Road Trip!

For my 5 days off this week I decided to get reacquainted with my bike and explore some of the countryside. I headed to the Perth Hills to do the route from the Tour de Perth bike race. It was only quite a short ride but very hilly! Especially after not riding for quite a while! The scenery is beautiful and the roads are long and wide with hardly any traffic. Perfect for riding. Near the end of the ride I was bombing down a steep hill at close to 60km/h when I was joined by these guys...

Roos crossing!

The bounced right along side me nearly giving me a heart attack! I managed to pull over and get a few snaps of my new riding buddies!

The next day was more bike related fun. I had spent the day at home waiting for our final delivery of furniture, then had to go hand our keys back for our old flat...basically a boring jobs day! So I was really excited about going to "Ladies Night" at the velodrome. I had a really fun 2 hours whizzing round the track learning some new skills and even getting involved in the team pursuit (my team won of course!). Chris came along to watch, feeling very jealous he couldn't take part!

 

After the velodrome we headed home only to find out that some bogan had broken into our new car Sheila and smashed the front window. Fortunately we didn't leave anything in the car so nothing was stolen, but it meant we had to re-think our weekend plans. Really annoying because I'd been really looking forward to this weekend!

So Saturday we got up early and took Sheila to be fixed. $500 later we were ready to go!

Road trip in Sheila!

Naomi driving really slow..... look at the line of traffic behind!!!

We drove up north about 200km stopping off along to way at the different sites. First stop was Lancelin, a town with population of 650 people! This was where we were meant to go sand boarding but we were short of time so instead had a quick coffee and walk on the beach instead.

A bit further up the road was a place called Cerventes. Another small rural town with not much more than a general store and a pub. Fantastic views of the coast and sand dunes though! We stopped off here to go see the stromatolites. These are layers of microorganisms that are trapped between layers of sediment. Doesn't sound very interesting but these things are the oldest living organisms in the world! They are the most ancient form of life of planet Earth and have been living for 3.5 billion years! There are very few places where you can see these things and WA is one of them. A site of real scientific importance. Though in all honesty, not much to look at!

Stromatolites (that circular thing in the water)

Finally we headed to the Pinnacles......

The Pinnacles are in Nambung National Park around 20km from the thriving metropolis of Cervantes, and consist of thousands of limestone pillars up to 4m high jutting out of the sand. Once you arrive at the end of the access road, and have passed a number of Emu warning signs, you are greeted with the Pinnacles drive.

 

The pinnacles drive is a 5km off-road loop around the desert. Half of me wished we had a 4x4 so we didn't ruin Sheila, but the other was pretty glad we didn't have anything wider... it was a bit tight in places!! .....And Naomi was driving.... eeeeek!

 

Naomi and Sheila!!



 

This photo doesn't really do it justice, but it is MASSIVE!!!!

 

 

My favourite Pinnacles!!

 

We played a game of hide and seek.... Can you see Naomi??

 

 

 

After the drive around, we parked up and followed the Emu claw signs to explore on foot. Naomi came up with the stupidest game of aiming straight for the next sign regardless of what was in our way!!! As you can see there were a few obstacles, some pretty big!

 

 

Line of sight from one Emu sign to the next!

 

 

Crap a Camel rock in the way!!!

 

Oh bloody hell these are big boulders!

 

Luckily we survived our adventure across the desert and we wandered back to get a few photos of the sunset... unfortunately it had turned a bit cloudy, so we will save Indian Ocean sunset photo for another time and make the most of clouds for now, as we wont be seeing too many more of these after this month..... or so we keep being told!



 

 

So that was it for the road trip, back on the long and not so winding road back to Perth! Still had time to see a few Emu and my (Chris) first Bouncing Roo after a couple of asleep and permanently asleep ones! The hunt for the Echidna still goes on though.

 

That's all for now folks!

Team Stack!

 

 

 

 

Internet at last.... and no medic talk I promise!

Our internet is connected at last so time for a new blog post!

The past 3 weeks have been pretty busy with starting a new job and moving house. We actually found a new place pretty quickly. We decided early on that we wanted to live in Subiaco and fortunately the perfect place had just gone on the rental market! We snapped it up!

Subiaco is a suburb about 4km west of Perth CBD and about 8km east of the beaches. It is one of the more trendy locations because it has great bars, restaurants and cafes. We live just off the main café strip, so everything is easily within a 5 min walk. Just a bit further away (10min walk) is the beautiful King's Park.

Our new house is awesome! Its a federation style town house. We have a kitchen and large open plan living dining area with a court yard out the back. Upstairs we have 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. We also have a small balcony which has become my new favourite coffee spot!

It a pretty old style house but full of character! Any by full of character I mean it is really old-fashioned and in need of updating! The kitchen and bathroom have probably never been re-decorated since it was built! But it feels like home to us! After 8 years of generic 2 bed apartments that are all same same but different, this place is fab!

One of the coolest features in the house is its spiral staircase. Although this soon lost its appeal when we had to struggle to get all the furniture and a washing machine up it!

