Earixson Explorers in Hervey Bay

Christmas holiday on the Clarence……

2012-01-08T11:37:00.001+10:00

Early in the year, our plans were to go to New Zealand. However, after due consideration, (and finances), we opted for taking a cruise on the Clarence River, near Grafton, NSW. Our plans were to pick Camille up on the way through and we could spend some “quality” time with our granddaughter.

After an hour of catching up with Jen, we packed Camille’s things in and headed off. Camille discovered my I-Pad and we now have LOTS of FREE games.

We finally reached the spot where our houseboat was waiting for us and we all gathered our gear and with much talking and excitement, we boarded our home for the next 9 days.

This houseboat is the SAME EXACT one we had 20 years ago, when we took Jenny, Rob, & Lizzie when they were little. A few alterations here and there, but the same boat. We had a great time in this boat and we were excited about giving Camille a great experience too.

Well after a few lessons on what to do, where things are, and where you can go and where you can’t go on the river, we finally headed off. We dropped anchor in Coldstream River which runs into the South Arm River. It was isolated and protected from the winds. The anchor struggled to hold us, but it finally grabbed and we were secured for the night. The first thing we did was throw the fishing line out. First fish of the trip, was a catfish, caught by me. Camille wanted to hold it, but Papa said no, you can pet it’s belly before I throw it back in, so that started the trend of ‘petting’ the fish bellies, including eels.

Camille was VERY impressed that Papa caught such a LARGE fish on the handline! “Can I pet it’s belly?!”

After a big breakky of bacon and eggs, we headed back up the river making our way to a little town called Maclean.

We stopped at a small sandbank to have some fun swimming and playing. As we all piled into our floaties, we noticed that the anchor wasn’t holding, so Chris went back to the boat to secure it, and Camille and I stayed on the bank checking out the Pippie shells and small fish.

Quiet time on the boat.

Camille’s keeping an eye on the ferry that crosses the river at Lawrence. They were very friendly and even waved at Camille on the way through.

Time to pickup supplies at Maclean. This is the same jetty where Jenny caught a huge Flathead when she was 12 years old. Camille made friends along the river, inviting them in to see where she sleeps and maybe colour in her colouring books together.

View from the jetty at Maclean in the early morning. The fog was lifting from the river.

There are quite a few trawlers that scour the river for prawns which are a popular dish for Christmas.

Papa teaching Camille how to fly a kite. Once they were finished chasing the kite’s shadow, we stopped into the local pub for lunch, where Camille had her chicken nuggets and special fizzy drink.

The local rural Fire Brigade doing its bit for Christmas by having Santa toss handfuls of lollies to the kids at the park. Chris and Camille just happened to be there at the right time. Camille came back onto the boat with a shirt tail load of lollies.

We spent Christmas Day at Scotty’s sister’s house in the hinterland between Lismore and Ballina. A house load of people greeted us with enthusiasm as we piled people & food into the home.

And as we starting leaving, the last minute photos were taken of the family members. This one is of Jenny, Scotty, and grandkids.

Soon after we piled everyone back into the car and headed back to the houseboat where we settled in for the evening back on the South Arm River.

The next day was glorious as we headed up the South Arm River for a morning cuppa at a local restaurant while we waited for Scotty to arrive from his workplace.

Here, Cody and Mum are taking in the scenery as we head up river.

And then there was the incident with the kite being flown off the back of the boat, which then hit a high power line and disintegrated with sparks and popping. As Chris frantically scrambled trying to get the kite to drop, it dissolved into nothing. Camille was horrified, Jenny yelled at dad to LET GO OF THE KITE!, but laughing at the same time, and Cody watched with dismay saying, “night, night, kite” . All this being done while the driver of the boat (me) was none the wiser.

Last day. Early in the morning, Cody and Grandpa are enjoying a cup of coffee and hot cocoa while they watch the fish come to the surface and the ducks silently clean themselves for the start of the day.

Jenny’s excited as this is her first eel she caught.

We had a great time catching up with family and it was just the right amount of time spent too. But now, it’s time to get back to work and get organized for the year ahead.

Charity Bike Run

2011-10-23T17:31:00.000+10:00

Well, I did it. I made the 10 klm bike run last Sunday. I rode my bike down (7.5 klm)) to the office on Saturday, Sunday morning I rode (5 klm) to the start of the race, and then the 10klm run. The circuit ran along the esplanade and back along the Links Corridor, which is a bike path through town. Once back, I had a spot to eat and Chris popped the bike in the back of the car and we went home. The interesting thing was I noticed that it took me 50 mins. To do that and not even five minutes later, the leaders from the 26 klm run came in. What the? Hey, 50 minutes for 26 KILOMETRES?! Eek, I never thought I would be that slow. Hahaha.
I collected donations for the race, but now I realize that I could have driven myself to collect more. It was more like feeling my way through the waters, but then I realized how easy it really was.
I`d like to thank all the people who made a donation to the Hervey Bay Neighbourhood Center.
All proceeds went straight to the center with a few more coming in by internet banking.
Next year I'd like to do the 26 klm run or better. In the meantime I just need to keep practicing.

Cycling continues….

2011-09-27T20:02:00.001+10:00

Okay, since the last blog, I’ve maybe ridden a couple of times. I tried Chris’s bike but his seat was super hard and I vowed never to use his bike again. I rode a couple of times around the neighbourhood and on Sunday last, I rode about 12 klms. I’m practicing for a charity bike run on October 16th, which is on a Sunday and it starts at 7am. I’m going to do the 10klm run. One of the other ladies at work cycles every morning and she’ll be doing the run as well, but she’s doing the big one at 64 klms, which is up hill and down dale. But I’m not quite as experienced as she is, so I’m keeping mine a bit short. I thought about doing the 26 klm run, which is the next one up, but I don’t think this little duck can make it. But! all in all, it’s really about getting money for the local neighbourhood center. So!, I’m doing my bit.

I’ve thought about riding the bike to work in the mornings which is about 7 klms to and then it would be 7 klms home again. Now THAT would get me up to speed! But I haven’t quite grasped that one yet and with all these beautiful spring days, you’d think I would be busting to do this. I have made all the excuses under the sun….” I slept in,… I don’t want to be sweaty when I get to work, …..I’ll just have a cuppa before I go,….” well you get the picture. So discipline isn’t my forte, but I’m WORKING on it.

Now tomorrow we have a meeting which starts at 7:30am, which means I’d have to leave at 6:30am to get there on time. Hmmmm….can I do it? Do I WANT to do it? and when I get there, where will I put the bike?….well these seem to be the questions I keep asking myself. As NIKE said,..”JUST DO IT!”

And then there were two….

2011-07-28T19:02:00.001+10:00

Well, I’m back on the bike again, and Chris came with me this morning. So we did the usual circuit and both of us got a good run. It really DOES get the endorphins going and you feel invigorated and alive.

I’m excited to go further tomorrow morning. Chris is going to need a softer seat and some stretchy pants so he can be comfortable too. I’ll have a look at the shops and see what I can find for him. His bike LOOKS cool, but it’s REALLY uncomfortable.

And!! I’ve started losing weight. woohoo! Heading down the scales.

Dear diary…

2011-07-27T17:50:00.001+10:00

Well, I’ve spent the last few days riding my bike in the mornings. I missed this morning due to an early sales meeting, but I’ll go again tomorrow.

And what’s THIS?! I’m GAINING weight? How can this be?!!!! Nooooo, it’s not supposed to do that. Well, this is not going to put me off, so I’ll keep pushing it.

I may have to start a little earlier though, as the last time I went my usual route, it only took me 20 minutes instead of 30. So tomorrow I’ll try a different route. I’m working my way out to the Esplanade and when I do I’ll take a photo of the sunrise.

And I even tried Chris’s bike and will never do that again. Not only was the seat too high, but it has to be the most uncomfortable seat I’ve ever sat on. The gears worked great, but when I went to get off the bike I lost my balance and nearly fell over. No, I’ll stick to my “girls” bike with the big cushy seat.

Dear Diary….

2011-07-24T11:51:00.001+10:00

I DID it! I finally got on the bike and went for a ride. I didn’t get up at 6am but 6:30am. It was very refreshing. It was a bit cool outside, but the air was clear and the sun still low in the sky. I coasted out on to the streets where it was silent in the estate, but you could hear the early morning traffic on the main road. I rode by one of the lakes where there was about 50 Kookaburras, some ducks, and even the fish jumped away as they saw me come up. I only went for 30 minutes but Chris and I are going to do another ride along the esplanade later today. I can’t believe I finally did it. It’s hard to change habits especially when you just want to sit in the warm house drinking a warm sweet coffee and play on the computer. Tomorrow, I will need to do the same thing again. If you’re going to break a habit it has to be consistent.

Dear Diary……

2011-07-23T19:40:00.001+10:00

I’d like to say that this is the start of my new diet and lifestyle change, but …it’s not. I’m about a week in and so far I’ve gained 2 kilos. That might be because I ate a half a packet of Tim Tams. I didn’t even know I had eaten that much and was surprised. But….I did and I gained. So that was a discovery for me. Tim Tams cause weight gain. I’ve have lost those 2 kilos, so I’m back to where I started. And the biggest thing I’ve realized is that I need exercise which I have yet to do.

I’ve been trying to psych myself to get up early in the morning so I can do a bike ride. I’ve always envied people who are energetic so when I see people my age and older riding their bikes I sit and watch with envy. So! here I am writing about my journey into getting healthier. And we all know that exercise is the key.

Okay, I will pass on what many people do not know….I weigh 99 kilos. I WAS up to 107, but that was due to my thyroid medicine not being correct. So it’s now fixed up and my levels are right. The rest now is up to me. My goal weight is 78 – 80 kilos.

So wish me luck. I’ve set my alarm for 6am and my dessert tonight consists of a bowl of fresh cherries and a camomile tea.

There’s conferences….and then there’s CONFERENCES!

2010-10-26T18:50:00.001+10:00

If ever you were going to go to a conference, THIS is the place to go!

The others would disagree with me, but I loved it.

