Dave & Dana in Australia

This past weekend was the Queen’s birthday here in Australia (except WA - sorry Dale), which is what we get instead of Victoria day I guess. The long weekend was appreciated even though it rained all weekend save Monday. With all the travel we’d been doing we had to at the very least catch up on sleep.

Big sports weekend though. I had a chance to go to a big international rugby test - a rematch of the World Cup finals in 2003, Australia vs. England. It was billed as a rematch because Australia lost, even though the England team sent down this time had no players in common with the world cup side. Great seats, a good game and a 34-3 victory shared with 80,000 screaming rugby fans.

Picture: A Wallabie penalty kick flying through the uprights.

Then it was the opening game for the Socceroos in the World Cup. This is the first time Australia has been in it for 16 years, and people are getting quite excited. Australia’s group has Brazil in it, but otherwise has two opponents who are in the same league as Australia in Croatia and Japan. So, game 1 against Japan was important and started at 11 pm on Monday, but I still managed head to a bar to watch it with some folks from work. What a game! The Socceroos got scored on about 20 minutes in on a debatable goal - could have been keeper interference but there was no call. Nevertheless, the Australians were constantly pressuring the rest of the game for the equalizer but it didn’t look like it was going to happen. Finally though in the 84th minute they managed to put one home during a scramble in front of the Japanese net. Bar goes crazy. Then 5 minutes later another one, this time a blistering shot from 20 yards - bar goes crazier. Then another 2 minutes later in injury time another one! What a game - and needless to say the sports mad Aussies are now officially on the bandwagon. It was the both the first goal and win in their world cup history. Brazil is up next…

Dana had to be out in Perth again to work this week, so we decided to take advantage of that, go out a few days early and turn it into a long weekend. As per alwasy, it was action packed. We left on Wednesday night and arrived late in the evening, in time to have a few drinks with Dale and his house-mate Paul. Paul was one of the guys Dale had travelled around Australia with when he was here a few years ago. On the Thursday, while Dale and Paul went off to work, Dana and I drove a couple of hours North of Perth to see the Pinnacles, which are a swath of vertical pillar-like rocks sticking out of the desert-like landscape right by the Indian ocean (below). It was really interesting, and left one with the feeling that this is a really wierd place. Since we were right by the ocean we took the opportunity to get our feet wet and while there I saw my first kangaroos in the wild (above). Other interesting wildlife sighted were a pair of gigantic emus running through the Pinnacles.

On Friday Dale had the day off so we three all went out to Fremantle, which is kind of a port town but with really neat old and preserved architecture right on the water. From there we grabbed a ferry out to Rotnest Island. It’s sort of like Centre Island in Toronto, but a little farther out there. Still really cool, since there are tons of lighthouses (which guide the ships around the treacherous reefs around in the area), beaches, and another quirky creature called a Quokka - kind of a giant rat squirrel thing. From there it was back to Perth for Dale and Paul’s housewarming party, which was of course a raging kegger. No pictures of this, thank god.

Saturday was slow and relaxing - Dana and I walked around Perth’s downtown and through the botanical gardens (really impressive). Perth has the feel of a big country town, although with 1.4 million people and the fact that it’s so isolated from other large cities it’s kind of a regional centre. Sunday was again slow - Dana and I just drove along the beaches from Cottlesloe up past Scarborough, having a nice lunch and coffee along the way. Then it was off to the airport for me while Dana settled into her hotel for the week of work. After consecutive weekends away in Melbourne and Perth, this weekend is sure to be spent in Manly relaxing!