Onwards to Perth

Final day in HK and there was still a lot to see.
Gave the buffet a miss in favour of a visit to a local, cafe, German as it happens, like an up market Greggs with seats, very nice it was too.
Energy stuff on board, we set off for The Space Centre. As you might suspect, all about space and the contribution the Chinese had made to mans visits to the outer reaches. Didn't take long to go around there!!
Only one highlight, if you can call it that, Peter got told off by a warden for sliding down the highly polished chrome balustrades, about 70 foot of it. He damn nearly floored her as he dismounted, at speed, at the bottom. Einsien's Laws of Relativity were lost on the warden, Peter offered to explain it in Newton's Laws of Motion and Gravity are they are much simplier to understand, she didn't look that impressed, so we beat a hasty retreat as I could see he was itching for another go, if only she'd turn her back. Little bugger, and he is.
Off now to Kowloon Park, there is some sort of Kung Fu demonstration or other at 2.30. Fabulous park, water features, fountains, ponds full of birds, ducks, terrapins and an avery full of pigeons!!!, (they don't get it these Chinese), a crowd of women singing and clapping, accompanied by a guitarist, no idea what that was all about, they looked pretty happy though. All lesbo's I guess.
Was feeling pretty relaxed, hadn't had to beat any of the kids or wife that morning, we'd had a cheapo breakfast so I thought I'd treat the family to an ice cream. When I suggested it they kept looking at me as if I'd gone soft. When I only bought one they new normal service had been resumed. Come on, it was a large one. There was a bit of an argument about which flavour we should have, but I said, "its my money and were 'avin' strawberry". End of.
We weren't having much luck in finding the Kung Fu demo, until in the distance we heard the sound of some drums, so we hot footed it in the general direction and found what we had been looking for. I have to say it was not what we were expecting. The first demonstration was done by Norman Wisdom!. I kid you not, this guy was no more that 4 ft tall and a t least 90. whilst it was all pretty impressive that he could do all that stuff at that age, it wasn't what we had come to see. I did fear for him at the end when he did the full splits, I thought my God he ain't gonna get up from there. We just had to be patient, he did manage it.
The rest of it was just a variation on Norman's theme, by very ordinary looking folk. There was young guy about 20, who did look the real deal, but there was not a sign of any form of combat, plenty of drum bashing and communal clapping, David Carradine must be turning in his grave.
Hunger was setting in so we decided to go get something to eat at a place called Bulldogs. We had passed it loads of times and it always looked pretty busy and they advertised that The Premier League was on there.
Well, it was as good as we thought it would be. Loads of stuff going on for Halloween, live music, plenty of people in there. There were some really cool Halloween gimmicks in there, the kids really like the spiders that were on the ceiling, when you clapped, or shouted, they fell to the floor and then, after a few seconds, they wound themselves back up on the elastic tether. Good job they were not real spiders, the amount of times my two clapped and shouted, they wouldn't of had any legs left, the amount of times they hit the floor.
The band came on, usual stuff, two lead singers, one male one female, singing all me favourites in a heavy Chinese accent. For God's sakes. Little Niamh and PJ positioned themselves, seated, about 2 ft from what was the stage, which was only about a foot above the regular floor and just stared up at them. I felt uncomfortable just watching them. Well bugger me, after a couple of numbers didn't the two of them get invited up and had pictures with the band. The band then left the room, the next thing I know, Little Niamh has got the 'mike' and doing all her 'moves' and Peter is heading for the drum kit. managed to get there just in time and avoid getting chucked out. Didn't stop Niamhee staying up there and just doing her moves though, to the delight of the rest of the folk in there.
As part of the Halloween festivities they had a face painter at the bar, both the kids had them done, then they pestered the living daylights for me to have it done, I gave in in the end. Pictures will be posted at a later date. Including the ones of Peter with, I suspect a couple of Lady Boys and Niamh shaking her booty.