Lady Elliott Island. Located 70 nautical miles from Hervey Bay. It’s totally isolated…no phones, no TVs, no radios, no outside communication. Well, it DID have a general phone, and it DID have A computer if you REALLY NEEDED it. But generally speaking, no forms of communication. Ray White held their Central Queensland Conference here. And since we’re now part of the Ray White team, we went along as well.

I loved it! Chris didn’t MIND it, but he’s not open to going there again. ( along with many of the other agents who attended)

You see, when we arrived, we were told that it’s the mating season for many of these birds. These little fellows are called Noddys. And there were several other species of birds as well. But in total, there were over 1 MILLION birds on the island. Lady Elliott island is the only the size of maybe 5 city blocks, roughly. That’s A LOT of birds! And of course, with that comes the smell. Most people held their noses until they got used to the smell. I noticed it, but didn’t mind. I’ve smelled worse, like dirty nappies, rubbish tips, tanneries, to name a few. So THIS wasn’t too bad at ALL. AND! I brought my wide brimmed hat! (smile)

We were then guided out to the resort area while our luggage was sent off to our bungalows. Going through the dining/bar area, this is what greeted us on the ‘other’ side…

Tropical paradise. Lady Elliott Island is an island made of coral reef. There is NO sand. It’s just crushed coral. The whole island is surrounded by coral reefs. The clarity of the water is unsurpassed. And once we got passed the “oohs and aahs”, we followed our guide around as he led us to our bungalows. Once we settled in to our bungalow, we booked in, picked up our snorkel gear, and headed in to the conference hall.

Our lead in to the conference was interesting for some, boring for others, depending on your own position within the company. I for one, usually get something out of these even if it’s a tidbit that will improve my performance. So I’m usually encouraged.

The first part only went for one hour to reconvene later that night. By this time, it was lunch, so we headed off to the dining room first and had lunch over looking this beautiful reef.

After lunch, we geared up and headed out to the boat to get to outer reef edge. Sorry, but there’s no pictures of old fat people in snorkel gear. This is where “old people’s talk” starts. My knee held up while paddling around in the water. Mostly, because I used my left leg most of the time or my arms to paddle along. And NO, I didn’t swim around in circles. (smile) Chris wrenched his hip while putting his flippers on. Afterwards, we found out that he had one of MY flippers and one of HIS flippers and it was tough trying to put on the small size that wouldn’t fit. And while the boat is bobbing around on the swell, it was tough going. Some aspirin later on helped. I didn’t notice that I had on two different sizes either, otherwise I could have saved him the trouble.

Back to the story….the snorkelling was FABULOUS! We saw HUGE sea turtles, manta rays, fish that you would LOVE to have on the end of your fishing line. The colours of the coral were great. There were little “Nemo” fish (clown fish) Angel fish, and a myriad of other marine life. It was great. I could just float around all day.

But, it was time to come in. Dinner time was coming up and we needed to get ready for the next session.

Just as the sun was setting on the other side of the island, we waited and chatted a while until the dining hall was open and queued up on the buffet.

Once session two was completed, some headed for the bar, others headed back to their bungalows. Chris and I made our way back to the bungalow dodging birds in our path. The noise was almost deafening. There were two birds on our deck cooing out to any females that might be flying about. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen any bats or not, but the amount of birds that were flying around, it was like the volume of a bat colony. The noise was extremely loud especially in the night air. Chris and I settled in to our bed and another jolt. The bed AND pillows were firm. I mean EXTREMELY firm. These old fat bodies were used to cushy comfort with foam underlays, a woollen overlay, and squishy pillows, so THIS! was a little uncomfortable. And those that drank heavily probably never felt a THING! In the middle of the night those little birds who were cooing so softly started screaming like babies and screeching….ALL NIGHT……LONG! it didn’t stop until morning. And the morning…….despite not getting much sleep…….

The following morning was absolutely glorious! Chris and I headed down to the water’s edge. Chris talked to one of the other agents while I snorkelled in the shallow areas of the reef. That morning, I saw blue starfish and some good sized Bream. (fish) We decided to have breakky and we headed back in for session three which was all morning and we stopped at lunch. Free time for the rest of the day. We headed over to the light house as did some of the others. I forgot my snorkel mask and fins, so I just took pictures.

Tonight was the night for AUCTION! And who better to specialize in auctions that REAL ESTATE agents! And of course, I was called up first to sell off a cooler that helps keep your drinks cold. I don’t know how I did, but I got the thumbs up from the boss, so it must have been okay. We were given some token dollars to play since we were new to the business, but it was fun watching all the antics that people got up to. Chris was one of the last few called and he was very sneaky about selling off his product an electric “ mozzie repeller”. he sold it to me without waiting for further bids. I was shocked, but everyone else took it in their strides. ( I think…maybe not…who knows) Well, there were laughs all around. Once the fun was over, everyone headed out either to the bar, or the beach or their rooms. Chris and I settled down for HOPEFULLY a better night’s sleep.

Well, even the birds settled down. No more screeching like babies, no more calls to each other in the night. Only soft cooing. We slept much better. Chris was up early our last morning. He got up to watch the sunrise and got some very interesting pictures.

I knew he couldn’t sleep, so I made a coffee and walked down to the beach to watch the sunrise too.

Later in the morning, we had awards to give out to the top performers. Three of our Hervey Bay group received awards this year. Maybe we’ll see Chris’s name up there next year! After that we packed up and headed out to the airport to wait for our plane to arrive to take us back to the office. It was back to reality.

I loved Lady Elliott Island. I thought it was great. And while there’s not that much to do except for snorkel, eat, drink, and RELAX. It’s a nice place to simply unwind and just enjoy BEING.

Long Weekends…gotta love em’.

2010-05-02T08:02:00.001+10:00

Oh what to do on a long weekend… Well, this is what we’re doing. (so far.)

A bit of fishing. As you can see there’s barely a mouthful of this fish. We haven’t figured out what it is yet or if it’s actually edible. The water was like glass on the bay and that’s the first time we’ve ever seen it that way. It was an absolutely spectacular day for being on the boat.

And the Hot Rod show came to town, so we went down to the esplanade and checked out some of the cars that were cruising down the road. I don’t know who was more excited, me…. or Chris who was exclaiming “Did you get THAT one?!…Come on Kath! Get up here and take a picture!!!!”

The only car I know out of this lot is the Hudson and that’s ONLY because I watched the Disney movie “Cars”….well, that…and Chris told me. But even if I don’t know what the names of the cars are, I still enjoy the lines and symmetry and, of course…. the paint jobs.

And the long weekend isn’t finished. We’re starting the day off with a Blueberry Coffee Cake. After that a bike ride, and we’ll finish the day watching the Bay to Bay boats arrive this afternoon.

And while Autumn has returned, keeping the nights cool and the days warm, we’re settling in quite nicely.

Officially Australian.

2010-04-29T15:20:00.001+10:00

Well, the time has come. We’re about to be sworn in by the Mayor for our citizenship. We’ve been waiting for several months for all of this to come to fruition.

So what’s it mean becoming an Australian? Mostly, it means we can now vote. It means we have a say in which politicians we want, to run this country.

It also means we can apply for government jobs….to be a part of the ‘red tape’ brigade. (oh goody) No, we’re not going to do that. But we COULD!

In truth, I already consider myself an Australian. I’ve lived here for over 30 years. I know the ‘lengo’, I know those ‘hidden’ rules of conversation and engagement. I know about the flora and fauna. I know the majority of its history. I understand it’s sport,…well,…except for Cricket, but I don’t feel bad about that because nobody else does either.

There’s a subtlety in Australians that’s hidden by their bawdy humour and their larrikinism. They’re quick to take on new mates and open their hearts and homes to those in need. Australians are a light hearted group as a whole and most know what’s going on in the rest of the world and understand how it effects them. But they don’t dwell on the negative either. They seem to be philosophical, but will take on the world for the underdog.

Yes,…I will enjoy being an “Official” Australian, And for my relatives from America, don’t worry, I have dual citizenship, so I will be BOTH. And while my accent is still as strong as ever, I will ALWAYS be known as an American to the Australians. But in my heart, I’ll always be an Australian.

A new family member added to our nest.

2010-04-23T09:47:00.001+10:00

This is the latest member of our family. She’s VERY affectionate and purrs like a well oiled engine. The folks at the Animal refuge center called her “Genna”. (short for generator.) Her name now, is Maddie and she’s four months old.

Maddie has explored the whole house now. And Bella has discovered there’s a CAT inside the house! So she’s been glued to the back sliding doors as she watches this,..this…CAT scampering throughout the house like she OWNS it or something.

Maddie sleeps with us at night and promptly wakes us at 4am. Well, she wakes CHRIS at 4am but I sleep on despite the purring whiskers in my face.

You’ll notice that part of her tail is gone. I thought she may have been a Manx breed, but no, she’s had an accident somewhere along the way as there’s a tell tale kink in her tail as well.

And she’s house trained as evidenced by the sand gravel scattered across the laundry floor in the mornings. After further investigation, I strongly suspect that Maddie may be of male gender too as certain parts of her anatomy look distinctly male. I guess we’ll find that out when the vet looks at her at de-sexing time in the next couple of months. (no, I’m NOT able to tell the sex of a cat. You’d think it would be apparent. Go figure.)

Maddie loves exploring. She’s discovered the bathroom, all the bedrooms, the pantry, the linen cupboard, and she’s discovered that she can jump on the rubbish bin to get to the top of the desk where I have my computer. And she tries to hunt the cursor and anything else moving around the computer. She watches my fingers type away and tries to attempt to bat them and play too. I have found out that she definitely DOES NOT like the vacuum cleaner. But she’ll learn in time that it will go around her, not through her.

Well, having Maddie around certainly has given me a new lease on life too. It’s fun to play with her and talk to her. I love watching her antics as she explores the house.

She’s already caught one big black spider and ATE it. YUK.

I’m hoping she’ll be a good mouser too. We may need that skill later on.

Well, I for one welcome Maddie into our home. She’s going to be a great entertainment and a wonderful little companion.

