulary.

Having sweltered in the heat, we opted not to take a long walk around The Cape and stopped only to have an ice cream before we headed back on our way to Margaret River, which is from where I am writing this.

On the way I marvelled at the beautiful landscapes. The colours here in WA’s landscapes are phenomenal: all of the colours of the rainbow are evident in the natural surroundings. One day, I shall take a photograph that will capture this, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was reading this!

I brought The Beast to an abrupt stop about 20km outside Margaret River and did a swift u-turn in the road. A sign had caught my eye, and I recalled a conversation from a journey home from work, one evening last month. ‘Dave’ Juniper, a friend of mine from the office, isn’t a huge fan of red wines he was telling me. One evening a friend of his presented him and his good lady with a bottle of red from the Juniper Estate somewhere in Australia. He told me that this was the nicest red wine he had ever tasted. I promised that I would keep an eye open for this winery. Oddly, I’d forgotten about the conversation until I saw the sign announcing its proximity, so the subconscious had obviously retained the conversation and kept it handy.

Having driven away from the previous wine-tasting, I swapped places with my darling wife and tried some of the wines that The Juniper Estate had to offer. Indeed their reds are, indeed, very tasty and we took a couple of bottles away with us. And a white. The first bottle of red went down particularly well with our meal in the town last night. You’ve got to love BYO restaurants!

Today got off to a much lazier start than yesterday. I sat in the courtyard of the YHA and read though a Colin Dexter novel in the sun. Our wineries tour wasn’t due to start until around noon. Today, though, we both hung up the car keys and allowed the nice lady from Wine for Dudes do the driving. We stopped of at four wineries in total, each being very different. None of the wines at the first were to my palate. At the second winery we got to blend our own Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot. Having tested both the Cabernet and the Merlot, I opted for a 9:1 mix, which tasted just right with our picnic lunch on the lawn.

Our third winery of the day was… The Juniper Estate! I don’t think the woman behind the counter recognised us from the previous day’s testing and we joined in tasting their wines. We even got to try a white port, a bottle of which we took away with us. We made a quick stop off to pick up some locally-produced olive oil on our way to the final winery of the day… Edwards. Mrs J put the plastic card into action having taken a shine to a couple of the wines there, while I spend some time outside taking rather a shine to the beautiful yellow Tiger Moth aeroplane on display in the hangar. This ‘plane has flown from the UK to its current resting place and has also completed a circuit around Australia.

And that’s us about up-to-date. We’re spending an extra night here in Margaret River because we like it so much. Tomorrow there is talk of visiting a fudge factory, but we haven’t yet decided what we are to do with this evening. I feel that this decision may be easier if I close up the laptop.

While K sits on the edge of the bed, playing with her belated Christmas present, I thought I’d take the opportunity to catch up with the blog. Sadly, this hostel (the YHA in Bunbury, for those interested in such matters) does not offer a wireless hotspot, hence this blog entry will appear on the website some time after its timestamp declares it was written.

As I recall, I left the story shortly before New Year’s Eve, just after we armed ourselves with bank cards and a roadworthy wagon. If this is incorrect, you shall just have to fill in the gaps or remove the overlaps yourself.

We left the Moores on New Year’s Eve and made tour way south to Fremantle. The Aussies like to shorten as many words as possible and have them ending in a vowel; Fremantle, therefore, is known locally as Freo. I may have mentioned this after one of my two previous visits to this dockyard town. The weather was predictably gorgeous on New Year’s Eve, while we received reports of snow (or possibly ash from an exploding alien ship ) from the UK.

After we’d booked ourselves into the Pirates Backpacker’s Hostel, we spent a lot of the day wandering around the Esplanade, the Market and so forth before ending up in The Sail and Anchor, a fine drinking establishment with its own microbrewery in-house. One of the locals, going by the name of Michael and claiming to be celebrating his 55th birthday, spent quite some time telling us that he was going to win the Lotto that evening and even showed us the ‘winning’ numbers on his lottery ticket. This was dated some time mid-November. Shortly after he declared that my wife had a lovely nose and that I looked like Robbie Williams (oh please(!)), we headed for a different bar in the same establishment, lying to our new-found friend that we were off in pursuit of a lottery ticket! The upstairs balcony of The Sail and Anchor afforded us a good view of the eight teams of the Around The World Yacht Race, who were parading through Fremantle on their stop-over (we actually saw the last team pull into the port as we ate fish and chips at Cicerello’s that lunchtime).

