A few weeks ago, Carolyn and I flew off to Perth, Western Australia for the Australian Ultimate Championships.  We were playing with our respective ultimate frisbee clubs, Honey and Chilly.  The weather was pretty much perfect for the duration of the tournament and the fields were pristine.  And I don’t mean pristine by Australia standards (ultimate fields are usually crummy), I mean some of the best fields I’ve ever played on.  The only fields that may rival them are those I played on in the Colorado Cup last summer.  Kudos to Perth for keeping those fields and especially for letting us use them!

My club rented condos in a complex right on the beach in the Scarborough suburb of Perth.  With a complete kitchen, in-suite laundry, and a grocery store just downstairs, it was pretty convenient.  And at only $50 per night, I couldn’t image a better accommodation.

As for the actual tournament, it was great.  Over the past three seasons playing with Blackfish, I was limited to the defensive line and when playing a zone, further limited to the ‘deepest’ position.  Needless to say, I was getting pretty bored.  This season however, it was really refreshing to be given the opportunity to step up as a handler with the Chilly club’s B-team, Sweet Chilly.  Overall, I felt that I performed well throughout the tournament, getting some layout D’s and keeping my turnovers on offense to under two per game.  Unfortunately, our team didn’t play up to its full potential which cost us a couple of key games and put us out of our goal of finishing in the single digits.  After day one, I had been really frustrated with our performance, but realized that I personally needed to make more of an effort to stay positive during the game.  From day two onward I think I improved quite a bit.  It’s definitely something that I will continue to work on.

The Saturday night party took place at an old prison and reminded me a lot of the 2006 Canadian Ultimate Championships party at Citadel Hill in Halifax.  It was a pretty good party but unfortunately shut down just shy of 12am, before it could reach its full potential. The next day we watched the Chilly club’s A-team kick some Sydney ass, beating Fyshwick and taking the title.

On Monday, Carolyn and I hoped on board a small tour bus for a 3-day tour south of Perth.  We ended up with an excellent group of Irish, Scot, and German travelers.  The first stop on the tour was the Busselton Jetty, which was only cool because it was built 2km long and trains would actually go out on it to load up back in the day.  Then we went on to the Ngilgi Caves which were quite impressive.  Especially the workmanship that went into building all the stairs and pathways.  We stopped for lunch at a microbrewery which had some really tasty beers, then moved on to the Moss Brothers winery.

The next day we set out bright and early (7am) and made our first stop at the Bicentennial Tree, a climable 75-metre tall tree.  Yes, climable.  My climb to the first platform ranks up there with the top 10 adrenaline rushes for me so far.  With thin re-bar stuck into the tree as steps and death below if you slip, there’s no way in hell this would be allowed in North America.  The views from the top platform were amazing and definitely worth the effort.

Next, we made a stop at the Tingle Forest for a tree top walk along a very unique set of bridges suspended between steel pillars.  Our guide mentioned that an American engineer had won the bridge design contest because his system doesn’t adversely affect any of the nearby trees.  Neat.  We finished the day by watching the sunset at Torndirrup National Park and then heading to our hostel in Albany.  With the help of our Irish friends, we managed to keep the local pub open an extra hour before coming back to the hostel to play drinking games quietly in the courtyard.

The next morning I felt like a sac of shit.  It was a beautiful morning though and I sobered up by the end of our 45 minute hike up to Castle Rock in the Porongurup Ranges.  After a stop at another winery for some lunch, we were on our way back to Perth.

Thursday morning Carolyn and I hoped on another tour bus for a quick day tour up to Nambung National Park.  But this was no ordinary bus, it was a 4WD.  Despite being a short one-day tour, it had excellent value.  We stopped at Caversham Wildlife park and got to pet some Koalas and feed some ‘roos.  We were served lunch.  Then we went on to visit the Pinnacles desert, then on again to the sand dunes around Lancelin.  That’s when the tire pressure was lowered and the 4WD kicked in.  There were some pretty loud screams when we went over the edge of the first dune.  Fun stuff.  Then we stopped for some sand boarding, which turned out to be pretty fun.  That is until I hit the jagged bedrock at the bottom of the dune and scraped up my arms and ripped my shorts.  Not much pain, but I was pretty sour for the rest of the day.

Not having any plans for the last couple of days of the trip, we decided to book the ferry to Rottnest Island.  We managed to get accommodation when we arrived, rented bikes, and peddled our way to the hostel.  The old Army Barracks turned out to be a pretty cool place to stay.  The island was beautiful and cycling around was a nice chance to relax.  We were pretty surprised by the number of little critters (called Quokkas) that were running around during the day, and astounded to see even more at night.  That night we drank with our roommates, a couple of British guys.  The next day, we cycled around a bit more, checked out the World War II battery, and then headed back to Freemantle on the ferry.  For our last night in Perth, we had a nice diner at an Italian restaurant with our own unlabeled bottle of wine from a winery we visited earlier in the week. The waitress didn’t seem impressed, but we didn’t care.

I’m really looking forward to our next Australian adventure around October. I only wish it could be sooner.