Homeward bound, worn and weary.

2010-04-13T06:53:00.001+10:00

Well, we’re homeward bound now. We’ll be home in about four hours. Washing needs to be done, groceries need to be bought, and Bella needs a cuddle. (I know this cause we have a psychic connnection.)

All of us are worn and weary. And as we make our way home, plans start formulating on what the next step is.

Pam and Ron are due to fly out in the next couple of days. Chris is due to go to school in the next month to get his Real Estate License, and I have plans to go to school and pick up a job somewhere. So with all of that in mind, I’ll grab another cup of coffee before we go.

From out bush to the “Outback”

2010-04-09T17:39:00.001+10:00

Okay, before I start here, I need to let you know that while we were in Undarra last night, I’ve written 5 postings, so keep scrolling down to the next five blogs. This one is the latest news in what’s happening.

We landed at Undarra Lava Tubes last night. We had a good meal and headed back to the carriages for a restful sleep. These carriages contained two single beds. There were no coffee facilities or bathroom facilities. The bathroom/toilet were in a separate carriage. We could have gotten ensuited rooms, but I’m not sure what happened there. But it was a unique experience at any rate.

We were all up early in the morning and packed the car before having this “bush’ breakky. There’s nothing better than bacon and eggs on an open grill in the bush. And we had plenty of coffee to go around. You just had to watch out for

these guys as they will take your bacon or sausages away from your plate in the blink of an eye. They also operate as the morning alarm to let you know what time it is.

Once we finished breakky we headed off on our tour through the lava tubes. We took the two hour tour because we had such a distance to go to.

As we walked down in to the cave, we prepared to get wet. With all the rain they’ve had in the last few weeks, the caves had knee high water in one and in the other, it was shoulder height.

Here’s Chris and Pam in ankle high water listening to the guide talk about the lava tubes and how they were formed.

The view as we made our way back out of the cave.

Well, we finished our tour and started heading to Hughendon for a layover stop. This road is a “development” road which means it’s being developed. So there’s part tarred/bitumen roads, part dirt road, and part boggy mess road.

We even crossed a few creeks that were overflowing with water.

Einasleigh Station creek.

The view from the other side of the creek.

But we did see a bit of life along the road apart from the guys who were working on the road.

Just before we landed in to Hughendon, we stopped in at Porcupine Gorge to have a “sticky beak”.

The river above is Gregory’s River which cuts through the station. And this little guy was just ‘hanging’ around.

Well, it’s been a very long day and a tiring one too. The driver is having a sleep and the others are resting before their dinner at the local pub. Tomorrow we’ll have to see if the road out to Larke Quarry is open as we saw a couple this afternoon who booked in as well and said they couldn’t get out there because it was too wet. It could be that we go straight to Longreach in that case. We’ll see.

Today is the BIG DAY!!

2010-04-09T16:53:00.001+10:00

We got up the next morning trying to remain relaxed but excited at the same time. Chris took the bride and her ladies to Casey’s mum’s house early in the morning so they could get ready. The photographer was due at 11:30 for family photos. Rob and Marc showed up mid morning, and Neil and Brett five minutes later. Everybody started preparing for the photos.

Scotty and Cody chillin before the chaos starts.

Chris and I doing that last minute checkup on the dance routine.

Even grabbed Pam and Liz for a quick lesson.

The boys already to go.

The Bride and the Groom. This is the only picture of the wedding I’ll be putting on the blog. There’s more on my facebook page for those of you who want more wedding pictures. For some reason, I feel that putting this on the blog is wrong, but I know that there are some who are not on Facebook and would like to see the photos. If you want to see more photos, please email me and I’ll send them to you.

The wedding was magical. And it wouldn’t be a typical wedding if some things didn’t come off without a hitch. But for the most part, it went beautifully. Even the weather behaved itself while the wedding party made their way across the golf course for more photos. The meal was superb. Each person received their own mini wedding cake to take home along with chocolates and candles. Everybody behaved themselves and still had a great night.

Our congratulations to the bride and groom. May they live “happily ever after”.

Catching up with family today….

2010-04-09T16:46:00.001+10:00

It’s Saturday, the day before the wedding. Al, Heather, and the boys arrive right after breakfast. We decided that we would have a look in town to have a cup of coffee and see the esplanade.

It wasn’t raining, but it wasn’t too far off either. Showers were the order of the day.

As evidenced to the left and right of the camera shot.

The groom, who seemed very excited.

The bride, who decided to drop off Camille’s dress at the marina where we were having coffee.

Camille tried on her flower girl’s dress which fitted beautifully. She looked just like a fairy princess and it makes for a great “spinny” dress!

Here we are at the marina catching up.

After lunch we headed back up in to town so some of us could get the Easter shopping done. We picked up some food for the night and eventually caught up to Al and Heather, who went their own way for the day.

Miss Camille certainly wasn’t shy about posing.

We headed over to Jenny’s unit for dinner. We were going to have a progressive dinner in each of the units, but with Cody needing his sleep, we had the whole affair at their unit.

Heather brought chicken and salad, Jenny, the nibblies, and I brought the desserts.

The bride and groom catching up with family the night before the wedding. But there was more to look forward too……

Everybody joining in the fun.

Scotty and Brett’s first go at dying Easter eggs.

Brett’s first attempt came out quite good!!

Well, with Easter Eggs done, Camille and Cody in bed, it was time to send the groom home and the bride upstairs to her unit. Tomorrow is the BIG DAY!

Heading in to Cairns and the big day.

2010-04-09T16:40:00.001+10:00

Well, it’s been a few days now since I’ve blogged and MANY things have happened along the way. We’ve since had the wedding, caught up with family, headed up to Cooktown and we’re now on the return home journey. So this may require a couple of blogs, so read through. I’ll start off where we left. We made it to Atherton Tablelands for the night. The following day we headed in to Cairns.

Here we are at the Curtain Fig, also known as the strangler fig. It’s a parasite that actually covers other trees and the root system creates a curtain like effect.

Here we stopped in to see Lake Barrine. It’s a small, beautiful crater lake. There’s a little restaurant on the lake where we had a Devonshire tea. As you can see its raining so we didn’t get to take the boat tour around the lake.

There didn’t seem to be a tour of the lake going, so we left and made our way to Cairns.

We finally got to our unit and caught up with the kids. The girls were heading out to a hen’s night and the boys went out for a few drinks.

Jenny and Liz ready for a night on the town.

Liz and James pausing long enough for me to take a photo.

Jenny and Scott having their OWN wild time.

Grandma and Camille having their OWN wild time.

Grandma babysat Camille while the adults went out. Grandpa filled in later to give me a chance with my cold.

Tomorrow we go in to Cairns and have a look around.

The days after…..

2010-04-09T16:32:00.001+10:00

Well, the family started returning their homes. We spent the day too-ing and fro-ing from the airport to drop kids off.

We headed over to the Rob and Casey’s later in the day and had leftovers at their house. We also got to meet Jack, their dog, who bolted out the front door at the first opportunity and took off like a shot down the street and around the corner out of sight. Robert, then groaned and took off after the little dog. After 20 minutes of chasing the dog IN THE RAIN, he finally tackled Jack and brought him home.

We settled in and had leftovers that we had brought with us, for dinner. After a few hours of chatting, we said our goodbyes and left the bride and groom to settle down.

We left the following day to head up to Cooktown stopping in at Kuranda only long enough to see the quaint little railroad station.

We headed up to Mareeba and stopped in at Skybury for coffee and lunch. This is the place where the bathroom has a fish pond and is exposed to the elements. I also found a rather large frog in the toilet when I flushed it. It had been hiding under the rim and when the water came out, it had a hard time holding on.

Well, once lunch was finished we started back on the road to Cooktown only to be stopped about 40klms from the town itself.

This is what met us. There were cars and trucks everywhere waiting for the waters to recede.

And after all the jokes about Ron attaching a rope around Chris so he could drag the car across, we decided to turn around and head back. But instead of going to Mareeba, we decided to head to Port Douglas instead.

Which was a VERY NICE CHOICE!! Thanks to Pam for the suggestion!! The bed was wonderful, the meals were wonderful, a person couldn’t have asked for more.

We tried to get to Cooktown the next day and we made it through.

There had been so much rain in the past few weeks, that we missed out on the Daintree and Cape Tribulation part of the journey. All of the rivers are swollen and some of the creeks unpassable. But then this IS the tropics and it IS the wet season.

We passed this place three times. The first time at night where it was close to 2ft. The second time, a foot deep, and the third time, it was finally down where the road was showing again.

There’s several billabongs around the area. We stopped and had a look at this one where there were a few cows and one rather large bull.

And Voila! the road is cleared today. We went in and had a wonderful lunch on the river. We wandered around the town and saw a museum on the local history.

Once a bank, it now houses the museum.

One cannot go to Cooktown without seeing the lighthouse and the views. The sea was rather muddy from the river washing in to it.

View of the mouth of the River.

Once we finished here in Cooktown, we headed back to our unit at Port Douglas. Tomorrow we head out to Undarra Lava Tubes.

From the tropics to the Outback….

2010-04-09T16:29:00.001+10:00

Once we finished breakfast, we toured through Port Douglas. As you can see, we STILL are having showers here and there.

And from the tropics to the hills. The weather was starting to clear up as we headed further west.

We stopped in at Herberton Pioneer Museum. Chris and I have passed through here twice in the last four years and it was never open. But TODAY! it was!

And I’m so glad we did. There’s been a lot of effort in to producing this wonderful bit of Australian history.

This truly gave Pam and Ron a taste of what the country was like many years ago.

Here’s where I sat and waited for the guys to catch up, all the while listening to the music from the early 1900’s.

This is what the early settler lived like.

Hey,..this flour is from Toowoomba!! That’s where we used to live!

Well we left Herberton to head over to Undarra.

So from the tropics to the Savannah we’ve gone. We settled into our train carriages tonight. Tomorrow we’re up early for a tour of the lava tubes.

So with that in mind, I better get to sleep. I’ve done five blog postings and now I just need to get them uploaded when I get reception. Good night!

