As usual when reaching a city on my Poste Restante list, my first task on 17th April was to head to the main post office in Perth, to see if there was any mail. This time 12 envelopes were waiting for me, of which 8 were letters from friends and family – I trotted happily off to read these in a nearby burger place. Next task was to go to the office of the Indonesian Airline, Garuda, since I’ve decided to bring my departure for Bali forward by a day, from 21st to 20th April.

I went to a recommended dive shop that organises diving at the nearby Rottnest Island. I was able to book for the next day, and then searched for and eventually found, a processing lab to drop off my latest rolls of film. It was a warm sunny day – apparently Perth is like this most of the time.

I did some thinking, and decided that since I am heading for the tropics once more, and will be close to sea level, I could reduce my luggage by dispensing with some cold weather clothes. I picked up my Peruvian alpaca pullover from the hostel and headed to the post office once more.

On the way I went into a shop called Creative Native and bought what appeared to be a genuine boomerang made by genuine aboriginal people. It was rather expensive but it’s nice to have a “real” one. It has decorations on it, which reminded me that my infants’ school teacher told us to paint decorations on our cardboard ones, when I was 5 years old.

Back at the Post Office, after picking up my films, I asked at the Poste Restante desk if there were any more letters, and to my amazement they handed 2 more that had arrived the same morning. Then I sent a large parcel with the developed film, winter clothes and the boomerang, back to the UK. So in fact, when I reach home later this year, and collect the parcel, I will be able to say that my boomerang came back… (Sorry!).

I had seen some disposable cameras for sale, supposedly for underwater use, and with 2 minutes to spare before the shops shut, I managed to buy one for next day’s scuba trip. I then found an underground kiosk serving Thai food, and enthusiastically tucked into a plate of Pad Thai in anticipation of my trip through SE Asia.

Next day, 18th April, I headed for the harbour to board the boat for Freemantle (on the coast) and Rottnest Island. As I headed down the river I remembered from secondary school, that my geography teacher Mr Cookson (who had spent a year in Perth) described the daily cooling sea-breeze as the “Freemantle Doctor” because of the instant afternoon relief it provides people in Perth.

Having arrived on the “correct” boat from Perth, the dive people were there at the jetty on Rottnest Island to point me towards a dive boat called Rosanne, which soon got under way. There were only 6 of us diving, plus a dive master to guide us. This was my first time diving without an instructor and, due to the cooler water, also my first time diving in a full-length wetsuit (which meant having to wear more lead weights than I needed on the Barrier Reef).

David, the dive master, told me to “buddy” with a nurse called Karen, but once in the water she was even more nervous than I was, so after a while he guided her personally, and I joined another “buddy pair” – 2 girls from France and Switzerland.

The visibility was great – 15 metres (50 feet) – and there were plenty of things to point my disposable camera at, but I had trouble getting it to wind the film on. We were taken along a drop-off with a couple of little caves that we swam through… After lunch Karen decided to miss the second dive, and David the dive master buddied with me, showing me a wreck called the Denton Holme – there wasn’t very much left of the ship. Nearby was another wreck called Macedon with even less visible.

Having made the camera work, at one point I signaled to David to point the camera back at me, which he duly did…

Back on Rottnest Island, I went for a quick drink with Karen and the Swiss girl, and then headed for “Tentland” – simple backpacker accommodation which I’d taken the precaution of ringing earlier in the day to make sure I could stay there. It is a very relaxed place, with a pool, and (perhaps due to the isolation) a very relaxed attitude to the consumption of “medicinal substances”, the pungent smoke from which wafted around the campsite until the early hours of the morning..!