The weather has finally picked so that I could explore the surroundings a bit with my car and get used to driving on the wrong side of the road (and it is the wrong side, no matter what some people here might say). Today I was in Freemantle (Freo) where the American aircraft-carrier "U.S.S. Kitty Hawk" is currently docked. As a result all of Perth and Freemantle is crawling with sailors on R&R.

I have to admit I was a bit anxious when I took my car out for the first time. I normally don't drive at home and having everything inside your car at the wrong place certainly doesn't help. I decided though that I simply have to get confident in driving it - else there is little point in having it. All in all it's behaving quite well. I just have to learn to press the clutch all the way to the floor and things will be fine. I'm still quite unecure though, when it comes to u-turns - in one or two cases I think I drove another one or two kilometers until I decided to make the turn. But I'm learning :-).

Shopping for the Australian winter

The destination I chose for my wee trip is about 20 kilometers north of Perth. A small place called "The Hillarys" with a decent beach and a huge shopping mall. Admittedly it was mainly the shopping mall I was after since I simply needed a long-sleeved shirt and a pullover. Did I mention that it can get quite cold here? Thought so. Shopping for clothes is actually fun here, btw - they have a lot of really cool shirts and t-shirts for guys here. I also bought some storage boxes etc. to keep things from flying around the inside of the car. The beach itself was alright but not spectacular. Very small and incredibly windy. But I did manage to hang my hammock up and read for an hour or so. I still haven't figured out how dangerous the sun is here (remember, no ozone layer) but it feels more aggressive. Though this might just be my imagination. Yes, you heard right - it finally has stopped raining and the sun is out!

My first aircraft carrier

So today I decided to go to Freemantle, called "Freo" by the locals, to walk down the famous "Cappucino Strip" of cafes, catch some rays and look at Freemantles latest attraction: The U.S.S Kitty Hawk and her escorting vessels (one destroyer, two nuclear subs). She arrived two days ago for some R&R and of course Perth and Freemantle have been crawling with American sailors ever since. And apparently the sailors don't just drink and dance when they go ashore as an article I've linked to below shows :-). Quite funny, really.

What surprised me most was how close one could get to the ship - it lies barely 200 meters from the railway-track and you can easily walk 150 meters towards it before security tells you to stop. Well, I suppose they feel safe here. After all Australia is one of the countries that are part of the "coalition of the willing". While I took some photos of the boat I started talking to some of the soldiers (these are kids, godammit. A lot of them hardly 18!) and they told me that this was indeed the first time the ship was moored in what is central Freemantle. I've never seen an aircraft carrier before. And while it is an awfully big ship I was nonetheless surprised that it is much smaller then I thought it would be. With more than 5.000 people on board it must be awfully cramped!

Two more days

In the meantime I've decided that I'll probably leave Perth on Tuesday. I met a guy from NZ in the hostel who'll be heading the same way, so I have someone to share the time, the driving and the fuelcosts with. Johnny seems very young but fun. I had thought about visiting the Pinnacles Desert today (250 km north of Perth) but couldn't be bothered to get up early enough. Besides, driving 500 km might have been a bit much for me.

Aside from this not much has happened. I went out a lot, saw "Kill Bill 2" (good movie though I liked the first part better) and generally spent too much money. The only exception was last night since I had found a discarded security-bracelet which I scotch-taped, thus saving another 30 AUD on cover-charge and drinks.

I also was very, very, very pleasantly surprised last night by Nino calling me from Germany! It's nice to hear a friends voice.

On the web:
The official website of the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk
US sailors wear out sex workers