Rainy days can’t spoil this trip.

2010-03-31T20:06:00.001+10:00

Today was good day. We travelled far and saw heaps of things today.

We left Cardwell after having our cereal in our coffee mugs and sharing spoons. We travelled up through Tully which is the wettest place in Australia with 4000mm of rain per year and today was no exception. The Tully River was flowing well.

We noticed that the white water rafters were still preparing for their ride down the river, so we kept on going. I spotted this waterfall across the river on our way back down.

There’s a lot of God’s little creatures in these rain forests. I nearly stepped on a tiny frog and the mozzies were hanging around my umbrella, but this little guy caught my attention.

We stopped in at Parranella Castle. It’s one of my favourite places. It’s like a fairytale. Because the rains have continued for so long, the creek was flowing strongly.

Everything had moss and ferns growing on it. The picnic tables were green with moss and ferns as well. As we entered this fairytale, we were given some fish food to feed the Black Grunters and eels.

These eels were trying to get their fair share too.

This area boasted fountains and ponds along with a park like area that used to be a tennis court for guests.

The humidity sent us back to the car and heading north to Atherton Tablelands. The temperature dropped to a comfortable 24 degs as we climbed up into the mountains. We headed out to see some falls and came across ….

The Millaa Millaa Falls. With the rains we’ve had, the falls were in full force.

This is the first time that Chris and I have travelled the far north during the wet season. But after living in a rainforest we knew what to expect.

Well, we’re almost to Cairns. Only an hours drive away now. And during the first half of this trip, we have had three sick people. “Typhoid” Pam brought the virus this time, not me. (hahaha) What with the air conditioner going and all the windows rolled up, it was bound to happen that the virus would spread. Pam is now on the mend, Chris is almost on the mend, and Ron is down. We’re off to get some better medicine for him tomorrow. I think I’d better start taking some extra Vit. C as well. But for the most part, we’ll have a leisurely start to the morning so everyone can get some rest. We head in to Cairns tomorrow, only 3 days to go now before Rob n Casey get hitched.

A half day of touring in the rain….

2010-03-30T22:04:00.001+10:00

With all the rain we’ve had up here in Queensland, we decided that Paluma Falls was out. So we headed over to see Wallaman Falls instead.

You can tell you’re in the bush when there’s cows warming themselves on road and there’s cow pats everywhere.

We made it to Wallaman Falls, but with the rain and fog so thick, we couldn’t actually SEE the falls.

Even some tourists found their way under the umbrellas as we waited for the fog to clear.

We headed over to the top of the falls and realized that the fog was clearing, so we headed back to the falls and this is what I was able to take.

We’ve settled in for the night at Cardwell. Tomorrow we’re off to Tully and Paranella Castle.

Three days in Townsville….

2010-03-29T17:48:00.001+10:00

We’ve spent the last three days in Townsville. We’ve seen the street that the kids lived on, the barracks that Chris lived in when he was in the Army, had fish and chips on the Strand, and we even “oohed” and “aahed” over the city lights from Castle Hill.

Below are some pictures of our three days in the Townsville area.

View of Castle Hill from our unit. It was a great unit as it was close to everything.

We drove the following day out to Charters Towers to do some exploring.

The old part of Charter’s Towers. Gold was discovered here and a town popped up along the miner’s trail from the fields to the ……

Gold Exchange, which is now the stock exchange.

Inside the foyer of the Royal Private Hotel. It was like stepping back in time.

The outside of the Royal Hotel.

We had lunch at this little place at the front of the Stock Exchange. We had genuine Australian Hamburgers complete with beetroot and Chocolate Malted Shakes.

Here we are at the Miner’s Cottage. You could pan for gold, read some old books and magazines, check out the cottage itself, with all of the old pictures of Charter’s Towers. I even regaled everyone with a rusty rendition of a bush poem, The Man from Ironbark by Banjo Patterson.

And here’s Ron and Pam enjoying their bus ride to Picnic Bay on Magnetic Island. We’re off on a fishing adventure.

You will notice that there’s no pictures of the guys here. We GIRLS, are the only ones who caught fish for the day. Unfortunately, Pam’s Sweetlip was too small and mine was a Remorra, which couldn’t be eaten from what I was told. It’s the sucker fish that hang around sharks. And Yes!! that’s what I was thinking….”So DOES this mean there’s sharks nearby?”

Coming back up from the jetty to have lunch at the local pub.

Well, this was the end of the day as we waited for the bus to arrive to take us back to the ferry and home.

Tonight, we’re eating in. Chicken Spaghetti and garlic bread. We had Mexican last night and we tried to explain that while it IS Mexican food, it’s AUSTRALIA’S version of Mexican food. It was tasty and filled our tummies, but when you’ve had the real stuff, this can be an eye-opener. Tomorrow we head north stopping in to see Paluma Falls. Time to get the walking shoes on. Oh! that reminds me that Chris and I need to practice our dance lessons too….One, two, three, four,….one two three, four, stay in the box Chris and I’ll stop trying to lead.

From Airlie Beach to Townsville, the big smoke.

2010-03-27T22:01:00.001+10:00

Any body after a cheap sailing boat? There were several boats that were damaged at Airlie Beach, from the cyclone Ului.

Yesterday, we headed out to the reef. Now, I promised no pictures of anybody in stinger suits, so I’m holding up to the promise, so this is the only pictures you’ll see. I do have previous pictures on the slideshow, but they ARE early pictures, so you’ll have to dig through them.

This morning we headed to Townsville.

Here’s Bowen, affectionately known as “Bowenwood” after the movie “Australia” was made on site. It was also Ron’s birthday and by pure chance, he received a phone call from his son in America.

It was by pure chance that when I headed back to the car, the phone rang and it was their son, Mark, wanting to wish his dad Happy Birthday. It was great to hear his voice.

This is the lighthouse at Bowen. There was a beautiful scent coming from some native trees. I then found out that it’s the Caster Bean tree which can irritate the eyes. (HUH??..oops) well it SMELLED nice.

View from a lookout. We had 360 degree views and this is one part of it.

The ”kids” having a cuddle.

As we came down the mountain and turned back on to the highway, we saw this, a Toyota Landcruiser coming up the train tracks heading to Home Hill. Once he found out we were taking his photo, we got a honk.

And THIS sight brought excitement from me. This is the Burdekin River. I have never seen water in this river. And with all the rain we’ve had it was full and flowing. There was still room for more, but it was a spectacular sight watching this.

Well, we made it in to Townsville this afternoon. We stopped to have some Crumbed Coral Trout and chips. It was very nice and all agreed it was much better than the last lot we had.

We finished the day out on Castle Hill to “ooh” and “aah” over the city lights. And because everybody was up so early, we’re all in bed early. So with that,..I say Adieu…or Goodnite.

“Please explain”…….

2010-03-27T21:17:00.001+10:00

One thing about driving about with old people is that the conversation is very creative. My in-laws are starting to lose their hearing, so between Chris’s deafness, their deafness, and my lack of concentration, we sometimes have four different conversations going.

Example: Chris explaining a story about Castle Hill

Chris: “When I was here in my younger days, this use to be the necking spot”.

Pam: “Huh?…what do you mean the Mexican Bar?”

to which we all busted up laughing.

From Agnes Waters to Airlie Beach.

2010-03-25T22:13:00.001+10:00

After a rough night’s sleep on the hardest beds in Australia, here we are getting ready for a long trip north. We piled all the suitcases around Chris who packed the back of the cruiser.

We stopped in at 1770 and had a look where Lt. Cook (aka Capt. Cook) landed. We were chased off the beach by midges and in urgent need of coffee and breakfast.

A little while later with our bellies full, we landed in Rockhampton and had a quick tour around the heart of the city.

Here we took a detour off the highway at Clairview. The driver thought we could get to the top of a mountain for views, but this is the only view we had apart from a brahma or two.

We stopped in at Clairview. This is one of our favourite spots to stay overnight. There’s only a small handful of houses along this road and it’s miles from Rockhampton and miles from Mackay.

We landed at Hillsborough National Park. Our beds were MUCH nicer than last night and with the direct sea breeze, the night was cool as well.

As we headed further north, the effects of Cyclone Ului (pronounced oo-loo-ee)became evident. Trees were stripped of their leaves, branches were broken everywhere and even a tree or two was down. We had to ring ahead to make sure that there was electricity available. Most didn’t have power and were using generators.

Here we are at Airlie Beach where trees were down, boats were washed ashore, and the power was only just restored to the town.

We had a little drive around and stopped for a late lunch/early dinner.

Fish n Chips were the order of the day. Tempura Spanish Mackerel, which was voted “ok” by those who ordered it. I prefer crumbed fish, so I ordered Ratatouille.

After lunch, we continued having a look around the town.

Well, we finished the day off with Sarsaparilla floats and peanut brittle. I’m off now to get some sleep as we have an early morning out to the reef to do some snorkelling. I’m just hoping that we’ll have a sunny day. Either way, it will still be warm. Good Night!

A short jaunt up the road…

2010-03-23T20:52:00.001+10:00

We started the day heading to Agnes Waters. We stopped into Bundaberg and had a look around which isn’t really all that far from where we live. But there was a few things to see.

A trip to Bundaberg isn’t complete without a trip to the Rum Distillery. We signed on for a tour of the distillery and even got to have a taste test at the end of it.

And not being connoisseurs of rum, we chose the next best thing SARSPARILLA!!! And let’s face it, Bundaberg has the BEST SARS in the world!!

We ended the day down by the beach at Agnes Waters. We’ll head up to 1770 tomorrow am, but we’re in for a BIG drive tomorrow as well. Everyone is asleep as I write this.

We had dinner/dessert at the local pub and this one’s for you Bobbie. Pam nearly had a heart attack as this “Killer” bug (a rhino beetle) froze her in position with it’s menacing glare. Those are my sunglasses next to it. Yep..yep,…yep…yep…we grow em’ big here in Queensland.

Well, tomorrow’s going to be a big day so I’m off to bed to get some sleep.

The local “Hervey Bay” tour-- taking in a bit of history along the way.