The best part though is it huge in-built bike storage solution. Can you believe 5 bikes fit inside this!!

Other than a whole load of furniture shopping and more than I care to count trips to IKEA, we have not really done too much else. Chris ran in the 'City to Surf' race with some new friends. The City to Surf race is a hugely popular running event in Perth. You can race over distances of 12km, half marathon or marathon. Chris did amazingly well to say he didn't train! He completed the 12km race in under 55mins which put him in the top 3%! not bad when over 30,000 people ran!! Unfortunately I had to work so missed out on the fun!

On my days off I travelled down south with some of the other new doctors at work. We went to Margaret River which is a beautiful wine growing region. We did a tour of some of the wineries and sampled lots of he local goodies....and... well I can't really remember much more than that :-D

I'm not too much of a wine drinker but I did find a bottle that was gorgeous! I decided to buy a bottle and was a little shocked to find out that I had just paid $50 for a bottle of wine! I have definitely inherited my Mum's expensive taste!

On the last day of the trip I was quite keen to get home early as I had a few jobs to finish in the new house and I was desperate to ride my bike!! Prior to setting off home we went to the beach for breakfast. Some of the guys then fancied a swim in the sea. Unfortunately he forgot to take the car keys out of his pocket and so they are now somewhere at the bottom of the Indian Ocean! So we spent the rest of the day waiting for a tow-truck to take us back to Perth! It turned out that we had a nice picnic at the beach instead so not a wasted day at all!

 

 

There are worse places to be stranded!

This weekend Chris and I have both sat and sun off together so we have a great weekend lined up! Tonight (Friday) I am going to the Perth velodrome. Tomorrow we are heading up north to visit the Pinnacles national park and go sand boarding. Then on Sunday, more bike riding!! Perthfect!!

Back to reality - beware medic talk!

So this week was my first week at work. After  15 whole days off (in a row!!) it was time to get back to reality.

I was due to start work as an RMO in the emergency department at 'Charlie's.' An RMO is sort of equivalent to an SHO in the UK, which for all non medicos basically means a junior doctor who slightly less useless than an F1 (newly qualified doc). So I went to my induction, picked up my scrubs and sat through the IT training only to find out that my criminal record check had not come through! Without this I can't practice medicine in Australia! So on my first day I was sent home! Not cool!

So not only was I letting my team down by leaving them a doctor short, I earned a reputation as a secret criminal leading the other doctors to speculate about my previous crimes! Perfect first impression...

Anyways, after another 5 days off I finally got my criminal record through and was allowed to start work. I went in for 1 day, then I was straight into my 5 days off! The shifts here are great. We do 5 shifts on then 5 days off. The days are long at 11 hours (reality more like 12-13) but compared to the UK, this feels great! No more 20 day stretches and no more 24 hour shifts! The other great thing is that there are tonnes of doctors and always a consultant or senior reg on! In my last ED job, I was often the only doctor on through the night. I did have access to a registrar sleeping on site but it was made pretty clear that your weren't to wake them unless something on the scale of a nuclear explosion had occurred!

The job here is much more demanding so I feel I earn my 5 days off! ED in Australia is not just a case of triaging patients then passing them on to the appropriate speciality, we actually diagnose and treat patients ourselves. The A in our ABCDE assessment no longer stands for "call the anaesthetist" but rather "get a scope and secure the airway yourself!" Awesome!! In the UK there are specialists for everything. If you need to plaster a broken bone you call the plaster technicians, if you need an arterial or central line you call the anaesthetists. Here in Australia you are expected to do everything yourself. As a result I can now do a variety of nerve blocks, do all my own plastering and have even drilled an eye. Yes with an actual drill!! I am 100% sure that I was much more nervous than the patient!

The other thing I have noticed about ED in Australia is that there are so many crazies! I think I can recall 3 occasions over the past 2 years where I have had to call security and chemically sedate a patient who had gone crazy (elderly demented patients excluded). Here in ED a "code black" is a daily occurrence, usually several times a day. A code black is called when a crazy comes into the department. Security is called and a doctor is required to do a "chemical take-down." This is where we insert an IV line and give drugs until the patient calms down/falls asleep. Sounds easy but the patient usually has to be held down by about 6 security guards! I think the reason there are so many crazies in Perth is the huge crystal meth problem. This is not a common drug in the UK because it is difficult to make without being noticed (and UK is very crowded compared to Oz). Also, with such a large coast line, drugs are much easier to smuggle into Perth. Seeing these people has been a real eye-opener! The reality of crystal meth to Breaking Bad's Hollywood-isation!

Of course the Aussi doctors say the reason they have so many crazies is the crazy amount of sunshine! But don't worry, we are safe for now as so far we have only seen rain!

So overall I'm loving my new job!

And now onto Chris's new job......something about concrete.....roads.....snake handling....trips to the Pilbara....lots of cups of coffee.....I think I better let him tell you about that! Keep your eyes peeled for his riveting, completely not boring walkthough of his new place of work! (Puns intended....sorry!)