Family in Mandurah and Hello Perth

Off we head to Mandurah. I was feeling a little Nervous because we were on our way to meet some extended family (3rd  cousins, we decided, who I have never met) Im sure you can understand. I had been assured by mum and dad that they were lovely people who would welcome us, so that did ease the nerves a little.  After grabbing some supplies from the best fruit and veg shop ever, spuds, we set off.

We arrived as they were leaving to head out to the shops, but they soon turned around and welcomed us in. Well, there was absolutely no need for nerves, Gail and Brett were friendly, and it felt as though we had known each other for years, and were just catching up. After a few good hours of talking, we met the youngest daughter Maddy, who was so sweet and friendly also. Then came in Kellie oldest daughter, and Brendan middle son, with girlfriend Chantelle and their son Aaron. Was lovely to meet all this family, and the talking did not stop.  After being sorted out with a street directory to help get us around Perth, we were handed some cream to repel mosquitos and a big net to live under when I am outside, who seem to be really attracted to me, (I think I may be allergic, as I break out in an itchy rash for a week after being bitten). We were offered a spare room in the house, and as the weather was so crappy I took up the offer, with Nick staying in the car with the girls. making ourselves at home with showers and washing clothes, the girlies were even allowed inside when Brett went to bed, it was time to call it a night round midnight. Nick went to bed earlier, and had to put up with the rain all night, and it leaked through the roof. Needles to say I had a brilliant night sleep, and someone else woke up a bit "shabby".

Given full access to the tool shed the next day, Nick went about fixing the leaking roof. I had my first bath in over 6 months, it was glorious!! We then went for a drive in the afternoon to explore the coast a bit and take the girlies for a beach walk. We went to Rockingham and towards secret harbor, I think.

 This was a cool little crater

 We got back just in time for dinner and to meet oldest son Aaron, who was down from the mines. I convinced everyone to pose for a photo afterwards.

 Then Maddy, a beauty technician by trade, gave me a full eye beauty "treatment" with an eyebrow wax, and tint and eyelash tint. I felt pretty relaxed and special, getting this done (it has been a while) and the results are stunning. Thanks so much Maddy.

 

 

We were off the next morning , so after convincing Gail that we had enough linen, and towels and Blankets to keep us warm, she let us start packing. With a wave we were off and it was nanna day anyway as Leane and Gail were taking the grandies to the beach, so we set off towards Freemantle.

 

 

We arrived and had a look around. Atfter finding somewhere to park we took the girlies for a wander and found the info centre. While I was in Nick ended up getting "bailed" up by this drunk guy, and it wasn't to pleasant. Remembering the advice from Mark warning not to park around "Freo" too many people out to make trouble, we felt we had seen enough and decided to go towards Perth.

 

 

As it is getting so cold, we have both agreed to make our time around Perth and surrounds a quick one because if we come back we would probably fly and land in Perth, from there we can hire car and explore the area more. So with thanks to Gail and Brett's handy street directory we navigated our way around and found Govinda's( Hare Krishna restaurant) where we could have a cheap feed. Also were able to add it on to our list of places we have eaten Govindas including; Thailand, New Zealand, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and now Perth

 

Great Value

We then pulled up at Coobe St carpark and landed this amazing view and decided that we would stay right here to camp. We did so the next night too! With all the traffic and people we both were a bit 'freaked' out particularly after being bush for the last few months, nothing can really prepare you for such a big city. We both loved Kings park and had a few days exploring around there, mainly to escape all the people, and walk the dogs. Its like  huge botanical / scrubland in the middle of the city.

 

We ate out a fair bit, keen to try some Vegan/ Vego food, and were very impressed at all the options Perth has available. They even have their own Veg restaurant food chain, called Utopia, of Formosa, depending on your destination. We had a lovely meal at PAW'S today, people and animal welfare. Everything in the café and store were vegan, so I had a field day, we even had a piece of baked berry cheesecake and a chocolate/caramel cream  sponge. What a way to say goodbye to Perth, thought we'd splurge as we are about to hit rice and 2 minute noodle country, with not many options. wish i'd taken a picture.

Well were off, set to chase the sun and get some warmth n our bones. Cant wait to see what North of Perth holds for us, here we come Barb and Jim, Kunnanura not long now :)

Crooked brook and Busselton

We planned to spend a few nights at Crooked brook forest, I know, what a cool name.it was an amazing spot, well set up and no-one bothered us. We counted 3 cars go past the whole time we were there. A lovely 10km bushwalk on Wednesday helped us both get a brilliant nights rest.