2010-03-22T17:13:00.003+10:00

The in-laws have arrived. And here we are catching up with all the goss after dinner.

Al and Heather left for home early this morning and the rest of us headed in to town for the “Hervey Bay” tour.

One of the highlights is the Urangan Pier where the occasional fisherman is hanging around to catch the ‘big’ one.

View out to the marina from the esplanade as we checked out the local history.

We stopped at the local pub for some lunch and then took a walk down to Queen’s Park and along the Mary River.

Here we have a Strangler Fig providing some shade in the park.

As we walked along the Mary River checking out the history of Maryborough, we came across……

some of these little guys feasting on the berries of an Umbrella tree. Rainbow Lorikeets make a racket, but they are some of the prettiest parrots you’ll ever see.

You can almost feel the ambience of the place when you see the local gazebo that’s still in use today.

And once we finished our little walk around the historical part of town, we drove by this magnificent old dame to show Pam and Ron the architecture that Queensland is famous for.

Well, we’re now preparing for our trip tomorrow. Plants are being watered, dog is being walked, clothes are being washed, and last minute packing is being accomplished. We’re almost ready now.

A funny thing happened when I woke up this morning…..

2010-03-15T17:34:00.001+10:00

You ever have one of those dreams that when you wake up, you’re reminded about it throughout the day?

Well, I’ve been having thoughts about getting another cat. I feel it’s time now. I don’t know why, but I do. So I woke up this morning with kittens on my mind. And when I opened the curtains I spotted a sleek black cat across the street, wandering through the neighbour’s garden. And later on this morning, Chris mentioned something about kittens from what he was reading on the internet. Yesterday, I watched a movie, Three Coins in a Fountain. One of the ladies there was given a fluffy white kitten.

I’ve never really had good luck with cats, except for Georgie. Georgie found us. She was only six months old and decided to stay. I didn’t get her spayed in time so she had her kittens a few months later. She trusted me so much, that she actually had her kittens in the loungeroom at my feet. The vet said most cats only have 3 or 4 kittens on their first litter. Not my Georgie, she had 6!! We did find homes and we kept a couple of girls as well. Well, at least I THOUGHT they were girls. When I went to have them desexed, the vet rang in the afternoon and said, “Uh, Mrs. Earixson?” “We have some good news and some bad news for you.” I said, “Okay” She said, “the bad news is that the cats are not female, but male. The good news is that it’s only $175 for neutering.” Sadly, we lost one cat to cat fever, and the other went out one day and never came home. But Georgie stayed with us for 16 yrs. She DID at one stage go missing for 8 months, but once she made her way back home, she stayed with us until her passing.

And now the games begin. “No” I can’t have one yet because……..blah blah blah blah blah. Well, I know Chris has been wanting to get another dog too. So we may end up getting not only a kitten, but a new puppy as well. And I can tell you now, it’s nothing to do with the “empty nest” syndrome either. All of the kids have been out of the house for a while now. I guess with all of the projects out of the way, we need something to occupy us.

Well, we will be away for a little while. That will give us some time to really think about this. But ….aren’t they so CUUUUTE!!!

Update before the big day.

2010-03-08T06:27:00.001+10:00

Rain, Rain, go away. While it’s still raining off and on around here, the ground is very spongy. And judging by the spider lilies bent over, perhaps too well. We have a mini lake in the front yard…..

and a mini lake in the BACKyard. Well, living in the sub tropics has it’s advantages…but it also has it’s disadvantages…like the heat and the humidity that come with it. Sitting around 28/29 deg. C, with 90% humidity makes for a very uncomfortable day.

Chris has left for a couple of days and I’ve got the Scout for driving. Yes,..he took the BRUMBY OLD LANDCRUISER!!! and left me this lovely DEEluxe Scout. Hopefully, it doesn’t cause me too many problems. Both cars have been worked on, so it should be okay.

Well, Rob’s wedding is coming closer now and we’re almost all ready to go.

Rally day around the neighbourhood.

2010-02-21T16:09:00.001+10:00

Our idea of our neighbourhood is roughly a 100 klm radius. So when the Scout club announced a Rally day in and near Gunalda, we accepted this chance to see our ‘backyard’. And because this is the I.H. SCOUT Club, normally we would have brought the Scout. Unfortunately, our scout has leaking issues and a problem with the carburettor (which is getting fixed tomorrow), so we took the T..T..T..Toyota Landcruiser instead.

The day started out beautifully. We stopped for a Macca’s coffee and headed south.

Our starting point was Bill Roddau Park. There were six vehicles in all, but only one Scout. We arrived 40 minutes early.

Chris and Steve were chatting while we waited for the last few people to arrive. Once we had everybody there, papers were handed out with questions about some of the things were going to see along the way.

The road was narrow and the sky was wide. The rains finally cleared up to a typical Queensland day.

This is one of the earlier bridges built in 1886 which was not only used for cars, but for trains carrying livestock and crops to sell.

As our car clackety clacked across the bridge, we stopped at the park on the other side and walked around having a better look.

Once our information for the rally was taken, we gathered up the crew and headed into a little tiny town called Miva.

There we stopped at the local cemetery to get some answers to the questions on our sheets.

This little cabin was leftover from the 1800’s as well. Many farmers build newer houses on their properties and just leave the original homestead as an out building.

At the end of the rally we stopped in at Theebine Hotel for a counter(a countery) lunch. We also found another car rally group and I couldn’t resist taking their photo. Each car was done up very nicely too.

This is our group who attended the rally. Thanks guys for a really great day~!

We had a wonderful day out today. The weather was beautiful, the company was fun, and the BBQ lunch was memorable. I wouldn’t mind doing this on a regular basis. I love exploring.

The landscaping is done.

2010-02-20T18:21:00.001+10:00

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Hey, …I LIKE this. I was experimenting and came across this handy little gadget. These are pictures of our house while we were landscaping the yard. Well, it’s DONE! We have officially finished the landscaping. The fence which took the longest, is completed, the garden beds are done, and the planting of many trees are done. Woohoo!!! We’re now waiting on the rains to establish growth. I’ve been meaning to take some current pictures, but the weather is so bad, that it would never do it justice. But once the weather clears up, I’ll take the finished product. The grass has certainly covered A LOT more area since these shots too!

Well, I’ve been rather remiss in writing on the blog. We’ve been working in the yard, hence the photos,.. and we’ve been down to Jenny’s place helping them out with some more of their renovation work. We just got back the other day and now we’re making plans for the year.

Our next trip coming up will be in March where we will start heading up to Cairns to see Robert and Casey get married. We’ve got our clothes ready for the occasion AND we’ve started taking dancing lessons. The waltz was a bit tricky for Chris, but we’ve nailed the Rumba down. Of course, we’re not as professional as those you see on “Dancing with the stars” or” So you think you can dance”, but we do have the VERY basic steps down. It’s certainly been a lot fun too.

After arriving home from Jenny’s house, I’ve been inspired to really get committed to losing weight too. So I’ve checked out a local gym and I’ve yet to check out the local swimming pool for an Aqua aerobics class. So I’ll keep you posted on the success of that.

We’re off tomorrow on a 4WD rally with the Scout club. Unfortunately, we’re not able to take the Scout. The windscreen of the Scout has not been sealed yet and the last time we took it out, I ended up holding a cloth and a cup to catch the water as it poured out of the screen. Also, the carburettor needs looking at. So it’s the ‘brumby ol’ cruiser we’ll be taking.

As things unfold around here, I’ll start writing a bit more often.

Holding off the weeding ..for a trip down memory lane.

2010-01-16T09:59:00.001+10:00

So here I am trying to avoid doing any more weeding than I have to. So I thought I would trot down memory lane.

After some weeding this morning, I laid down on the bed and all I saw was more weeds in my mind’s eye, but then I opened them up and I saw our wedding photograph on the dresser. We were so young. (sigh)

After some discussion about the wedding, the reception, the photographer, and where the picture was taken, Chris headed outside to finish the fence off and I dodged the weeding to write in the blog. (hehehe)

This week has been interesting. Sadly, at the beginning of the week, we had to put our poodle, Tillie, down. She was 13 yrs old. She had some complications with her hip. One of the hardest things about having a pet is making that decision to put them down. Bella, who sleeps through most days, didn’t seem to mind. She too, took a trip to the vet who gave her a clean bill of health except for age. She does need to trim down and her ball-throwing days are over. Gentle walks around the neighbourhood are in order, along with a trimmer diet. But Tillie will be missed.

And after making contact with a long lost school pal, some memories of school came flooding in. Mind you, most of them are vague moments of time, but as I read the names on the school list, the names jumped out as I exclaimed to myself, “I know that person!” and you wonder what’s been happening to them in the last thirty years. Some are only names and i have a hard time putting faces to those names, but they’re the people who were in that stage of my life with me. School was fun and the only time it wasn’t fun was exam time. But the kids were great and the memories too.

And this week we also had Austar put in. That’s Pay TV or cable or whatever you call it. And we were so excited to see what we’ve been missing. And of course, when you start up, you get LOADS of channels to explore. And after about a week of Austar, I’ve come to realize, that most of the movies we wanted to watch weren’t on it, and much to Chris’s chagrin, I’ve become an avid Star Trek fan again. So I’ve come to realize that we primarily watch the SciFi channel and the Documentary channel, OR spend most of our time SURFING the channels while listening to some jazz music. Some how this is NOT what I envisioned. I’m sure we’ll work it out.

For myself, this week, the call came by way of my doctor to SERIOUSLY look at my diet. My cholesterol shot up over the past year and with my lack of daily exercise, it was time for an overhaul. So no more chocolate, no more butter, no more 2% milk, no cheese, no bacon, and no more ice cream and pastries. I’ve done pretty good so far, but I still need to get more exercise in and “WEEDING IS NOT EXERCISE'”, so I’m told.

So with that in mind, I’m off for a bike ride. I’ve done SOME weeding today and I’ve got the blisters to prove it, but for now, it’s a leisurely stroll around the ‘hood’. I will be so glad when autumn and winter come back in.

