In Perth, we caught up with Murray, a friend of ours from the online world. Good to meet in person after all this time and swapping of emails back and forth. He had the dubious honour of being the last of our internet friends we met during the trip and also failed to be an axe-murdering psychopath - just figured I’d mention that for all those who figured we would be kidnapped and stuffed into a freezer by a crazy online friend during our travels.

We went out to Rottnest Island this time in Perth - something we failed to get to in the last travels to Western Australia. We found a 2-for-1 deal to get over on the ferry, saving us $AUD40 for the day which was great, to say the least. We hired bicycles and ended up riding up and down gently undulating terrain for about 15kms or so, enjoying the spectacular views of the reefs and clear water. We also managed to see quite a few quokkas for which the island is famous. We were concerned that we’d not see any of the 10,000 quokkas since they are nocturnal, but they were very easy to find.

Sadly, when I opened my bag to get the camera out to take a photo, I decided to move some distance away so as not to disturb them. Upon hearing me remove a packet of chips to get to the camera, the quokkas immediately leaped up and raced over to me, struggling to get inside the backpack to reach the food. Given the number of signs asking people not to feed them, for the animals to equate a rustling potato chip packet with food is kind of concerning. So much for them being independent critters…

Alas, whilst on Rottnest Island, we got very sunburned. Because I was wearing a bicycle helmet, I could not wear my hat and my whole face got burned, with Di not getting quite as burnt. We both look a real treat now with our faces peeling badly. The really sad thing is that we were both freezing cold on the day we were there, since it was about half of the temperature we’d had in south-east Asia, with none of the humidity. Therefore, though we were both huddled inside polar fleece while locals wore shorts and T-shirts, we got sunburned. Silly us.

At the end of all these travels, we learned many things about the world and ourselves. Possibly the most interesting thing we learned was that a holiday can be too long. When we landed in Melbourne, there was no sadness about being back in the rat race once more, but a sense of relief that it was all over and we could stop carrying those bloody backpacks around! Man, they were heavy suckers! At least the one thing that stopped up buying lots of useless stuff was the knowledge that we had to carry it. You really think twice whether or not you want a small metal Eiffel Tower souvenir if it adds weight to the pack…*grin*

In the next month or so, we’ll probably issue a few missives about the best and worst experiences we had, as well as update the site to reflect some travel advice we think might be worthy in case anyone is interested. However, the traveling portion of the Odyssey is over, and we’d like to thank all those who sat down and read the mails, and especially thank those who took the time to respond to the emails. It was really great to hear what was happening with our friends around the world when the emails came in. Makes it all worth logging on when that happens.

Thanks again to one and all, and to those who complained that I wrote too much, just be glad we did not take a laptop or the emails would have been twice as long and three times more frequent. A scary thought indeed considering we were gone for 251 days.

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001