Time to go, we are getting collected from the hotel at around 9pm. The cab driver who took us back must of had eight mobile phones stuck on his dashboard, another three or four in a well adjacent to the gear stick and another two on his lap. They all rang at least once during the 5/10 minute ride and he must have had a conversation with at least three of them all at the same time.
All pretty sad at  leaving HK, we had a great time. Very leisurely drive to the airport, nothing on the roads really, back passed the port which was all lit up, the huge bridges, all lit up too.
Arrived at airport, again hardly anyone about, huge place, straight to the check-in, the cheap seats awaited, weren't looking forward to that after the incoming flights in premium economy. Just across the way from us I spotted a rugby team, they were all dressed in Australian colours sports clobber, I didn't recognise any of them, but it turned out to be the 'Wallabies' in the flesh. Boy, there were some big lads amongst them. Niamhee tried to talk me into going and asking for autographs, but there was no way.
Flight was long and boring, didn't sleep, the rest of our gang snatched a few hours, but not much, its hard sleeping in a shoe box.
Then came the announcement, "we have commenced our descent into Perth and shall be landing on time at 7.14am local time" this is it!!
Perth airport is no way the most salubrious airport I have ever been to, its on a par with Faro, if you have ever been there. Went through passport control like a dose of salts, the customs guy on the desk was the friendliest customs guy I have ever met. You know, they are mostly aloof and no chat, this guy was brill, even got into where he lived, his family, he even had a dog called Niamh would you believe.
Into the baggage reclaim, where we did have to wait a bit, mainly because we sailed through customs.
Bags on trolleys, passed couple of guys checking we didn't have any restricted items in our luggage, then out into the Perth sunshine for the first time. Pretty emotional stuff really, got a guy to take our photo for posterity and took a photo of the sign above the airport, daft I know but, heh.
Into a cab and we are off. First impressions, very much like Florida, flat, all intersections at 90 degrees, hot. Spotted Belmont park (horse racing), The WACA (cricket), The City of Perth landscape is very small, I reckon there are only about 3 buildings that you could call 'skyscrapers' all offices for the Banking fraternity, theres a suprise.
We arrived at the apartment in Scarborough Beach, which wasn't ready, to be fair it was still only about 9am, so we went and had a coffee at a local cafe.
Back to the billet, our apartment is on the second floor, looking straight out to The Indian Ocean, kids were chomping at the bit to get in the sea. Off we went, clear blue skies, crashing waves,  v v hot, about 30, the beach itself was only about 100 yards from our front door, superb. They must have been in the sea for at least two hours, we watched from the beach, just kept thinking, this is it. Even though they had been in the sea so long we still had to force them out. Then, when we got back to the apartment they wanted to go in the pool, another hour later, they came out.
Its late afternoon/early evening now so we head of for what I suppose is Scarborough village centre. Not much there, ice cream shop, a bar, chippy x2, couple of restaurants. we decided on the Italian, food was good, Peter was absolutely knackered, not hungry and fell asleep with his head on the table.
All in bed by 9.30pm.
Tuesday 2nd November is Melbourne Cup day (horse racing) in Australia, similiar to Derby Day at home, but its alledged that the whole of Oz knocks off at 2 for the race and do not go back to work, most of the shops and supermarkets shut, so not much to do other than go to the beach.
Sitting on the balcony, 8.30am, watching the surfers go through their paces, walkers, joggers, cyclists, even a women jogging and pushing the pram, how keen is that? The path that runs outside our gaff, apparently goes all the way to Hillary's harbour, 9km, in one direction and Fremantle, 20km, in the other. When me bike arrives I'm gonna do 'em both.
Invested in a body board for the kids, we already have one but its on route. They spent all day on the beach and in the sea. Me and Our Wend went to a small cafe, cabin as they call it, close to the beach where me met and had our first encounter with the owner, Ozzie Sue, as we have nick named her, I'll tell you more about her and her 11 year old son Nick later! Its nice little place though, they just do coffee, ice creams and snacks. All sorts of folk turn up there, I'll tell you about them later aswell!
The Skerritts