Perth's Murray Street

Just round the corner of wellington Street and Barrack Street where I stay is a busy street called Murray Street. Like New Zealand's Queen Street lots of people walk along it. There's also entertainment by all kinds of artistes out to make some fast bucks... from magicians to street dancers entertaining everyone, the young and old alike enjoy their time here. Unlike Queen Street, the whole area has no vehicles driving along this lengthy stretch of paved road ... except for police vehicles... ever ready with their special caged vehicles to lock up law-breakers. What is available at this marvelous street is a wide space that has plenty of empty space for everyone to sit around on comfortable benches and hang around! The shops on both sides of the street deserve mention: there're shopping malls, shoes, bags and clothes boutiques, cafeterias, bookshops, money changing offices, watch shops, immigration consultancy centres, restaurants, city info centres and many others. Unfortunately, there are apparently certain undesirable individuals who create problems for others like quarrelling, fighting or stealing and these are times when the professional cops of Perth come in! Here are pics of a street performer doing his balancing act... a cop about to arrest a woman who had had a fight with her mate and a view of my residence with all the noisy construction going on ... More stories to come...

Update: Perth to Sydney by Road

I ought to include this Youtube video that shows longest straight road in Australia on the Nallabor Plain or Desert which is in Western Australia and South Australia. No dispute here as there's an official notice by the roadside stating it's the longest at 90 miles (1000 km)!

Yeah, give me another opportunity and I would love to cross it by road once again!

Australia ...18 Roadkills Update

In going through my notes about my time in Australia, I need to add in more "spice" to my story earlier. Yes, I have not forgotten to say more about the encounters with the profesional cops...
Observations made during the trip ...
The roads from Perth to Sydney were prone to flooding and on two separate occasions I had to drive through flooded roads. The most nerve-wrecking moment for me was when I drove along a road not too far from Broken Hill towards Sydney with my co-driver fast asleep and I saw a warning sign of possible flooding in some parts of it but decided to throw all caution to the wind as it was a balmy hot day with a bright sun up in the heavens and went at maximum 110km/hour cruise speed ... saw some slow movement of a huge truck and four-wheel drive ahead ... hit the brakes and before I knew it ... our vehicle was in sock-high flooded water! The other drivers stared at us as we hit the water with a splash and I realised then that they were possibly concerned about falling over the road into the gully below or a sinkhole perhaps!

Mon Dieu! 18 Road Kills!

Hello, everybody who's visiting my blog! I'm alive! I survived the three-day drive through the amazing dry arid desert known as the beautiful Nullarbor Desert aka the Nullarbor! I started off from Perth Victoria Park in one of the Ford Motor Company's latest car model -- still too tired to recall what the model is, will add in later -- and drove and drove, almost like my fave Canuck singer, celine Dion's song lyrics "I drove all night ...". Yeah, don't try this fellas if you have a fear of the unknown! The owner of the expensive vehicle was a total stranger and it would turn out later that he had so many past over- speeding tickets that he said "I can't remember how many!" That meant I had to do most of the driving while he snoozed! Jeez, day driving was a breeze along the mighty fine roads that were pretty winding in many areas but night driving was hell! Most, if not most of the rural roads did not have street lights! Don't worry though if you're ever attempting this feat, the reflectors on the roads were abundant and helped lots whenever the car lights hit them!

So it was great--who wouldn't enjoy driving a brand new largest Aussie car dealer John Hughes' Ford vehicle from Perth to Sydney? Just push the button on "cruise control" and enjoy the fast ride! Then when we reached the awesome Nullarbor Desert ... OMIGOD! I couldn't sleep staring in awesome wonder at how vast a desert it was! I could see small trees at first and then all I could see were yellowish land without any trees! Then there was this huge clear sign that said we were on Australia's longest straight road!!! Wow! Could I resist speeding over the 110km/hour speed limit? Ah, I won't answer that but all of my Miri buddies know I don't over speed or break the traffic laws ... However, my wealthy manager co-driver assured me that in Australia, there would be areas where overspeeding the speed limits are permitted if there are not posted anywhere!

So what could I have missed if I were sitting in the great Indian Pacific train from Perth to Adelaide? Wow! I would have missed the fresh cold air and the blazingly bright sunlight, the stench of road kills, the sight of over 18 bloody dead young kangaroos on the roads, dirty ugly vultures plucking away at their corpses, having the meals of their lives ... and the killing of a cute young rabbit as our car struck it just as it was about to reach our lft side of the road! Then there was the incredible view of the Pacific Ocean as we reached past Western Australia into South Australia ...

To be continued

Encounter with WA Cops
Encounter with SA Cops!
My change of destination from Adelaide to Sydney
The amazing Sydney City
The Red Lights of Sydney!

More amazing stories about the Nullarbor at Wikipedia here: Nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullarbor_Plainullarbor

At Last, Dear Australia!

Yes, that's right! At long last, I'm in Australia, the land of my many past dreams, of kangaroos, jolly swagmen, billybong, pretty sheilas ... and so many other greats! Yeah, I'm in Perth, enjoying the warm --nay-- scotching sunshine at this time of the year! Here's a list of wonderful folks I would love to meet: my dearest loving foster "parents" Nigel and Pamela Heyward of Tasmania and their two sons, one of whom Philip was my best childhood mate ... and my all-time favorite teacher/principal, Leonie Kathleen Armour, Revd. John Yapp, my late uncle Chong Yuk Min's widow ... and yes, my own dearest eldest sister, Mary Chong who's a law practictioner and lecturer here ... someone whom I would love to spend time with!

Back to Perth .... It was not my first choice as I was thinking of dropping by Australia enroute to New Zealand and outwards to Canada. Of course, spending time with my dear sis is important and besides, the air fare to Perth seemed fairly low compared to others. I imagined Perth would be an easy access point to other cities... Nothing could be further than the truth -- it is expensive to travel elseway from here!
Anyway, being out here is marvelous. What a big city it is! It's clean and well-maintained. The folks here are friendly ... they can give proper, clear and concise directions unlike, if I may admit it, so many Malaysians in the cities and towns of Malaysia!
Some fascinating things I've learnt so far ... seasoned traveler that I am ...
I was strolling along Beaufort Street when something caught my eye --a quite ordinary road sign that made me stop and stare ...huh?! "Toilets" it says! Yup, I have since learnt that the clean Aussies have special single toilets ... a fella goes in a nice rectangular loo that has a whooshing sound door--wah! Auto-door... just press a red button &just imagine yourself in a Star Wars space machine as the door slides open!
Wonderful ... but I had an interesting experience at a Chinese food court in a nearby shopping mall ... We had to queue up to use the toilet! Quite a lot of fellas understandably couldn't stomach it and walked off ...

More from the bright side ... it's 7:25 pm here and I've been sitting and blogging outside the State Library of Western Australia since 5 pm. Nothing like free Aussie wifi! Thanks, mate! Cheerio!

Coming later--Bedding with the Germans, glasses and glasses of free wine from a young English fella with a love problem ... so Camrose guys ... the peer counseling training helped!