Perth

Hello readers!

First of all a most profound apology for not updating this since last year. Very slack of me and I'll try and do better in the future.
Part of this is because I became a little paranoid recently about announcing my upcoming trips, so I haven't been writing about the planning etc. just in case, and so I decided only to write after the event. But as you can see, that hasn't really worked either, because it always takes a while to sort through photos etc. So maybe I'll just stop being paranoid and update more often - and if I'm not going away anywhere for a while, I'll just bore you with some mundane stuff about badminton or bike riding. How does that sound?

Anyway, as some of you know, I was at a conference in Perth earlier this month. I've finally got around to picking the best of the best photos, so out of 250 you get a short list of 15. I presented a talk at the conference on the first day, and went to a few good talks that day, but after that the pickings were pretty slim. In fact, I wasn't going to go to this one - because the previous conference in this series, in Sydney, was pretty rubbish. But the opportunity to visit a good friend of mine again was too good to pass up. So I went to the conference and took an extra couple of days over the weekend.

That's enough writing, time for some photos. Enjoy!

I arrived on the Saturday prior to the conference; on Sunday I met up with my colleague Mike and we hiked 20 km of the Bibbulmun track from Kalamunda. It was relatively cool - only 30 degrees Celsius... We saw two kangaroos in the wild and walked past a camel park in the middle of nowhere.

On Wednesday there wasn't much on offer at the conference, but Sri Lanka were playing India at the WACA. It could have been Sachin Tendulkar's 100th 100... but it wasn't. Anyway it was fun, watching the Indian supporters going crazy - and they weren't even drunk.

On Thursday I went for a walk through Kings Park. Temperature probably about 35 C.

Friday was a day trip on the train to Mandurah. I figured it would be a bit cooler than the city... which was forecast to be 37 C that day.

(Mandurah)

Friday afternoon I relocated from the hotel in the city to a motel further north. I went for a walk early on Saturday morning. There were people at the beach - at 7:30 am.

We went to AqWA on Saturday.

On Sunday I went to Rottnest Island and hired a bike for the day. The weather wasn't fantastic to start with, but eventually the sun came out... another (relatively) cool day at about 30 C.

My first quokka

My second, third, and fourth quokkas

The western-most point of Rottnest Island, Cape Vlamingh. Good place for a lunch stop!

Lunch stop visitor... a 'keeng skeenk' (or as Aussies would say we say in NZ, a 'kung skunk')

Lady Edeline beach: I couldn't resist having a paddle there.

As I said, the sun came out later on... a perfect day at the beach!

Sunset over the Indian Ocean, back on the mainland.