For our evening meal, we went to The Bengal Indian Restaurant, which has an affiliation with a couple of the hostels in the town and is very reasonably-priced indeed, particularly when you BYO bottle of fine Aussie wine from the Bottle Shop at the aforementioned Sail and Anchor. The food was spot-on, and I can heartily recommend the restaurant to anyone visiting Freo.

From the restaurant, we meandered down to the docks and watched a fireworks display over the water. It was only 20:30, mind you… I would have expected them to be a little bit later. Perhaps they were for the visiting yachtsmen (and yachtswomen)? We stopped off for a couple of drinks in The Sail and Anchor (where they’ve elected to have an Eighties Night to celebrate the end of 2005), before moving on to see what else was happening in the town. In the end, as it got closer to midnight, we decided that we’d grab another bottle of Wolf Blass from the Bottle Shop and take it back to the hostel.

We started 2006 with a glass of Australian Cabernet Sauvignon at the Backpacker’s Hostel and with some other travellers, which strikes me as an appropriate start to a year where we shall be travelling around as much of this great and vast land as we can manage.

New Year’s Day was a quiet affair. We went to St. Patrick’s Basilica, which was nowhere near as big as I would have expected a basilica to be, in fact it’s fair to say that I have been in bigger churches! St. Patrick’s is worth a visit, though, for the most impressive, most colourful mural that I have ever seen behind an altar. The rest of the day was largely spent sitting in the courtyard at the hostel, reading. That evening, as I sat in the courtyard with a beer and a book, I felt more relaxed than I have done in a long time. A good start to the New Year, I think.

We checked out of the hostel nice and early on Monday morning so that we could get our room key deposits back and continued southbound towards Penguin Island. On the ferry to Penguin Island from the mainland, we were lucky enough to spot a couple of dolphins playing merrily in the channel. The dolphins were being followed by a cormorant, hoping to find some leftover fish in their wake. We also saw a large number of pelicans and some sealions. And this is before we got to see the main event: Penguins’ Lunchtime! Little / Blue / Fairy Penguins, which live on their aptly-named island are incredibly cute. Mrs J took some great video footage of some of them swimming. Perhaps she will be good enough to share it with you, if you ask her nicely enough.

En Route to Bunbury, we stopped off at Harvey to fail to find The Big Orange, but succeed in getting a photograph of The Big Cow at Brunswick Junction.

Again, we’ve turned up trumps with the hostel (which, as a matter of interest, the locals pronounce to rhyme with hotel, not dropping the sound of the ‘e’ as we tend to in England). The room is nice and cosy, the staff are very smiley and friendly and the facilities are plentiful.

After a bike-ride with the flies and the drizzle this morning (yes… rain in Australia [brought about, I might add by me smearing myself from top to toe in factor 30+]), we went for a drive to Australind. Australind, I’m informed by my lovely wife is a contraction of ‘Australia’ and ‘India’ as they planned to breed horses there and shipping them across to India. We hadn’t stopped to admire horses though, we’d stopped to do some shopping (a pair of flip-flops for me: another step on the road to true Aussiedom) and to take a photograph of our first Little Thing: the smallest church in Australia (about four metres wide and seven metres long)!

We took a picnic lunch (leftover pizza from last night’s dinner at the local pizzeria, which was possibly the nicest pizza I have had in years) to Donnybrook. We went to Donnybrook to get a picture of The Big Apple, but over-shot that and ended up at Byramgou Park Winery. Hey-ho! Since I was the keeper of the car keys, the task of sampling a selection of wines was left to Mrs J, a task that she saw through to completion. We picked up a fine Grenache to go with tonight’s barbecue and a beautifully scented rosé for later.

And now that K has finished playing with her ukulele, I’m informed that it’s time for that barbecue I mentioned, so I shall shut down the laptop and open that Grenache to breathe.

Our work here in Perth is just about complete. This morning in Kings Park we photographed our first Big Thing: The Staircase.

Meanwhile, The Beast was at the doctor’s for a health-check ahead of its own big thing, our road trip across this great and vast land. Today, I decided to name the trip The Beast on the Road Tour, after, well, a 1982 tour by one of the bands that I have been known to be interested in. The doctor’s bill was considerable, but not quite $666, but at least now we can claim Piece of Mind (and four new tyres, a new battery and a healthier braking system).

In other news, our bank cards are now in our possession, which makes paying for things, such as car repairs far easier.

That’s about all the news that I have for now. Expect more in the New Year.

Be excellent to each other and party on!

As the holiday weekend draws to a close here in Western Australia, I figured it would be time for a catch-up.