We spotted some cool wild flowers on the walk...

Hahaha....

 Some amazing plants.... like these pineapple plants

We even had proper markers to follow, which is an improvement on some of the walks we have done

We even came across some wildlife, well actually the girlies did, and Sahara nearly shat herself when it moved and opened its mouth at her. Poor bobtail lizard, lucky Sahara is a wuss, and ran away.

 And there was no injuries !!! Great walk

 Great campsite, plenty of open space for the girlies

 

 

Then we moved to Busselton Jetty. The longest Jetty in the southern Hemisphere, at 1.8km. It even has a mini train you can ride to the end and a underwater observatory at the end. So we paid just to do the Jetty walk, as the tix to get underneath were $30 pp, and we thought that a bit steep, there was just train loads of tourists, at we approximated $1,000 per train load rocking up and there were 2 and hour, they were raking it in.

 We made it to the end

The cute train

 

 

Margaret River

 

What a lovely farmers market they have. We had a good look around and bought a few things, then checked out the local shops and stuff. We had t'd up with Nicks mate Patto and wife Jess to catch up for dinner, and we were both excited to see them again, after nearly 8 years.

We had an explore at the shops, very tourist driven main street, but many interesting shops to look through. We restocked at the Coles, and got informed at the information centre. We even found a little health shop that sold vegan pies and vego food's, so we had lunch sorted. Nicks was nice, but I'm a bit suspect on the pie I ate.

We went for a lovely stroll on the beach and took the dogs for a big walk, the sun came out so we had a little nap on the beach for an hour or so to soak up the sun, we found a nice little spot, tucked away from everybody. This beach was full of surfers, Prevelly Beach. I was inspired to do some surfing lessons, but after a bit of research, discovered they we out of our budget. So we shall keep an eye of for a second hand board, and a wet suit.

We spent a great night catching up with Patto and Jess, and meeting their adorable daughters Lara and Sophie. Jess and I ended up hitting the sack round 10:30 and Nick only came to bed round 1ish, so I believe that he and Patto had a great time catching up, and drinking a few beers. They have an awesome house just a few streets off the main strip, prime location. This was a morning shot taken as Patto was heading out the door for work on Monday morning, thanks Jess my camera was flat.



After another beach walk, it started to rain so we went exploring the many breweries in the area. With so may to choose from we narrowed it down to two. I was designated driver. Cowaramup was great. its very flashy, nothing like our beloved brew boys back in Adelaide.

 We feel like we may have chosen to sit in the kiddy chairs as they were the smallest one's in the place, and no-one else was at the but all the rest was pretty packed (bring on the inner child)

 The stout was fantastic according to Nick.

 

 

 

Next we headed to

 

Where we were drawn to sit by the fire, again when looking around we noticed that there we kids toys on the table, and the chairs were smaller than the rest.....

mmmm tasting paddle

After buying some pickled walnuts at the shop( eww they were gross, but felt the need to give 'em a try) we moved.

We spent another night with Patto and Jess, a lot earlier to bed for us all, being a Sunday night.  We packed up and headed off early the next morning, with a jar of home made apricot jam, its soo yummy, thanks Jess.

Augusta... might see some whales ??

 

 

 

 

 

We made our way to Augusta, which appeared to be a sleepy town , reminding us both of Victor harbor in Adelaide. The lady working in the tourist centre promised us that whales were around, and we could do a boat tour for $80 pp. She also assured us that Augusta is "dead" after 8pm, with the highest rate of residents over 65, she said it was like one big retirement villa. We drove to the whale watching "area" and had no luck, and refused to pay $160 for the both of us to go on a quick boat tour. After checking out the historic water wheel (and being some-what disappointed) we drove to the lighthouse, that the new Aussie movie drift features. It is special as the southern and Indian Oceans meet here.

We were feeling like we had enough driving and the water was calling Nick, so after a bit of scouting we found an amazing spot, tucked in the peppermint grove next to the ocean, on our own private beach. Nick had a fish and came back with some whiting and tommys and I read my book. The sun was setting so we cooked up a feed then went to sleep.

 

We woke to the ocean lapping at the rocks, not 5 meters from where we had camped and then we spotted two dolphins coasting around these rocks. Thinking this was my day to spot a whale we were slow to pack up. Nick again went fishing and when the weather started to turn we thought we should begin to pack up, and start heading towards Margaret River. We planned to have lunch at the Colourpatch cafe, (its claim to fame is that its the last eating house before the Antarctic) That did great hot chips, then we took the route out of Augusta through the Karri forest. We found some interesting sea sponges.....


