where in the world is kelly?: Way out west

Yeah I know a few of you are a bit confused over where and what the hell I'm up to.

Last year I got a new job and in the interviews there was a lot of 'so can you travel?', 'it could be for long periods' and 'it could be at quite short notice' and of course I was like 'no problems'.

They weren't exaggerating, one Saturday afternoon I got a message telling me to be in Sydney Monday and since starting I've spent 3 months in Sydney and 8 months in Perth.

Being back in Perth after more than ten years has been pretty cool. It's still the same small, slow paced city although the food and bars have definitely improved with some great places to eat like Apple Daily or for some solid pub grub The Grovenor was a two minute walk from my apartment.

At work the Perth office is small so you get to know everyone pretty well and it's fun hanging out, listening to music, writing some code and seeing how long before Sara eats all the Tim Tams or Jasmine says something hilarious that needs to be added to #shitjasminesays

On weekends I caught the train to Mandurah (an hour south of Perth) to hang out with my cuzzies and their kidlets and spent Sundays out in Thornlie playing gaelic footy or ferrying across the river to South Perth to hang out in the park playing volleyball.

The time difference, heat and bright early mornings meant I was wide awake for morning runs. My morning route was along the river with the city on one side and the wide quiet river on the other with only a few other people running or rowing.

Then I'd turn away from the river and run up to Queens Park, a small very green park with lots of well maintained flower-beds, a man-made lake arched by small wooden bridges and totally surrounded by trees and shrubs blocking out the city, a hidden gem right next to the WACA.

I'd run a couple laps, sharing the park with an old hobo on a bench watching the sun rise over the trees, an asian women under a big old oak doing tai chi and a muslim man on his way to work who would stop to watch the ducks, swans and other birds paddling about on the water.

On the weekends I'd do long runs in the other direction ending up in Kings Park, a large park with lots of native vegetation, a fantastic view over the city and a horrifically steep hill to get up there!

While in Perth I had some visitors with Andrea and Robina here for the Aus day long weekend and Mum came over for a weekend too.

Mum and I caught the train to Cottesloe and Fremantle and did one of the Fremantle prison tours, I've done them before but think they're great. The prison has a really interesting history with it's beginnings as a convict prison, then being turned into a federal prison before being closed in the 1990's.

We met Shayne and Kevin (my aunt and uncle) for lunch at Little Creatures, a brewery with some great beer and an excellent lunch menu, before they took us down to Mandurah for a Millariffic night of wine and laughs.

With Andrea and Robina we had a few days so got out of Perth with a road trip down south to Busselton. We spent some time on the beach, walked the jetty and visited the underwater conservatory.

The conservatory is at the end of the jetty, you walk down into it and look out the large windows into the water like a big reverse aquarium! You can see lots of different fish swimming between the jetty pylons which are covered in a rainbow of corals and weeds like a bizarre other-worldly forest.

We did a day driving around Margaret River visiting the caves, wineries and a chocolate factory,
but one day definitely wasn't enough!

We also went to Rottnest Island only for me to be totally shocked to discover that my two friends don't know how to ride a bike! They seemed to think this was an ordinary thing to say and couldn't understand why I was dumbfounded, but after a small discussion revolving around me asking them several times if they were having me on, they gave the bikes a try.