'Parents, be nice to your children, they choose your retirement homes...' as found on a wall in Fremantle - a place we've just spent the day wandering. Freo (as it's known to the locals) is a really smart looking place with buildings straight out of picture-books, fantastic looking cafes, and a relaxed, (almost falling over) laid-back feel. We started the day by walking to the 3km or so into town from the caravan park along a coastal path. The weather was unusually hot and sunny for the time of year and it was a fun 40 minutes or so. En route we passed some dreadlocked hippie type woman with a couple of those fires thingies that you twiddle round your head. It's a good job hers weren't on fire as she would have set herself alight on numerous occasions such was her uselessness with them. We also watched a black lab. puppy run into the sea chasing a tennis ball and spend fully ten minutes searching for it before it's owner realised it had gone forever and plucked another from her bag...she'd obviously done that before.

So onto Freo...we spent a fair part of the morning just walking around (that's free you know!) and looking in bookshops (can't afford such luxuries now...) before having our (packed) lunch in a town square different to most we've seen so far in Aus insofar as there were no tramps, annoying children (well one, but he wasn't that annoying) or paralytic aborigines. Sad, but true. Our one indulgence for the day - a coffee at one of the afrementioned cafes whiled away another half hour or so before we headed to 'The Roundhouse', which, incidentally, is not round but has 12 sides. I suppose 'The Dodecahedral-house' just isn't as catchy (or easy to spell). This was the site of the first Freo gaol and here they once executed a 15-y.o. boy. That'll teach him for playing truant...Onwards to the Maritime Museum which holds a reconstructed part of the stern of the Batavia which sunk off the West coast in 1629. Of the 316 on board only 116 survived due to a mutiny shortly after people fled the sinking ship. Ironically only a handful drowned as the ship went down, most died in the bloody 'coup' that followed. Just a quick shout out to an Oxford supporting friend of mine - thanks for ringing me last night to gloat about Paul Wanless. For once I have no reposte. I fully expect you to get promoted and us relegated...

This morning we were due to head out to Rottnest Island but with thunderstorms, 30 knot+ winds, and 3m swells due for this afternoon we decided against seeing our dinner again and have travlled south to Bunbury - home of the Dolphin Discovery Centre. We are going to try to see soem of the little fellas tomorrow morning which is their favourite time to come into the 'interactive zone'. Jen's also had some really good news about something that has been dragging on for about 2 years now so all in all we're pretty upbeat for the first time in a few days.