Renovations continue…..

2009-12-18T15:09:00.001+10:00

The renovations continue after our layover at Jenny’s house. Mind you, that layover consisted of two cars going down to Jenny and Scott’s house filled with tools, supplies, and dogs, to help them out with their deck. It took both vehicles to drop off all of the tools those two carpenters were going to need. And of course, Cody made HIS appearance October 23rd, a week before we got there. So while Chris and Scott worked on the deck, Grandma was ‘hanging out’ with the grandkids. And once Chris was finished with HIS part of the deck, we returned home and started back up with our own fence.

This is the place where I’ve been doing MY part of the painting. With the music blasting away and the cool breezes flowing through, it’s been great.

This is the final on the back fence. All that gravel you see, is going out the other side near the water tank.

As you can see there’s very little grass anywhere and the Leopard tree is still standing alone.

Chris worked in the hot sun spraying the bulk of the fence with the same colour as the house. Those dark patches are where the insets are going to be. Chris has already cut those out and they’re ready for pulling apart. So more painting and carpentering ahead.

This little section here doesn’t look like much but in the sweltering sun and about 10 wheelbarrowfuls of gravel, I darn near doubled over. Do you KNOW how much each of those pavers WEIGH?! “Great exercise” I told myself. I kept having to stop and rest, but Chris took pity on me and gave me a hand. (after he fixed the floor in the boat, set up the water hose, and fixed the water pump. What can I say, I’m a wuss) We ran out of gravel and ordered some more in, but the next batch we received, wasn’t the same thing. So we’ll have to take some from the back yard now and spread it out here. But we can only go so far because…..

THIS is a problem. there’s water coming out from under the pathway. And it’s one of THOSE situations where you contact the builder who built the house two years ago. They in turn contact the NEW plumber they’re using, who doesn’t WANT to fix the problem from the OLD plumber and this new plumber had already BEEN out once to fix the problem and it’s disconnected from the elbow joint again. AND on top of all of this, it’s CHRISTMAS time which means the plumber is flat out trying to get other jobs done before they stop work. This problem means that we’re not getting any water to our tank which is shown in the above picture. But! thank goodness, our regular plumber has come to the rescue and is fixing the problem as I write this.

I started pulling weeds late yesterday afternoon. I’ve got one patch done and a WHOLE LOT more to do yet. Once that’s done, we’ll top dress and then water the heck out of it. The young agapanthas are doing fine and as you see, the Jacarandas are doing fine too.

One thing I have noticed, is that because it’s hot and humid and it’s only the BEGINNING of summer, we need to develop a different strategy. Like starting EARLY in the morning, ( like 5am or 6am), and then finishing mid morning. I just have to get myself psyched up to get UP that early. (Okay, I TRIED that method, but couldn’t function so I took two Panadol and drank two glasses of water and went back to bed)

Good news though! We finished the back passageway before lunch today!! We’re off to get a planter and some bamboo/palms to plant. MORE GREEN!!

Well, that’s what’s been happening in the neighbourhood at Hervey Bay. With Christmas coming up next week, we’ll be making plans for catching up with family and friends. I wish everybody a Happy and Wonderful Christmas and we’ll see you in the New Year!

Changing the look while we wait.

2009-10-20T16:17:00.001+10:00

I haven’t written on the blog for a while. We’ve been working around the house and between the tradesmen coming and going, we’ve been making plans and fixing things.

Today, we planted our very first tree. It’s a leopard tree which is similar to a jacaranda, without the blossoms. We hemmed and hawed over which tree to get and decided on this one. This particular tree went in the backyard which will give us wonderful shade all year round.

And as we wait for Master Cody to make his appearance in this world, we’ve gone as far as we can on the fence before starting another section. So yesterday, we checked out the local landscaping and nurseries around here. We’re just getting ideas for the moment, but decided it was time to plant at least ONE tree. So between the Lemon Myrtle, the Tibuana Tipu, and the leopard tree, we decided on the Leopard tree. And while it may look like a “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree, it will eventually blossom out and practically fill the yard.

This week, we’ve had the concrete painters here. The design that we had before, didn’t seem to suit the house, so we’ve changed it.

We changed from “Truffle” brown to “Charcoal” black and put a diamond pattern in.

And Chris got to that point where he was on to the next section of the fence. Not knowing which way to go. Jenny’s due any day now and we’ve been waiting for that expected phone call where we drop everything and run. So he’s been tackling the fence section by section.

And after talking to Jenny this afternoon, it looks like Cody isn’t going to arrive until later this week. So Chris started the next section of the fence and will start on another section tomorrow.

I’m not able to do anything at the moment. So I’ve been writing the Christmas cards up, posing a Christmas letter, and general ‘doing’ stuff, like making sure the washing is up to date, a bit of crocheting, a bit of reading..etc..I know, it’s a hard life but somebody has to do it. (hehehe)

Well, as you can see, things are RAPIDLY changing..(See Chris, I said “RAPIDLY'' changing.) around here and we all seem to be in some sort of limbo waiting for this grandchild to make his appearance. Clothes are packed, toys are packed, computer bags are ready, dogs are vaccinated and washed. We’re good to go. The rest of this stuff can wait til later. In the meantime, I’ll keep going over the gardening magazines for ideas and inspiration. I might even make the Christmas list out and wrap a few presents. We’ll keep you posted on the arrival.

Renovations are slowly coming together.

2009-10-04T08:55:00.001+10:00

This is Mr. Fencer. He’s a really sweet guy and he’s been very busy this week. He has finished one side fence and there’s three more to do. He’s having to work around …

these guys. The cementers have the foundations for the shed done, and now the driveway is being completed. The framing guy comes Monday to set the “garaport” up. This will not only provide a shelter for the dogs, but a shelter for the Scout AND a workspace for Chris.

And in the meantime, we have a brick fence going up in the front yard. They’re coming back on Monday too, to finish off.

So our renovations are slowly coming together. I’ve picked out trees and plants, for the most part. And as you can see, this place is hot and dry, so we’ll need plants to suit this weather and drought conditions.

(This all brings back a sense of deja vu when Mom and Dad moved in to Cerritos.)

We’ve ‘made do’ with a Christmas tin on the post for the mailman. It’s only for a few more days and we won’t have to worry about the weather.

So as every thing slowly comes together, I watch with anticipation. My job will soon start. I’m the “painter” lady. Good thing I kept my ‘paintin’ clothes JUST for this occasion.

A simple life in the ‘burbs’.

2009-09-25T11:30:00.001+10:00

Well, this week, we’ve said goodbye to “Miss Daisy” and hello to a boat. The boat is an 18ft catamaran. A good fishing and whale watching boat. Miss Daisy, who was given to a good home, will be sadly missed. But it’s time now for us to explore our own backyard and a boat will be required for doing that.

Chris, with his ‘CEO hat’, has been doing his thing in organizing all the tradesmen to set this, that, and the other thing up.

We have the extra kitchen cupboards done so the kitchen now LOOKS finished, we just have to wait on the desk now. The plumber has connected the water to the fridge, the slab for the shed is down and the shed gets completed next week. The fence palings have been delivered and stacked ready for fixing. And the backyard looks like a construction site. And, after many trips around the neighbourhood, It has taken us two weeks to sort out what we want to do with the fence, but we finally got there. And we’ve also got an idea for what to plant in the front yard now.

We picked up Rob’s Scout for him at the beginning of the week. He’ll be here this weekend to pick up “Doodle” (Doodle?! are you serious?!!) But it will be nice to see both him and Casey this weekend and weather permitting, our first day out in the boat should be excellent.

We had a lovely dust storm come through yesterday, but you wouldn’t know it. With us being in a new estate and a new house being built across the street AND with no vegetation to stop the flow of dirt, the layer of dirt INSIDE the house is the norm around here. I figured it was time for a clean up when I could write my name on the kitchen table and the CLEAN spots on the floor was where you had been walking.

I’ve started riding my bike again. Although with the gusty winds this week, I missed my ride on Wednesday, but today is looking pretty good. Even Chris has bought a new bike so we can enjoy rides down to the esplanade together. I just have to convince him to RIDE down to the esplanade, not drive there. It’s not THAT far! And I’m also working on the photo album, sorting out which pictures to use. My aunt and uncle sent some old sepia photos of my family, which I’ve printed and hung on the walls. Now, I’m just sorting out the photos from our trip.

So as you can see, while we wait for our new grandson to arrive, we’re keeping busy. Even the dogs are enjoying the hustle and bustle of ‘tradies’ going in and out of the backyard.

Now when did THAT happen?

2009-09-13T13:10:00.001+10:00

So here we were, running around like mad chooks trying to get furniture in, unpack boxes, get the electrician, the plumber, and the kitchen guys organized, all the while trying to clean up the caravan to sell.

Well, we’ve sold the caravan.(woohoo!) The plumbers, electrician, and kitchen guys have already been. The boxes are unpacked and ALL of the furniture is here. And then arrives Jenny, Scott, and Camille for a visit to Papa and Grandma’s house.

The buzz of their visit started well before they arrived. Both Chris and I were all hyped up for their visit. The kids arrived about an hour after the kitchen guys left. We all sat down to dinner and the talking didn’t stop until we all went to bed. Catching up on this and that.

The following day we showed them around Hervey Bay. We had a nice lunch of fish and chips, a play in the park for Camille, and a great walk down the jetty. We were all very tired, but the only ones who got any naps was Papa and Grandma! I’m just not sure if it was the sun and fresh air or the relaxation after all of the unpacking and organizing we did, but we finished the day off with a BBQ and the boys watching the finals on the Rugby League while us girls played a game of Scrabble.