We have spent the past few days staying in the company of Zac and his Mum and Dad, which is really nice. We all had a good Christmas together and Santa Claus managed to find us all.

Having Christmas in the Summertime is very bizarre indeed, dear reader. The sights of advent wreathes, decorated fir trees and shiny tinsel in the blazing sun, combined with the sounds of Christmas carols are all very incongruous. I even spotted someone wearing shorts at Midnight Mass, something hitherto unseen by these eyes!

The traditional barbecue on Christmas Day made an interesting change from turkey, ham and sprouts. I figured that this may prove a major selling point in convince my Dad that he should spend Christmas 2007 Down Under.

Having a picnic on the beach on Boxing Day was also rather nice. There are miles and miles of sandy beaches here in Perth, which means that even on a public holiday when the weather is glorious, it’s easy to get a parking space and to get a good spot on the beach. Sadly, it also proved far too easy to get my ankles sunburnt, but that’ll clear up shortly, I’m sure.

Today we took The Beast for a run up to York (the town so good, they named it once) for a mooch around. The Motor Museum was (for me) by far the highlight of this town. We decided to leave after a nice lunch for Beverley, stopping off to take in the views of The Avon Ascent. The views were beautiful, but the flies were keen to remind us that they were there first. Beverley was closed, so we just kept driving. MilesKilometres after kilometres of long, straight road… a taste of things to come!

Just a quick note in reply to your emails and SMS messages to say that Mrs Johns and I arrived in Perth safe and sound on our third wedding anniversary as planned.

More later.

September is whizzing past faster than a speeding A1 car! While Mrs J is out enjoying herself, I thought I’d take the time to update my readership (that’s you) as to what’s been going on. It’s all terribly exciting!

I shall start off by mentioning the first exciting thing to happen, which was right back on the second of the month. Whilst waiting for my brother to arrive in The Duke of Cornwall pub with his friend ahead of the evening’s Iron Maiden gig I did a double-take as a man with long, blond hair walked in through the side door of the pub. I thought I was seeing things, but as the people in the bar moved, I realised that standing there at the bar was Iron Maiden’s drummer: Nicko McBrain. I couldn’t believe it! Anyway, having stood on something to boost my height and taken a photograph from afar, I walked up to the bar and asked Nicko if he’s mind me taking a photograph. He said nothing, he just posed with a trademark cheeky grin on his face. That made my night.

The ensuing concert was also most excellent, we were towards the back of the Carling Apollo but our view of the band and the sound were just right. We couldn’t have asked for a much better set-list than the tracks that they played from their first four albums and we all left the venue feeling like we’d really got value for money on our tickets. I was even quoted as saying it was the best Iron Maiden gig I’d ever been to. And I’ve been to a lot!

The next day we had a few friends and some family over to Johnsy Towers to enjoy some flame-grilled food and a couple of chilled refreshments. Both the food and the refreshments went down well in the scorching September sunshine. The brief lunchtime affair turned into a 12-hour boozathon (for many of us) and the recycle bins were fully-laden the next morning. I thank everyone who came along for being wonderful guests.

Within a week of the party, we were in the Ardennes with my father-in-law and mother-in-law. While K and her Mum enjoyed exploring the local region, myself and her Dad enjoyed watching some very fast cars indeed at the 2005 Belgian Grand Prix. I watch a fair amount of motorsport, but to go to a Formula 1 race is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. If you have a QuickTime player to hand, then you can watch my amateur video footage of the first fast lap of the race and see just how quickly the cars go past.

All of these things were great and good and very exciting, but none of these events were as exciting as the email that we received from the Australian Government’s Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs telling us that the application that we lodged at the beginning of March for permanent residents’ visas had been approved!

As such we’ve spent a lot of the past couple of weeks telling our friends and families the good news (taking some time out for my cousin Sharon’s wedding in Co. Laoise) and booking flights and hotels.

I’m sure we’ll be blogging a lot more about our emigration over the next three months, but I suspect we’ll be doing a lot more organising as we prepare the house for our departure on Tuesday, 20 December 2005. There is so much to arrange, what we’re going to sell, what we’re going to store in the UK, what we’re going to take with us at the beginning of our trip, what we’re going to have sent over when we find ourselves jobs and a home… We have lists of lists, I can tell you. Wish us luck, won’t you?

I’ve just watched what could be described as the US Formula 1 Grand Prix but would be more accurately be described as a farce.

Having just ordered tickets in the last week to go to my first Grand Prix, my heart sank as I watched fourteen of the twenty cars peel into the pit lane at the end of the parade lap. The situation in Indianapolis was entirely avoidable.

