Perth- Catching up with the old gang!

John, Jennifer, Tracey, myself and Colm at King's Park, Perth 

After a five hour flight from Sydney, I landed safely in Perth. I got a taxi to Keith and Frankie's and waited there for a while. They were at work but had kindly left the key out for me. It was so nice to sprawl myself on the couch and do nothing but eat and watch tv. I probably hadn't done that in 7 months.  Oh the little things! Colm called in the afternoon and brought me over to his house whom he was sharing with John and his cousin Jennifer. I actually felt like I was spinning around Claremorris and Knock, I felt so at home. That night we went to King's Park, where you can have a great view of the city. It's lovely to see Perth at night. The following day the lads brought me to Scarborough beach for a gawk and then we headed on to Hillarys Boat Harbour. There are lots of places to eat here and it's a nice place for a stroll, gazing at the boats docked in this little harbour overlooking the Indian Ocean. I found Perth to be more expensive than Sydney, especially when it came to food and drink so for anyone thinking of making a trip to Perth just bare that in mind.
Later that night we went to Freemantle prison for a night tour. The prison was built by convict labour in the 1850's and remained open until 1991. It has now been restored and is a museum, a common tourist attraction with people visiting Perth. Apparently many Irish men were transported over there to serve time. They even have a place where you can search your surname to see if you have any convicts in the extended family tree. The Commins name got the all clear however the others weren't so clean cut. The names Costello, Prendergast and Forde to name but a few. As we progressed through the prison we were brought to the prisoners cells. Some of their art work was displayed on the cell walls and was nothing short of extraordinary. Murderers, rapists, etc capable of producing such beautiful work. On paper, those people really should not be featuring in a sentence alongside the word beautiful but their work was simply amazing. You'd wonder where it all went wrong!

Mount St. Michael reuion: Sinead, Carmel, Clare and myself

Caversham Wildlife Park

Freemantle Prison

A few familiar faces!

After the prison we had a few bottles that night at the house. It was so good to catch up with the gang. On the Saturday after some shopping with my school pal Sinead Cunningham we got ready and along with Tracey Costello headed on over to Frankie's for an aul' gathering. Here I met girls I went to school with and people I went to college with in Sligo. People I hadn't seen in a few years. It was just crazy. This world really is so small. I qualified  in 2011, smack bang in the middle of the recession and the amount of people I knew who had imigrated to Australia and in particular Perth was unbelievable. Especially those in the 23 to 29 years of age category. In this time my newsfeed has been flooded with people checked in in The Shed in Perth and that's where we headed that night.
On the Sunday we went on a day session and again ended up in The Shed. The Donegal jerseys were out in style that night as they took on Monaghan in the Ulster Championship. When the bar stopped serving we left the Donegal folk to it and made our way to the casino. Here I met another face I hadn't seen in years, young Tully from Killybegs. The amount of Irish in Perth is just phenomenal.
There was one thing I had to do before I left Australia and that was see a kangaroo. Tracey kindly agreed to bring me to Caversham Wildlife Park and I actually couldn't get over how friendly the kangaroos were. We fed them and they even posed for photos with us believe it or not.  They are definitely my new favourite animal!
Tracey and Colm dropped me to the airport on the Tuesday night. My international flight was leaving from Melbourne so I needed to get a domestic one there from Perth.
It was brilliant catching up with the crew in Perth. Thank you for the hospitality. Here's hoping you all get a niggling feeling to return to the land of the emerald isle. Things are much better here now, I promise. :) On to Melbourne I went with a good jacket. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

xoxo