Where's Pedro?

WA

So I've been in Perth a week now. When I first got here I was totally jazzed about the great selection of food as compared to New Zealand. The area I'm staying in, Northbridge, has tons of Vietnamese, Indonesian, Thai, and Indian restaurants, many of them with meals for $5-$6 AU, which is about $4 US. And there's several shops that have loads of European goodies - they cost a bit more but it's great to have the option to splash out a bit on some good food. It's amazing how access to good food can affect your opinion of a place, without even realizing it.

A bit of a downside to my stay in Perth has been the overwhelming amount of Brit tourists. I can honestly say that some of my best friends are Brits but something about a group of them on holiday makes them form into annoying cliques. If you're not British, then it's almost like you don't exist. Anyway, I think I'm ready for a change of scenery and hopefully I'll run into a wider variety of travellers as I go.

Speaking of which, after researching various transportation options - buying a car, sharing a ride with someone, or splashing out on a tour, I finally bit the bullet and decided. I was all set to share a ride with an Irish guy who's got his own car and has driven across from Sydney already but he was looking for passengers going farther than I wanted to and found some before we were set to leave. I might still hook up with him later on, though, as he's driving all the way back to Sydney. So I finally got tired of farting around and dropped a small fortune on a couple of tours up the west coast and across to Darwin. It's probably gonna cost me about $2000 US for three weeks of travel but that includes 3 days of diving in an area that many say rivals the Great Barrier Reef. It also includes a lot of 4 wheel driving in the outback, again said to be among the best sites in Australia. Some of that hype is coming from the travel agents, who are experts at getting you to part with your money, but I've also heard it from independent sources as well. Hopefully it'll be worth it, though, cause that same amount of money could last me several months in SE Asia or India. I'm definitely gonna have to be a bit more frugal after these tours if I can ever hope to make it out of Australia with any of my savings intact. With any luck, I'll be able to pick up some more work for clients back home to help replenish the savings a bit. Stay tuned and I'll try and keep you posted on how it turns out.