But this morning, it happened. The kids left…and there was this silence. And it was in THAT moment that I realized that I’m in the same situation LIKE MY GRANDPARENTS! That whirlwind energy of the kids and grandkids coming in to the house making it hard to focus on the many conversations around me and then that silence when they’re were gone, leaving me with those feelings of being old fashioned, (which to me is really a sign of being relaxed and comfortable). And when did this happen that I’m not able to keep up with the conversations? I can remember being able to listen to each child’s request for what kind of sandwich they wanted while AT THE SAME TIME listening to my husband call out for something he needed in another room, all the while listening for the dog that might get the postie as he drove by, AND waiting for the baby to wake up. This morning my husband asked me if I wanted a cuppa and while I HEARD him, I didn’t register that he was talking to me. Is this a sign of getting old or do I just need some vitamins? My focus doesn’t seem to be as good as it once was, but for the life of me, I don’t know whether to put it down to discipline or age. The art of conversation seems to have disappeared from me and I’m not sure why. Is THIS a sign of getting old or that I need to get out more? Where did all my energy GO?! hmmm… So, while Papa is curled up on the couch for a nap and I type away on the computer, I contemplate my situation. Maybe I’m just going through a transition period from parent to grandparent. Maybe I just need to get out there and do more exercise and meet people. Who knows? But for the moment, at least I can gather my thoughts and focus on writing this blog.

A pause for reflection

2009-09-01T09:05:00.001+10:00

Chris and I are relaxing this morning. As the movers put the last of the boxes in to the house yesterday, our house began to look smaller and smaller. (It looked so BIG when there wasn’t a stick of furniture in it.) And last night, it dawned on me. This move is really different. We don’t have any kids on this move. I don’t have to get drinks and food for everybody in between the unpacking of boxes. No more excited noises about what they’re going to do in the THEIR bedroom. No more chattering. I didn’t have to put the kids to bed last night or worry about the school run this morning. This is the first time in 28 years that we’ve moved WITHOUT any kids. (sigh) I don’t whether to be excited or sad.

At any rate, we’re both sitting here relaxing with boxes stacked up around us, not having to worry about kids going to school or getting the unpacking done quickly so we can go back to work. It’s an odd feeling.

And while our minds are spinning around in circles with all of the things we need to get done, I just can’t quite focus on ONE thought. I’ve made a list out and we’re slowly going through that,… along with adding to the list as we go along.

So today, we’re off to restock the fridge and pantry…oh! and get another set of drawers for our clothes. For the life of me, I don’t remember having so many clothes before! Hopefully, I can still fit into them. I stepped on the scales yesterday and was horrified that I’d gained 7 kgs while away. (that’s 15lbs!!) And Chris already knows that he’s gained weight. How much?….don’t know,.. he’s afraid to step on the scales to find out. So our diet may..I mean WILL.. need changing.

And now if you will excuse me,..I need to start unpacking some more boxes.

We’re home!!

2009-08-30T06:11:00.001+10:00

It seems like yesterday that we just started on our trip on the road,..but at the same time, it seems like forever. But we’re HOME!

With only a few hiccups here and there, we made it. We ended up bringing the Scout back with us from our stopover in Townsville. We’ve picked the dogs up and both are very well behaved in this neighbourhood filled with dogs and kids.

We had a gas cylinder go missing, but it’s now been returned. And the caravan is now empty and ready for detailing with a fair bit of Pilbara dust and Oodnadatta dust left in the wheel wells. Chris has washed both cars, pulled all the drawers, fridge, and racks off the Cruiser. I’ve managed to find a home for most things.

Our furniture arrives on Monday and the Telstra phone tech arrives to give us our new phone number.

Yes, we’re at home. In the ‘Burbs”. We’ve been living rurally for quite a few years now and having neighbours so close will take some getting used to. I just reflect back to Mom and Dad’s house, and our houses in Toowoomba. This will be interesting. New etiquette rules apply. No loud music, no yelling from room to room, keep the dog’s barking down, clean up after your dog, no loud cars, the bins have to be used properly with garbage in one and recycle in the other. ….hmmm,..yes, this could prove interesting considering I like to be able to hear the music from all points of the house, we like to start our conversations when the other person LEAVES the room, and the Scout has such a sweet purr when the engine is revved up, …and don’t the dogs have a paddock to do their business? Oh yes,..I think the training begins for everyone involved.

In the meantime, it’s Sunday morning, a day of rest and that’s just what i plan to do.

Relaxing in style in Townsville…

2009-08-22T21:43:00.001+10:00

This is what I call relaxing in STYLE. Rob thought of the idea of going fishing this morning at Magnetic Island. So we both heartily agreed that a ferry ride to the island and a bit of a fish would be great.

Downstairs on the ferry, the cars were lined up ready for exiting on the island.

Robert enjoyed the ‘cool’ seats against his back, with only a minor twinge now and again.

We landed at Nellie Bay where there’s a pier that goes out about 300 metres. This is the view from the right.

This is the view from the left. As we looked down in to the water, there was large Gar fish swimming around in the clear blue water. I did see another type of fish, but I wasn’t sure what type.

This is the view of Townsville from the jetty.

It was a glorious day today.

This is one of my all time favourite things to do. Even if we ARE only feeding the fish.

At the end of the day, we headed for the local pub to have a drink with some chips. We spotted this bird and couldn’t quite figure out what it was. We did finally figure out that it was a Curlew.

Beautiful bird. It’s eyes are owl like and it’s colouring is similar to a bustard with stork like legs. It was quite a beautiful bird.

The bus showed up and we were hustled back to the marina to catch the last ferry. We also got to see the sun set over Townsville.

Maybe not quite as spectacular as Western Australia’s sunsets, but lovely, just the same.

We ended the day by having dinner at a Chinese restaurant close by Rob. Great Food!!! Rob raced home as Casey was on her way home tonight and we headed back to the caravan.

All in all, today was a wonderfully relaxing day. Thanks Rob,..that was a great idea you had.

Messy roads and messy vans in Townsville

2009-08-19T07:45:00.004+10:00

We were so anxious to get home . We had been traveling on some wonderful straight roads in the Northern Territory and Western Australia that we gave no thought to the roads...that is...until we hit Queensland. From the Queensland border the road turned into a molten mass of bitumen. You could actually SEE the waves in the road,..the deep RUTS from where the large 10 ton trucks drive, and the pot holes that were left from the cyclones the year before.

The worst part of the section was from Mt. Isa to Townsville. They have started working on it, but it could be slow going, as we're now in Queensland country and the " she'll be right" attitude is very prevalent.

And because we were at the end of the winter "tourist" season, we thought that the caravan park would be partly empty. Boy, was I wrong. They were full up, but we managed to get the last unpowered site they had. (Today, we'll change over to a powered site.)

And then when I opened the door to the van, there were books scattered across the floor, sugar on the bench and sink, and when I opened the fridge door, the glass shelf was broken with glass laying on top of the fruit and vegie boxes.

So while Chris is getting the car cleaned up, and a couple of shelves for the fridge. (another one broke at the beginning of the rough roads) I'll be cleaning up inside.

And in all of this, we managed to get over to see Robert, who seems to be doing very well. We brought salad makings and some steaks for dinner. And while he grimaces occasionally as the bandages pull, he's holding up very well. He's one tough cookie.

And before we head back over to his place today, I'll have another cuppa as I figure out which mess to clean first.

Detour from the fast lane.

2009-08-18T07:24:00.001+10:00

Well, here we are travelling in the fast lane heading home….and we get THE phone call that all parents dread. Something happened to one of our babies. Okay. So they’re not babies anymore, but still.

Robert, while looking at a friend’s car, lifted the bonnet (that’s HOOD to the American folk) and the radiator hose exploded. This has landed him in the hospital with blistering burns to his back. So our plans changed and we’re taking a detour straight to Townsville.

It’s amazing how fast things like this can happen in our lives. Robert seems to be taking the whole episode on the chin, but I know he’ll appreciate the company. He has a very positive outlook and is figuring out what he can do to fill his time in while he waits to go back to work. ‘REST!!’ says Dad.

This will also give Chris the opportunity to get the Scout, (hopefully) fixed. There’s problems with the paint blistering and spots of rust coming through the paint. This will help relieve Rob of the responsibility of the Scout as well. He’s been worrying about that. And while we’re there, Chris can get the car (the cruiser) serviced as there’s now 200,000 klms on the clock.

Me?..well, while I’ll give my son a hug, albeit gingerly, ..I’ll take some time out to do some cleaning in the van and wash some clothes. And just help Rob where I can.

Heading home....in the fast lane.

2009-08-16T21:38:00.002+10:00

Today was a big day. We have travelled over 1200 klms in the last two days. Our goal? Mt. Isa. Why? .... I don't really know. But for some reason, Chris has it in his head that he needs to see Mt. Isa before we go home. And we'll be home early anyway. " And in Mt. Isa, we can have a rest!". Well, I've never been there, so I guess we can have a bit of a break from driving. But for Chris, well, he'll be able to travel down memory lane again. He hasn't been here since he was 18 yrs old looking for a job in the mines. That was.......?...a long time ago.

Today, we drove from Katherine to Barkly Homestead, which is roughly 700 to 800 klms. Barkly Homestead is roughly 200klms from the border of Queensland and Northern Territory. Today, we listened to John Farnham, ABBA, Dixie Chicks, and a medley of early sixties music. We've snacked on nut bars and mandarins. Chris cracked jokes and I laughed. We even made out our 'to do' list for when we get home. It even got to the point that we started counting the signs to the Qld. border! Both of us were numb when we stopped. The Barkly Homestead offered us $12 Roast Beef meals which was very nice. ( I didn't have to cook!)

Tomorrow, we'll land in Mt. Isa. It's only another 400 klms to go. Once there, we'll rest for a day, wash a few clothes and do a bit of looking around while Chris reminisces. After that, a beeline for home.

I AM starting to get excited about it too. We get to unpack, we get to pick the dogs up, we get to see the kids and start planning. So yes, it IS exciting.

Heading home a little faster each day.

2009-08-14T08:08:00.001+10:00

As we head further east and towards home, I can feel Chris’s antsy-ness to get home. It’s like a horse that wants to bolt back to the barn for a feed.

We stopped in at Wyndham the other day and once the vans were set up, we got back in the car and had a look in and around town. Now mind you, we’ve been doing that in most places we’ve been, but now that the trip is coming to an end, it seems to stand out. I can feel myself pulling back and Chris just wants to GO.

