By Erik Skye

December 19, 2010:

I met a wonderful couple on the flight from Sydney and learned that “Six White Boomers” (see Day 7 photos) is from an Australian Christmas song.

Marion was my taxi cab driver in Perth, and we had a nice chat. She mentioned Australia was playing England in “The Ashes”, as we passed the cricket grounds. ‘What are the ashes?’ I asked - ‘Are they from a dead king or something?’ She laughed, ‘no, it’s ashes from a wicket stump or something.’ But she really didn’t know either. Later in the day, as I was changing radio stations in my rental car, I heard an announcer exclaim “Australia has just won the third test by 267 runs, staying in The Ashes, which is just fantastic!” Oh boy…

Marion said she came from Holland following WWII with all of her family (grandparents, parents, uncles, cousins, etc…) when she was age 5. She said Perth didn’t even have an airport then, and they had to take the long train ride from Sydney. My National Geographic Australia guide book indicates that 2 million immigrants poured into the country from war-torn Europe, with travel paid for by the Australian Government. Just to put that number in perspecitve, note that Australia only had about 7.5 million total population at the end of WWII...

Perth is the most isolated big city in the world, they say. Heath Ledger was from Perth.

Oh, Fremantle (south side of Perth) - This used to be a working port town in the 1800’s and has kept the historical colonial buildings. It seems like a bit overdone theme town to me. But it was very active and people where enjoying themselves.

I couldn’t take any more city life and headed south for a couple of hours. The scenery and development vaguely reminded me of Arizona, and I wasn’t really enjoying myself all that much. That is, not until the sunset…

You know the sound a human baby makes when it’s truly sad (not because it wants something)? A baby crying with hurt feelings? Well, that’s what the crows sound like here. I love it. The locals apparently do not.

The Indian Ocean seems very placid here.