Was stunning drive, all the trees ended at the same height and it was beautiful driving through this karri tree top canopy. We took a few 4x4 paths looking for a way down to the coast, Nick had to muster all his skills turning around when we were in this tight spot. The sun was sneaking down and we still had no where to camp. We went and checked out "conto's" campground in National park, but as a ranger lived onsite didn't want to risk it with the dogs.

We pushed on and made our way to Redgate beach. We were both surprised at how many surfers were still there as the sun was sinking below the ocean and the sky lit up with amazing colours. We thought it'd be rough camping in the car park with surfers coming and going so we made our way back up the road. We came across this off shoot to the right, and checked it our. It was an amazing lookout and we thought it served our purpose quite well for that Thursday night. We set up and watched the last of the sun sink below the ocean.

The next day we took the dogs for a big walk along the ocean. We took our time and when we came back couldn't be bothered moving on again. We set up our table and chairs and had a picnic lunch in the lovely sun and played some Uno and sequence listening to Portishead from our little speaker system. Nick even rigged up some crazy wiring so we could charge the ipod, speakers and mobile phone of the goal zero solar charger panel that my folks had got us.

 

 View from the lookout where we spent a couple of nights.

 

 

We had a wicked van arrived late afternoon and ask to spend the night here too, for sure we said, its not our spot. We settled in then noticed Sahara pawing and trying to bury something. After Nick pried it away from her we found it was a dried bit of meat, and became worried that it may have been a 1080 bait. Lucky we were in range (or maybe unlucky for Sahara) so we get onto Google, and find that making the dog vomit is the way to go. Nick had already stuck his fingers down her through, to which she tried to bite them off, so not advisable to try that one again. So we tried feeding her salt, again she took it, without showing signs of vomiting. We decided that we would feed her and make her comfortable, so after a awesome doggy dinner of snappy tom (she really likes fish) we set the bed up and had her lir between us and we popped on the Disney classic movie "bolt". The website had said that if she is still around after 2 hours she will survive. So bolt was our timeframe, after worrying about every noise and movement the two hour time was reached, relief, and she is still barking at people and sticking her head in the front when we drive, so we were lucky just more careful now.

Later on that night, I went to bed around 1am, so maybe at 3-4am some douche bag rocked up, with his speakers blaring and revving his engine. He then started honking his horn, once he had woken us this went on for a while. I begged Nick not to go over as I was worried that this person was obviously unstable and maybe looking for a fight. So we went outside and he saw that we were up, after another 30 minutes or so, of him just sitting in his car he took off.

 

We then got woken by fun-police Ranger "Mr follow the rules" at 7am, and asked to leave as we were camping in a National Park, and he didn't want to fine anybody that early on a Saturday morning. After listening to him repeat it to the couple in the wicked van I was sure I wasn't dreaming and woke my self up. To be greeted by the coldest morning....brrr. A slow, groggy pack up ensued, with both of us not having much sleep the night before, we finally got away and headed to the farmers markets in Margaret river, held on Saturday mornings. It was our plan to get up early so the fun-police ranger was like our alarm clock.

 

 

 

 

 

What risk?? Tree climbing... nah

 

So after we saw that, we decided to climb the unattended tree

Notice me maintain 4 points of contact .....

 

 at all times......

This is what nick saw..... "easy bit"

 

This was us waiting at the bottom, from the half way mark ,just before Nick assaulted the final ascent

 

Did I mention that he zoomed in on that shot

The view from the top was stunning ..... I've been told

 

and well worth the climb, but I am proud that I got as far as I did, obviously not as courageous as I was 20 years ago.

 

We stopped at a little road side stall and grabbed some supplies

 

 we both wondered what category this came under.......

With some Google magic we found out its called a Buddha's hand, its a type of citrus, and smells amazing, not really edible though.

 

We drove through some stunning national park, full of changing landscapes, and it followed this river, that was full of marron (or so the signs said) looking for a place to spend the night, and had to cross the river...

 

 

We also came across a few wet patches on the road

 

We couldn't find a decent spot, that wasn't in a campground full of people running generators, so we backed onto the highway and took a off road that took us down near the river that was winding its way through the country that we had just driven through, and pulled up just in time to watch the end of the sunset over the river. It was a cold night again, and we woke to a stunning mist display over the river, but it was so cold I wasn't going to hang around outside and take any pictures.