Gidday to Tom and Jan

What’s the weather like today in Perth, we wondered, as we looked out of our 22 floor hotel room in the morning.  Doesn’t look too bad at all.

After an enjoyable breakfast in the busy hotel restaurant it was soon time to head downstairs to the lobby.  Tom from Waiouru blog fame was coming to collect us and take us back to his home for a BBQ lunch.  We had first “met” Tom and Jan some years ago in blogland, when we followed their adventures as they traveled along the canals of England aboard their narrowboat Waiouru.  Jan was waiting to meet us at the door, and we were ushered inside to have a cuppa.  What’s this?  Cups of tea served in their very special Llangollan Canal mugs, we felt very honoured indeed!

You know what it’s like when you finally get to meet people who write blogs, sharing their adventures and travels over the years.  Even though it’s the first get-together, it is just like meeting up with an old friend after a period apart.  There was plenty to talk about, even the obligatory narrowboat topic, toilets!  But as I commented to Tom, caravan owners don’t really discuss toilets as narrow boaters do.  Probably because the caravans have little itty bitty toilet cassettes which are easy to empty, unlike the long drawn out pump-outs which boaters experience.

The BBQ was soon fired up and Tom took over the cooking.

We enjoyed a very pleasant lunch outside under the awning, and still had plenty to talk about.  Little two year old Molly wandered around, keeping an eye on these Kiwi visitors.

Hello, Molly

We spotted  Tom’s pride and joy,  his newly built camper trailer, constructed for outback off road adventures.   Just back from one trip, he is now planning his next one.   And why not, there’s a whole lot of country to explore over here in Australia.

Before we knew it, it was six o'clock and we were still putting the world to rights.  Time for us to get returned back to the big city, so we said our goodbyes.  Many thanks for a lovely day, a great lunch, and we so enjoyed meeting up with you both.

Tom and Jan

There was one more job to do when we were dropped off at the hotel – laundry!  Tomorrow we are starting out Indian Pacific adventure and I didn’t want to take a bag of washing with me.  Surprisingly, our hotel does not have a guest laundry, but we found  laundromat just a couple of blocks away.  The washing machines were all named, five in a row had the names of the Jackson Five.  Our laundry was washed in “Michael”, and he seemed to do a good job.

After just a short walk we were back at the hotel.  With the laundry all done, it was time to sort out our bags for the train trip tomorrow.  As we can only take hand luggage each into our cabin, with the larger cases going in the luggage car,  we have to make sure we pack everything we need for the journey into the small bags.  Really looking forward to this next part of our Aussie adventure.