Dunsborough and the Swan Wreck

Yesterday was a Good Day.  I woke up not too early, grabbed a bike from the hostel, and cycled the 2km to the dive shop, Cave Dive.  I kitted up, and jumped in the pick up for a lift to the dive boat.  5mm full wetsuits!  Jeez, the first time ever, and I ended up with a massive 10.5kg of weights!

The swan wreck was an old 113m frigate, scuttled in 1997 as an artificial reef.  There wasn't much sealife to be found, but I saw a couple of shoals of pufferfish, which I hadn't seen grouped up before.  After the first orientation dive, we entered again after a light lunch (this is no Thailand dive experience - no curry or stir fry, just an instant soup with roll).  The second dive we managed a couple of swimthroughs, and got into the bridge where the captain sat in previous days.  The dives were relatively short as they were 28m, but shortened by two safety stops on the way up....

A great day with a bit of a different dive experience.  I cycled back to the Beach House YHA, then walked a few metres to chill out on the beach with a wee sunbathe and swim (no stinger suits required here - yeehaaa!).  I even managed a very brief run along the beach.

I decided to spend the evening necking a local bottle of wine, talking through the joys of leaving IT behind with a belgian guy, who firmed up my thoughts on using couchsurfing.com while in Japan!

Dunsborough, WA

Only got 10 mins freebie time online, so just a quickie.
Arrived at my Perth hostel at 2am this morning, then got up to meet Gill I know from back home for a coffee when I woke up. Left some luggage at theirs then got the bus to Dunsborough this afternoon. Tomorrow I dive at the HMS Swan wreck, on Friday I go on a wine tour around Margaret River, then on Saturday morning I head north to Mandurah, 1 hour south of Perth to catch up with an indoor climbing mate from Edinburgh. He's going to try and take me out on the water and watch and laugh at me trying to ride his kitesurfing kit for the first time.
I'll spend Saturday night catching up with him, and then head back up to Perth on Sunday morning - maybe for a photo trip around Perth.
Phew - it's non stop in Australia! Too much I'm having to miss out on, but as I thought yesterday....jumping around Aus to Perth is the equivalent of me heading to Moscow for a few days from home! Bizarre - you'd probably not do it in SE Asia so readily, but the mentality changes as you are still in the same country!