Final days in Australia.

The last few weeks have gone by in a flash. Finishing up at work and trying to do the final touristy things in Perth have used up some energy, as well as the numerous leaving drinks and especially the packing. Somehow we've accumulated once again all too much stuff, and even though we threw away kilos of stuff whilst packing, it's not enough. Posting things is extremely expensive and/or slow, so we decided to gamble and show up at airport with some extra weight. My boyfriend left already last night to Hong Kong, and I hear he had to threw away 5kg and hide another 5kg in his pockets to avoid paying 360USD for the extra weight. Honestly, since when has the long distance hand luggage limit been 8kg? I'm already dreading my airport experiences, given that I took most of our books and heavy items to carry as I don't have quite as much crap to carry with me.

Australia still keeps surprising me. The other night we walked by the Swan River and found some nice parks, and a few days later we went to barbecue some burgers in a riverside park in Peppermint Grove (free gas BBQs and clean toilets in most of the of parks in WA). We also went and took photos of the biggest roses I've ever seen in a public rose garden. In any other country, these facilities and gardens do not exist. Or if they do, they are not free to use. Brilliant!

Other surprises have included the ease of calling up gas and electricity for final bills, the change of address to an overseas address with tax office, cancelling my library membership - it's just been a matter of calling up and saying that I'm going. Email addresses and online accounts are valid ways for getting the information on final bills. This is hugely unlike leaving England, where you had to have a forwarding address in England. Also our English gas company tried to sell us more gas in our next address although we'd told them three times that you were leaving the country. And when we visited your bank to cancel our home insurance, they cancelled the direct debit for it instead and sent us a letter about how you're behind in your payments... I could keep going with the rant, but the point is in Australia everything has gone surprisingly smoothly this far.

And the final surprise Australia had in store for me: weather change from a blue sky and sunshine into black clouds and heavy rain... whilst I was cycling. When I got to work this morning I was soaking wet. Not a good way to start a day! Also the weather forecast is showing 33C for the day that I'm leaving, so I guess it's the time to celebrate me going with some proper summer temperatures!