Beaches and getting in the festive spirit!

We have been blessed with the great friends we have made on our travels and amazed by their hospitality and generosity. One of these was our mate Mel who we had met back in Melbourne and had recently moved back to Perth. She invited us to stay with her and her folks at their gorgeous house in the Hillarys for 2 weeks. One of the great things about the houses here is the use of outdoor space and it would be great to be able to have space like this for entertaining back home (if the weather was better!)

To top it all off when she came to pick us up she revealed a great surprise of lending us her old car for our time in Perth as she had just got a new one. Anyone who has been to Perth will tell you that you really do need a car to get around so this was perfect timing and made a huge difference to our time here. Thanks Mel We headed to celebrate our reunion at the Hillary's Boat Harbour for some pizza and a good catch up. Little Caesars even do desert pizzas but we decided to stick to the savoury!

We were still hoping to find some work in Perth and signed up with some temp agencies to see if we could get anything. One thing to remember though when looking for jobs online is that there is more than one Perth in the world! I made the mistake of applying for a job in Scotland! whoops! Most mornings we would wait incase we got a last minute call for work that day but if we didn't then we headed to the beach and there are lots to choose from! The one closest to Mels house would soon become our regular and was always nearly deserted. If the weather was this good back at home you wouldn't be able to see the sand for all the people on the beach but I guess when there are so many beaches and the weather is consistently good noone feels the need to rush out unlike back at home.

We had heard that Cottesloe was a good beach so headed there one day, we over shot it a bit and ended up in North Cottesloe beach instead. It was perfect for us and seemed to go on for miles, with hardly anyone on it!

After getting our tan on and spotting a huge bob tail lizzard, which had a head the size of my fist, we went to find the famous Cottesloe beach.

This was a lot busier with school kids having their sport lesson in the water and groups of guys and girls showing off to each other. Definately the place to people watch and be seen. As we sat down to have a picnic under the shade of a tree we heard a commotion coming from the beach and could hardly contain our laughter as we watched 2 girls who had just bought chips being chased by a gang of opportunist seagulls down the beach!

It was hard to believe that it was the first week of December and that Christmas was just around the corner. We couldn't have felt further away from the festive season and home but this was all about to change when we were invited to help decorate Mels family Christmas tree.

And Dan was even given the honour of putting the star on the top

To continue on the festive feel we joined the crowds to check out the Christmas Pageant in the city.

We managed to nab a good spot to see the colourful parade of lights and floats go by accompanied by dance troops and marching bands.

It was also during our stay in the Hillarys that we got back in touch with our friend Marilyn who we had met in Bali. It's such a small world as it turned out that she lived just the other side of the park from where we were staying. After being introduced to her dog Roger we headed to the Marmion Angling and Aquatic Club where Marilyn was a member and had a lovely lunch and a good catch up over some wine.

It was a perfect afternoon with gorgeous views over the ocean, we even spotted this bird fishing for his lunch.

Check out this awesome house, complete with a holographic Santa delivering presents in the top window.

As we admired the decorations a taxi pulled outside as two kids ran out to greet their father who was returning home. It had such an Xmas movie feel

Our first few weeks in Perth flew by with great company, food, wine and sunsets.

A massive thanks to Mel, Anne and Kim for welcoming us into their home and introducing us to eggnog night and National Lampoons Christmas vacation

We ll be sure to return the favour if you come over to the UK.

Sxxx