Mid morning on the following day found us wide awake and well refreshed, and "daytiming" Down Under for the first time. Aaron and his much better looking girl Hoa (a smasher in fact) were minding the gaffe. After the breakfast a dip in the back garden pool for the first time was in order for meself. Bloody great having a pool out the back and such a novelty for us. The weather was great and the pool water very refreshingly cool and I immediately felt really comfortable with the lifestyle. I'm sure our two hosts for the day may have wondered what kind of lunatics they were consorting with pro temps. However, come to think of it they were pleasantly mad themselves and so we all got along great.

After I got tired pretending to be Flipper, I needed to get some dosh and so we experienced Aaron's driving for the first time. The local shopping mall was just a very short 5 minute car trip (or was that an illusion created by Aaron Schumacher?) and had indeed all we required in the way of cash converting emporiums. By home standards the mall was quite large with a nicely diverse food hall where we succumbed to the temptations of the palate and laid out some "see through" Ozzie money on a variety of goodies to take back to the ranch and fill our faces later.

Time seemed to fly by with stories and jokes and before we knew it Tony was home from work and Eileen followed shortly afterwards. A few beers were the order of the day then as we all wound down in style after a hard day's labours and ushered in the start of more than a week's holiday for the workers. It's grand to be sitting out at a patio table in summer clothes in the middle of March - a novel thing in fact for us visitors from "Up Over".

After the dinner we drove over to King's Park to view the city lights. Unfortunately Tony picked up a parking ticket even though none of us noticed any "no parking" restriction in the immediate vicinity. All rules and regulations to do with motoring in Perth are stringently applied, as I came to realise later hearing tales of speed cameras and transgressors having to pay parking fines even though the "no standing" signs were hundreds of yards away! I know this is no consolation to the natives but it'd be no harm for a change if we had at home the relatively low rate of WA road accidents. A fatality rate of 1 per week seems almost like an impossibly optimistic goal for the Irish motorist.

After the lights we went for a stroll around Hilarys Harbour in the Sorrento balmy evening air and had a couple of drinks each in the Breakwater Tavern before heading back to base for a more serious scoop series

Saturday saw us still talking, eating, drinking and talking. We had a visit from little Brendan who's an important little man in the house with a great inclination to hold onto his headwear at all costs. He was pressganged into playing in goal in the pool which he did with great style and forbearance, even if he did concede too many o.g.'s (truth to tell neither he nor the rest of us had any real chance against a quality act like Lynsey in the water). Anyway he's better at computer games.

Another enjoyable back garden day ensued and that evening we went to Burswood, a very impressive looking entertainment centre with attractive gardens and concert halls (Mr. Billy Connolly had 'em rollin' in the aisles there at the time but he was fully booked out) as well as a Casino housed in a most interestingly designed building which should be seen rather than described. A slight hitch arose in that I didn't have any footwear other than runners/trainers and apparently "proper" shoes were required to enter the "throw away money" palace (strange rule that - difficult to see the logic). Anyway we succeeded by judicious positioning of our corpuses in hiding the offending runners as we sort of stiffly floated through the flash entrance without arousing undue suspicion. I'm sure we gave a good imitation of one body with eight legs. Maybe all the Irish dancin' lessons from our collective childhood weren't totally a waste after all!

Once inside the usual variety of diversions met our open faced gazes - slots, poker, blackjack, roulette, spin the wheel, etc. However, the big attraction was probably unique to Australia - the "two up" ring. This consisted of a large ring with a low circular boundary fence (like a waist high circus ring) with two "controllers" inside apparently taking bets from the watching throng. Centre stage in the ring was a punter whose turn it was to throw i.e. two coins on a small "comb like" stick tossed up in the air after the betting closed. A wager was won if the two coins landed same side up. The basic idea is the same as "pitch and toss" played at street corners years ago at home. Only difference was the use of extended fingers to do the pitching, rather than a stick. Anyway the interest in this particular gamble was huge that evening in the Perth Casino. Lots of the punters seemed to be rugged digger types (come to think of it I forgot to check all their footwear) with wads of cash to play with and wads of willingness to part from it. The crowd was loud but good humoured with a lot of what we call "slaggin'" going on - maybe lots of em knew each other? One guy was getting riled up about having to wait a long time for his turn to do a star toss in the ring. In fact his patience eventually ran out and he began to climb over the barrier into the ring before his "turn". At this stage he was grabbed by the two bouncers (sorry - controllers) and without further ado unceremoniously dumped back outside the ring, to the resounding cheers of the smiling spectators. All this happened without his having touched the sacred inner circle "sawdust" with any part of his distinctly dodgy looking footwear. Funnily enough I got the best kick out of the fact of his having made it past the real bouncers at the door in the first instance. As they say success breeds confidence.

Overall first impression of Perth - big, spread out, modern but with a "country town" feel, endearing duplicity toward civic mindedness (orderliness at the social level but a little anarchic minded at individual level), very pleasant climate (warm but not at all humid), good food and drink but poor television.