Huh? I hear you say. Well, it's like this. Through customs - no problem. Say "Hello" to the cute little doggy who wants to sniff your bags and picks on my rucksack. open the bag, explain about the banana that was in there but has now been eaten. All well and good, off you go. Put the bags through the all new, extra powerful x-ray machine and Pow! Screech to a halt and those ominous words. I am, it would appear, a smuggler of contraband, a man of criminal intent, I am evil, despicable, unkind to small animals, children and old people who may or may not smell. A perfect Australian with one small character flaw. I juggle. Yep, it would appear that my juggling balls are not innocent tools of relaxation and entertainment but in fact, public enemy no 3 and an entry visa would not be issued. Sorry, go straight to jail, do not pass through the green channel and definately do not collect anything other than some hard time on the chain gang.
The problem, it turns out, is that real juggling balls are filled with seed, unidentified seeds in this case, and the Australians are paranoid about seeds. Don't know why, practically everything in the country is either poisonous or hostile (and that's just the people boom! boom! Very old joke) but my juggling balls were to be denied entry. Off to see a serious customs man we went (luckily Inga decided to stay and share my hard time). He frowned and tutted and fingered both his handcuffs and his weapon - I've got to say he fingered his weapon in Inga's direction and she smiled at him quite a bit. Maybe letting her do the hard time wouldn't be such a good idea - and then he gave us the options: Option 1. Destruction. Option 2. Deportation. Option 3. Incarceration. Option 4. He'd let them go if Inga agreed to do some 'hard' time. Not sure what Option 4 was all about but I knew it wasn't the right one to take if I wanted to live another 30 seconds. So, with a heavy heart I sent my poor innocent juggling balls off to jail for 3 weeks. They would be paroled the day we left but the chances of them seeing the sights and getting a sun tan were now zero :-( I would put a photo of them in handcuffs and chains but the customs men are camera shy - something to do with their religion and the fact that their souls have been stolen already). As the guilty party we also had to pay costs, maybe option 4 wasn't so bad after all? Just to make everyone else worry (they had gone through 20 minutes ago) we exited through the red door - reserved for all evil wrong doers and true Aussies. We had escaped and arrived in a land built by criminals and populated by land thieves. And they had the nerve to tell me off.
So, we said hello - Hello! to Dani and Jason, got tutted at by my mother (sometimes I think it's become her mission in life, to tut at me. Must be why I keep doing things wrong; who am I to deny her her goal in life?) and headed off to into the sunset. Damn, it's lunchtime. Better head off to the house instead and then the pub.
We had a little house this time round, as you can see. Sleeps 8. With several living areas and a pool out back, we were roughing it. How would we cope? Unsure of how to answer that and, with formalities over and done with, we headed up the coast to have lunch and a beer or two. Very nice it was too and Dani staggered back to her car afterwards (not sure why as she didn't drink that much - not by Aussie standards anyway) 
and we went back home to do what all travellers do after 5 hours in a airborne cattle truck (I've already used the sheep analogy) - sleep. ZZZZzzzzzzz It's at this point I should say that Inga not only has the world's coldest feet but has a tendancy to snuffle in her sleep. Not that she'll admit it but then she's alseep so how would she know? Kinda cute, really.After a short rest we headed down to Hillarys Harbour which is a nice collection of shops and food places around a huge marina to meet up with Bro' and future Sis (getting closer by the hour!)
. This is Me, Bro' and Inga - yeah I might have gotten the brains but he definately got the looks - and the double chins hee hee - sat around catching up. Well, we hadn't seen him for two years and he wanted to know everything. Actually, he mainly wanted to know what a good looking chick saw in his loser brother but Inga put him off by saying she'd heard rumours I had a good point somewhere. I'm not sure where this rumour came from but when I find out I'll squash it for sure. Plans for the next few days were laid and discussed, well, in the main, things we'd all like to do were kicked around and then we wandered back through the houses - with Inga being just as rude about construction as she is in England - and an early night. Tune in tomorrow for our first exciting day out in Perth. Probaby. The excitement that is. In Perth is pretty much guaranteed.
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