The wild wild west (and east)!

Things have been a little 'wild' recently, and I thought it was about time the blog got updated to include the recent coming and goings.

The reference to the wild wild west is in honour of my recent cross country trip to Perth for the National Conference of Community Legal Centres. Funny how in this "global economic crisis" all the big law firms have put massive restrictions on work travel, but the community legal sector still managed to squeeze a week long conference in Perth out of the budget. Had a great time in Perth, highlights being catching up with our friends Joel and Bec who we met in Nepal on our trek to Everest Base Camp, coming runners up in the Little Creatures Brewery Trivia night with Joel and Bec (GO TEAM! we rule), traipsing around the Swan Valley tasting wine and enjoying the 2 minutes of sunshine that Perth offered us (meanwhile it was sunny and 30 degrees most of the time in Sydney).

After an exciting week in Perth it was back to Sydney and back to work...well...for a little while at least. Brendan and I both handed in our resignation last week, so operation count-down is back on the agenda. In 44 days (i.e. 15 November 2009), Brendan and I will officially re-enter the ranks of global backpackers and will continue on our round the world trip for an indefinite period of time. Where to I hear you ask?? Well, first on the agenda is to finally see Northern Thailand, an area that we have desperately wanted to visit but always seemed to run out of time to make it there. Then it will be onto our friends wedding in Koh Samui before flying to China and eventually heading north into Europe via Russia.

Finally, before I bring this post to an end, I should mention the wild week of weather the east coast of Australia has just had. Apparently it made international news! However, for those of you who didn't hear about it, Sydney was blanketed in a thick crust of red dust last week which saw the sun glow red and the street lamps shine purple. Apparently the cause was incredibly strong winds from drought affected NSW and South Australia that lifted a whole lot of dust off the ground and carried it to Sydney and other areas of eastern NSW. It was quite surreal waking up and having orange reddish light streaming in the window at 7:30am. Bet those car washers were loving it though (especially when everyone rushed out to wash their cars the next day and then another dust storm hit...bah ha ha...).

Anyway, enough for now. Stay tuned for Brendan's upcoming blog post on the big birthday week we are currently having....

//Kate