However, as sympathetic as I am to the fans’ bitter disappointment, there really was no excuse for the abuse that the remaining six drivers received. I don’t know whether I would have remained seated to watch the ‘race’, but the guys out on the track on the day were not the ones at fault. I felt sorry for them; particularly Tiago Monteiro, who gained his first Formula 1 podium, but couldn’t really celebrate it.

Very sad.

Having survived the first day back in the office after our trip away, I figured that it was high-time I relayed some words and pictures about our recent sojourn to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Taking the facts that we caught the aeroplane (with the high-tech, but slightly faulty entertainment system) and made it through US Immigration as read, I shall start with last Saturday morning at our hotel in New Jersey. I and his delectable wife C greeted us in the pouring American rain to transport us back to their house, which is North of New York City. We were told that on a clear day we would get some good views of the city. Of course on a day like last Saturday, all we saw was mist and rain until we were far North of the City.

Our hosts made us very welcome and after a lovely relaxing afternoon we went to see a local theatre production, which we enjoyed very much, despite our bodies’ desires to sleep during the second and third acts. Comedy prevailed over jet-lag.

Day two consisted largely of a trip to some of Dutchess County’s vineyards. Until that day, I was ignorant to the existence of such places, but it transpired that there are some rather excellent wines to be produced in New York State. Some examples of which are now resident in our wine-rack just downstairs.

Our brief stay at Whalley Towers, for which we thank our hosts muchly, came to an end as the working week started. On his way to the lab, I dropped us off at a train station with enough time for us to get a ticket before boarding a train to the aptly-named Grand Central Station.

We found our hotel with ease, right in the core of the Big Apple. Hooray for grid-like street layouts and unimaginatively-numbered roads. We were able to check-in nice and early to give us the opportunity to orientate ourselves with the city. The day was gloriously sunny and we walked down to the South of Manhattan Island.

The first well-known sight that we came to, completely by chance, was the sombre site of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. There were so many people standing around just looking, quietly, in disbelief at the huge crater where the two biggest buildings in New York once stood. Later on that day, as we walked back from the Brooklyn Bridge, we saw a car at the side of a road with so much dust on it, we thought that perhaps its owner had probably walked from the car to the Twin Towers on that fateful day. Not a pleasant sight.

As we wandered further North in Manhattan, the heavens opened, just as we were starting to think about what to do about an evening meal. Beacon-like, the Heartland Brewery and Rotisserie at the bottom of the tallest building around presented itself as a suitable place to shelter from the elements and to enjoy a meal, and perhaps a pint or two of the local brews.

We were up bright an early on Tuesday morning to catch one of the first ferries over to one of America’s most celebrated landmarks: The Statue of Liberty. First thing is most definitely the time to go as we were on a reasonably quiet ferry crossing and Liberty Island was also quiet when we got there. As we were leaving, the Island and the ferries arriving were much, much fuller.

Having paid our dues to go up inside the statue, been searched a couple of times, deposited out bags in the funky fingerprint-scanning lockers, we were informed that we would only be able to climb to the bottom of the actual statue and not all the way to the top (which the guidebooks told us was possible). Visitors have not been allowed to the crown area since 10 September 2001. Obviously this was a real disappointment. However, it was an absolutely beautiful morning and so the views of Manhattan we superb. From Liberty Island, we caught the ferry, rather predictably, to Ellis Island to investigate the museum there.

Back on the Mainland, we traipsed across town and off of American Soil to the United Nations. Again, the guidebook had let us down claiming that we could take a free tour, we couldn’t. Hey-ho. This was a good opportunity to rest our legs and send some postcards with funky UN stamps to our family.

Our second theatre visit of the week was to see Multiple TONY Nominee musical, Monty Python’s Spamalot at the Shubert Theatre (get your tickets here). Tim Curry was sadly absent on the (k)night, but his stand in (whose name escapes me for the minute) was excellent as King Arthur. We felt that the script would have to be changed considerably to work in The West End, but on Broadway, it was absolutely superb. Hank Azaria does a very good Cleese, it has to be said. Lots and lots of ‘in’ jokes and, what pleased me the most, is that I laughed more at the new material than at the old. And I laughed at the old a lot!

Wednesday was largely a day based around shopping. We went to all of the big department stores, shoe warehouses, computer shops, music shops and God knows what else. Surprisingly, we didn’t need to buy extra luggage to transport our goods home, which is good news. I managed to pick up some CDs that I’ve been after for a while and have struggled to buy in the UK (Cake, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Richard Cheese were among them, as well as the Original Cast Recording to a certain musical, for those interested).

