This morning I went back to Carousel with Geoff so he could buy a phone and I could get a sim card. Despite finding a better deal online for a prepaid sim I decided it would be better to spend an extra $8 and get a deal with Telstra knowing they would have the network coverage away from the major towns just in case I got stuck anywhere during my travels. Geoff chose an android phone (woohoo!) made by a company called Huawei. I had never heard about them but apparently they are Chinese and the phone spec on paper was better than my Samsung. It seemed like a good deal, I was tempted to get one myself as mine was playing up every now and then. We also did a bit of food shopping while we were there. Once we got home I did a spot of swimming and lazed around during the day for a bit and then started the preparations for the meal. I was cooking dinner and black bean stir fry was on the menu. After dinner I went to Brendan and Molly's for a few drinks and a movie. We chatted for a bit, got drunk a bit and I got home pretty late.
11th March
Today was action packed. I swam, drank beer, wrote some of my blog, checked out Facebook and gave Geoff his first lesson on how to use his phone. My parcel to England arrived and so I tried to log onto the courier website to track my suit parcel and was told the tracking number didn't exist. Uh oh. TV in the evening, more beer and bed. Phew, I'm knackered.
12th March
Today was full of adventure. I swam, drank beer, blogged, checked out second hand motorbikes on Gumtree, watched TV and then....went out for the evening. Ha you didn't see that one coming did you? This evening I went with Sandra to a talk being held at the local council education centre. It was called 'Living with Mozzies - A free community awareness information session on mosquito management'. It sounded relatively interesting and in exchange for helping Sandra set up the room with chairs I got a heap of sandwiches from the small buffet that was being laid on by the council. How could I refuse? There was cake too. The talk was basically telling people about the life cycle and lifestyle of mozzies. Perth, and probably other cities in Australia, have a big problem with mosquito's and everyone needs to do something to try and combat this. So by giving a lesson about what mozzies need to survive and where they breed would help people understand what they need to do to reduce their numbers. A massive data collection programme has been taking place over the last year all over Perth and the data collected enabled experts to see where each type of mosquito lived and how many there are approximately in that area. This showed most of the mosquito population is directly in and around the rivers that run through Perth and a smaller number existed in the gardens of the residents. There was even a member of the council who's job it is to go round and neutralise these breeding areas along rivers. And it sounded like his team were doing everything they could. They used to fog whole areas but that proved ineffective so they don't waste their time and money on that any more. And then there was a section on what could be done. To be honest there isn't a great deal that can be done but doing simple things like tipping out buckets of water every week that have gathered when it rains and reducing any standing water, like disused swimming pools, can reduce the places where mosquitoes lay their eggs. After all the speakers had done their bit it was time for the public that had turned up to ask questions. And the gist of this was most people blaming the council for not doing enough with the rivers, saying that they should bring back fogging, and pointing out that whatever they do in their back gardens won't have any effect. That's the perfect attitude to have! Well done everyone. One woman has the perfect back garden, to deter mosquitoes, by planting the right shrubs, attracting the right mosquito eating wildlife and keeping no standing water about, but she can't win because the mosquitoes are still attracted to all her neighbours gardens, so it DOES take everyone to do something to have an effect. Even I managed to understand that, but they failed to comprehend this small fact. So I felt the evening had been a bit of a waste of time for the team who arranged it but at least they had raised some awareness of the problems. But the sandwiches and the cakes were first class. After the meeting I helped tidy the chairs away and Sandra and I went back home. I showed Geoff a bit more on his phone and after a nightcap went to bed.
13th March
This morning Sandra and I went to see Holly and Taze as Taze was a little bit ill and hadn't gone to his swimming session that day. Taze has got this futuristic space-travel looking pod which is actually an electronic rocker. It does about 5 different motions depending on what the baby prefers. Where was this when I was growing up? I wasn't allowed to have a go on this one either. Hrumph! We had a coffee and chatted for a bit and then Sandra and I went shopping to try and find some smoked mackerel as I was making a smoked mackerel salad for dinner. After a 3 hour hunt we concluded that smoked mackerel just doesn't exist here except tiny fillets in a very expensive tin. So I settled on making a caesar salad instead. I also bought a copy of the 'Quokka', a newspaper containing WA's classifieds to look for motorbikes in there too. In the afternoon I lounged around and guess what? MY SUIT ARRIVED. In a shoe box. A three piece suit, two shirts, three ties and a pair of shoes were packed into a box measuring 10" x 12" x 6"!!! It was a tad creased. I hung it up knowing that wouldn't make much difference. I hunted around on the internet for a dry cleaners to find out the cost of pressing but struggled to find one in the local vicinity. This might be a problem. I spent the rest of the afternoon checking various websites for motorbikes and scanned through the Quokka too. I cunningly started from the back of the motorbike section thinking that everyone else might start from the front so I could grab a bargain before anyone else would make the call. Up here for thinking (I'm pointing at my head by the way). I found a couple of Yamaha's, a few Suzuki's and a few brands of bike I hadn't heard of and Google searched them to see what they were like. I came here hoping to find a bargain for about $1000 but during my hunt so far I realised I wasn't going to get much for my money. One of the Yamaha's I'd seen was going for $2500 with quite a few kilometres on the clock but I could stretch to that by borrowing some money till I sold it at the end of my trip. It was a sports tourer so was designed for the job but it was a 900 and the biggest bike I'd ridden so far was a 650. I hadn't expected to afford bigger than a 500. I'd also seen a Yamaha Fazer which was more what I was used to and a few Suzuki 250 trail bikes which would probably do the job. My uncle rang about the 900 Yamaha when he got home and arranged a viewing for tomorrow. That evening I made the salad, which everyone enjoyed, and spent the time after dinner checking out some more motorbikes. A honey whiskey for everyone and bed.
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