Summertime Bliss in WA

First, Merry (Happy as they say down under) Christmas and Happy New Year!

Bec and I sporting our must-have festive hats on Christmas morning

I am now home after almost 2 weeks of exploring the west coast of Australia. I cannot wait to see what this year holds for me and for new and exciting adventures. I am so blessed to have such amazing friends and family back home supporting me as well as a great group of friends here as well.

Now to be able to paint the most perfect picture of this first-time-away-from-home-at-Christmastime-experience, I will break up my stories into parts based on the different little adventures we had throughout the Holiday, so stay tuned!

Western Australia (WA), in comparison to all the pictures I have been sharing of Melbourne, is HOT, dry, sticky and very much just a large desert. (Literally, I did not feel clean the entire 2 weeks - mostly sweaty, sandy and a bit smelly, I was just happy to call Melbourne home for that very reason).

Because of the rough terrain, you will be hard to find anything but a 4x4 camper van here in WA

The draw to even venture out to WA you ask? The beaches are AMAZING. Turquoise blue waters that are so clear you can see the coral reefs from the shore that you can then snorkel out to in order to see fish and fauna of every color of the rainbow.

Off the coast of Rottnest Island (more details on this later)

The Departure:

Christmas Eve, Bec and I took the Sky Bus from Southern Cross train station to Melbourne Airport where we boarded a 3 hour flight (I had an entire row to myself!) and headed to the largest city in WA: Perth. We were invited to stay with an old friend of Bec's, Emily and her British roommate, Kim because their third housemate was away in "The States" for her holiday. 

(Side note: almost every single person I have talked to so far has only been to what I now like to call "the standards" of places to visit when they travel in the states. I bet everyone can guess: #1 NYC, #2 LA, #3 Vegas, #4 San Fran - I am still on my campaign of why they should head South next time they head over).

Interestingly enough, Bec (because she was a sweetheart and let me keep that entire row to myself, sitting on a full row across the aisle from me), started talking with the gentleman next to her who happened to have visited Marietta, GA back in 1984 and it was, in his words, "the couuuntry, with confederate flags a blowin." I assured him, if he had the chance to return to Marietta, this is not at all what he would find.

The rest of the flight was pretty uneventful, but because of the 3 hour time difference from the east coast, we were tired, yet starving when we arrived. Heading down the escalators toward passenger pick-up, we were greeted by Emily, complete with a Santa hat  of course, wildly jumping up and down. This welcome pretty much set the tone for the entire rest of the trip.

We had some pizza, put out our stockings and headed straight to bed in hopes that St. Nick would soon be there...

Our Charlie Brown tree