While people were busying themselves back home voting in the new parliament, we were investigating the Chinatown area of New York. We walked for miles and miles, which may explain why Poor K is having to keep her left foot elevated at the moment. On our travels, we found streets of stores that sold all manner of things. We chuckled at the rows of shops selling the same thing, whether it be fridges, chairs or lights. We also located the legendary CBGB Club, where we spent the evening watching a couple of great bands (Venus Flytrap and Dark-Faced Boy) and a couple of not-so-great bands. That night we got a ride home in a big yellow taxi, another thing crossed off my to-do list.

On our last full day in the city, we ventured to the 86th floor of the tallest building in Manhattan. Yes, we know everyone does it, but the views really are quite spectacular. Did you know that (much like this page), the Empire State Building has different colo(u)r schemes depending on the date?

Before heading to the airport for a long journey home, we simply went for a walk in the park. Of course when that park is Central Park, this could take a long time. Especially when you take the time to stop in Strawberry Fields and rest a while at the John Lennon Memorial.

You know what? I really liked New York. The people were so polite, there is a lot to see and do and you can pick up copies of The Onion on street corners. While we saw everything that we wanted to see, I still don’t feel that we’ve seen enough. We shall have to go back!

Oooh! I have finally got around to looking at a link that K sent me last week to the website of a new Disney film: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. According to IMDB, the film will be released in time for Christmas.

After a brief wander around the website, I’m now off to find a copy of the book to include in my hand luggage for tonight’s flight.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was one of my favourite books as a young boy, along with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Oddly, I have no real desire to see that particular film, which means that Kris will love it!

Well, I have a few things to do before we head off to see The Whalleys in New York, so I shall bid you all adieu. Adieu!

A few words, if I may (and I may), about a concert we enjoyed last night.

The evening started off with bitter, bitter disappointment as we arrived at the venue shortly after the advertised door-opening time and long before the advertised showtime. It was when we were collecting our tickets that we were to discover that Dean Howard had already finished their set and that Thunder were taking to the stage. I had been looking forward to this gig for quite some time, so I was quite browned off to miss Dave’s live performance.

Thunder’s short set was very good indeed. In fact, I now quite fancy seeing them at one of their own gigs.

Peter Frampton has never really been ‘my bag’, I have to say. I was quite tempted to sit in the (smoke free) bar during his set, but thought better of it. I have to say that I was really very impressed at the quality of the music. The tribute to the Men of Black Watch was touching and his encore, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, was absolutely superb!

There wasn’t too great a delay before the main act came onstage. Deep Purple kicked off the set with Silver Tongue from their latest record (mental note: must buy copy of Bananas, I have the MP3s that I downloaded for evaluation purposes for too long now). This was pretty good, but the show really got started (for me) when they played the opening track to their 1973 album Who Do We Think We Are?, Woman From Tokyo. Ian Gillan, who appeared to have come onstage barefoot in his pyjamas, introduced the concept of air-Hammond to the crowd before returning to the Bananas album for I Got Your Number. The next song was from Fireball: Strange Kind Of Woman. Gillan’s amusing little anecdotes in-between songs added to the occasion. The next delight was Bananas: the song, not the fruit! Demon’s Eye was an unexpected treat from the Fireball album, followed up by The Well-Dressed Guitar. Steve Morse played through the blinding instrumental Contact Lost, a tribute to the crew of Space Shuttle Columbia. The mood was lifted then by Knocking At Your Back Door from Perfect Strangers, which merged nicely into Don Airey’s awesome Hammond extravaganza, culminating in the title track from Perfect Strangers. The main set was to finish with three songs from an album I always have a copy of in the car, Machine Head, these were: Highway Star, Space Truckin’ and the inevitable Smoke On The Water. Sadly, I’d snapped the G string on my shiny new air guitar, whilst tuning up, so I had to leave the guitar solo up to the man on the stage (he did an impressive job, too). I still managed to play the opening chords to perfection, of course!

The encore was quite literally, In Rock (if you like rock music, you must own a copy of this album): a ten-minute version of Speed King, featuring an impressive bass solo from Roger Glover and a small drum solo from Ian Paice, before the grand finale: Black Night (the second song that Mrs Johns knew of the set)!

Deep Purple are without a doubt one of the greatest rock bands of all time. Seeing them live not only confirmed these thoughts, but also gave me a new sense of respect for those musicians. Highly recommended.