Back in the West again

My camping spot at the Advent Park in Perth

Good to be back! Also time to bring my blog up-to-date again with new happenings. Today, 20 December, already 16 days back, having spent the first ten, just relaxing and taking it easy at a campsite at Maida Vale near Perth Airport. I must say, the trip back to the past has been rather more stressful than I had initially anticipated, so now after settling down and re-adjusting to the way of life on the road, I feel so much better.

I have met up with my friend Jo and we have taken up together, where I have left off seven weeks ago, now slowly travelling south along the coast of Western Australia. Yesterday we spent the day stopping alongside Luck Bay, a large bay, formed by the Swan River, watching wind surfers barrelling along across the water. What a great place to see. We spent part of the afternoon and much enjoying a long ride on our bikes, most of the way around Lucky Bay.

Tonight we are camping wild in a carpark along the beach, just north of Coogee Beach WA. We are having a pretty warm day, with temperatures in the high 30s. This morning we spent exploring some parts of Fremantle and the local market. A lot of the old infrastructure of Fremantle seems to date back to the days of the Gold Rush, with many a grand building in the centre of town. The sun in these parts stands high, so often it feels like I am being pushed into the ground by the intensely bright and hot sun, a good time to keep in the shade if you can. So after the excursion around Fremantle we decide to head a little further south and have now made camp at a place called "C.Y. O'Connor Beach", named after the man who designed and built that pipeline all the way to Kalgoorlie. He committed suicide right on this very beach, as he must have started to believe the water would after all, never get there. Anyway, only two hours after his death the water did arrive and has been flowing there since.

It’s a great beach, clean water, absolute balm after a hot and sticky day in the Australian sun. A swim in the clear waters of the bay fells wonderful on such a hot and sticky day.