His reasoning is that we’ll see all this next year when we do the Canning Stock Route. My reasoning is that we’re not finished and we should enjoy this now, while we ARE here.

So just to let you know, the pictures will be erratic and the blog will be erratic as we make our way home. (Not to mention that the reception isn’t very good out here and it’s hard to upload anything.)

But, in the meantime, here’s some photos of Wyndham, the Ord River, and Perry’s Lagoon. Please enjoy as I strap myself in for the fast lane home. This ride could be a little bumpy.

From the Bungle Bungle’s to Wyndham…

2009-08-13T19:03:00.001+10:00

We started the second day of camping at the Bungle Bungle’s fairly early in the morning. We left at 7am instead of 6:30, but it was still good.

We started our journey into the Mini Palms Gorge. We followed the dry river bed right up into the gorge. The palm trees seemed to come from nowhere, giving it a tropical appearance.

We climbed in and around boulders and over the tree roots. This was really beautiful in this valley.

We got to the back of this gorge, paused,..and returned back. This was the 5 klm walk. In the shadows, it was great, but once back on to the sunny river bed, the walk became a bit strenuous.

This is when the day REALLY started warming up. The shade was very welcoming. We headed into the Echidna Chasm. (Echidna is a spiny anteater.) This chasm was very interesting as some of the rocks were caught between the boulders.

and then in the middle of this chasm, there’s a wide open space and a bench, which Margaret and I took advantage of.

This was certainly a place worthy of visiting. However!..it should be done in the coldest part of winter. Because we’re at the end of the winter months, the heat has really hit us hard.

Once our walks were done we headed back to pick up the van and head straight up to Wyndham. I wasn’t sure what was up here, but it did surprise me.

In the heat at Purnululu National Park

2009-08-13T11:43:00.001+10:00

With Fitzroy Crossing behind us, we headed up through Hall’s Creek and plopped our vans at the roadhouse further up at Turkey Creek.

The following morning, we stocked the cars and headed out to Purnululu Nat. Park for some walking and some camping……and more walking,…..and more walking……..…and more walking.

Fifty klms down the highway and fifty klms into the park. We ploughed through a few dusty potholes here and there. This kind of bulldust is very fine and it’s very deceptive as you drive through potholes filled with it. There was a couple of potholes here that could take the front end out of your car if you weren’t careful.

And if dust filled potholes weren’t a problem, then these guys would be. These Brahmas are scattered through the desert area and they like to jump out in front of you when you’re least expecting it. So when you DO see them, you slow right down.

There were also creeks to be forded as well. It’s surprising when you come across water filled creeks as the area is so dry, you just don’t think there could be ANY water.

And the landscape starts changing.

The start of the Bungle Bungles as the day starts warming up.

As we made our way in to the Cathedral Gorge, the temperatures started warming up. I just had to stop once we reached the shade of the rock.

This is the back of the gorge. It’s called Cathedral Gorge because the sound of your voice carries just like a church cathedral. The dark spot on the left is where the waterfalls come in when the wet season hits. I talked to one tour guide who said when the waterfall is going you can’t hear yourself think!

Once we finished walking around, it was close to 40 deg temp. We drove up to the other end of the park and made camp for the night before heading up to the hill for sunset.

We climbed up a hill and sat on the benches supplied by the park to watch the sun set over the Bungle Bungles. The views were awesome.

We headed back to camp for the night. And with our new SINGLE mattresses to sleep on, we were both looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

Because the heat was so intense, we decided the following day that we would start at 6:30am to do some walking and touring.

The “ In between” times…..

2009-08-07T09:10:00.002+10:00

We DID it!! It’s the first time in a LONG LONG time that we FINALLY got to WASH the caravan. It positively GLOWS! There really IS white under all that red dust. Ah,…so nice. Nothing makes you feel better than having a clean car, room, house, or.. caravan.

We stopped in yesterday at the caravan park in Fitzroy Crossing. We were told we could wash the car AND the van. Woohoo! So Chris and I hopped straight into it. And then this morning the hot water system had a hard time starting up. One of the wires caught fire, but was quickly extinguished and the water is now heating up nicely. That means hot showers!

So here, we will have a look at Geiki Gorge and have a bit of a cruise up the Fitzroy River. We’ll only be here for another night and then we head up to the Bungle Bungle’s. Another one of Mother Nature’s majestic masterpieces.

And just a short note to let those who are following this blog, that I’ve made a few technical errors in my facts.

I made note that the truck carriages can sometimes get up to 5?..well, it’s only 4. That’s all their allowed, so I’ve been told. So while I try to keep the facts straight, I may miss one or two of the CORRECT facts. I think Col said it was “EOE”…errors and omissions exempt. I guess that means “ she’ll be right” and don’t worry too much about it.

Anyway, I’ll finish my cuppa and check a few Scrabble games out and then we can head off.

By the sea, by the beautiful sea…

2009-08-04T00:06:00.001+10:00

The Horizontal Waterfalls we were told, was a MUST SEE from all the people we talked to on our journey around Western Australia. And believe me, the money was well spent.

This place is R..E..M..O..T..E. There is NOTHING around this spot on the map, except some really ROUGH country. This place is a hidden gem. You cannot get to it by car. Years ago you could only get to this place by boat. Now, they have seaplanes, Xtreme boats, and small cruisers to see these lagoons and waterfalls.

We started our journey by seaplane. There were ten of us on this flight, excluding the pilot. It was a nice trip with only a slight bit of turbulence as we crossed over the floodplains and hills.

Views of some of the bays and lagoons tantalized us as we got closer to our destination.

This was our destination. The Horizontal Waterfalls.

As you can see there’s water running into the lagoon. The tide is rising, so the water is filling up the front lagoon. As it does this, it creates what they call a ‘horizontal’ waterfall. And of course, when the tide recedes, the waterfall reverses. The amount of water coursing through here is beyond comprehension. The depth of the actual inlet is 45 metres and the width of the gorge is 22 metres. The water rushes through these two places with immense force. Our plane was to land in the middle lagoon.

As we descended the mangroves become clearer with the white sandy bottom turning the water aqua.

We swapped places with the previous passengers, put our life rings on and ‘saddled up’ on the seats provided.

This is the highlight of the trip. Zipping in and out of this narrow gorge with the waters rushing through. And in this little ‘zodiac’ type boat, we were hurled through it several times.

The exhilaration was great. The young lad that drove the boat, handled it extremely well.

Chris sat at the front, while i sat a little further back. Both of us enjoyed this ride immensely.

We made our way to a larger boat where we had morning tea and settled down for some sight seeing as we cruised up Cyclone Creek.

The views were wonderful. There’s too many to put here, but they will be on the slide show. (tomorrow morning)

Well, we had a tasty lunch of salads and BBQ barramundi. Even tried our hand at fishing, but once again,..nothing…not one bite. Ah well.

After a couple of hours, we headed back to the waterfalls to ‘play’. We then headed up to the bay and waited for our plane to land.

The sea plane landed with passengers from Broome, where we once again, exchanged places and headed home to Derby.

This was an awesome day. The money it cost was well worth it. We may not have caught a fish or been able to swim, but it certainly was a great day out.

Tomorrow, we will relax and fill in the day. I’m looking forward to sleeping in and just absorbing the events from the last two days.

A little jaunt to Winjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek.

2009-08-03T22:58:00.001+10:00

Because we’re getting so close to the end of our trip, we decided that we would bypass the WHOLE top end. That means the Kimberley’s were out and,… Darwin and Kakadu is out. To really do the top end justice, it would take about 3 months to see it all, so we opted to do the whole top end on another trip.

So with that thought in mind, we found a tour that would cover a couple of places like Winjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek. And I’m so glad we did. Both of these places were awesome.

Looking like one of the trees from a Harry Potter movie, this Boab tree is around 2000 years old. Yep, that’s right, two thousand years old. It’s one of the oldest trees in the world.

And after stopping at the Boab tree, we headed off road to the Winjana Gorge.

And looking like most gorges as you walk in to it, the surprise beyond this short tunnel is evident in the “aw’s and ..ooh’s” as people walk through. Because on the other side of this is a beautiful river bed and valley.

The river still flows through here. The water is clear enough to see the sandy bottom in some spots.

This area was an ancient seabed millions of years ago as evidence of seashells are imbedded in the limestone walls. The cliff face extends up to nearly 130 metres high as you walk through the gorge.

And this little guy reminds you that you’re in the tropics now. This crocodile is a freshwater croc. They’re much smaller than their saltwater brothers and a bit more placid.

And while watching the tourists come and go, they sunbake on the warm sandy beaches in the river.

They’re so still that they almost look like rubber toys that somebody has scattered around the river. We did watch some swimming around, but most of them were trying to get as much winter sun as they could.

Looking back to where we came in, the river extends out of the gorge on to the floodplains.

And behind me, the river meanders back up through this rocky area where fish are abundant.

Even in the shadows, the water ebbed around this croc, whose tail was close to the edge of the sand. And for some reason, everybody kept saying “Kathy, you just grab his tail, and we’ll take a picture”..”Yeah!..RIGHT!!”.

And as we made our way across the sandy beach inside the gorge, it started warming up. It was time for lunch, so we headed back to the bus where lunch was served under a shady tree.

And while we had lunch, we discussed the merits of using one of THESE types of vehicles as a motorhome to get across Australia with. It’s like a caravan, 4WD, and motorhome, all in in one. We did find out later that it was a bit too expensive and WAAAY out of our league.

Well, after lunch, next stop was Tunnel Creek, 40 minutes away. Chris and I had expectations that it was going to be more of chasm with water running through it. But no….it wasn’t.

It was a cave with water running through it. In the ‘wet’ season, the water fills this cave as it rushes through. But in the last flood, that large boulder fell down and blocked the opening, so the flow is more controlled now.

Curving it’s way around like an “S” shape, we followed the water around to the middle where an opening lit up the cave. This cave also came complete with frogs, bats, and even a freshwater croc.

This middle section of the cave had fallen in many years ago. You can see the roots of a tree stretching down to the bottom of the riverbed.

We made our way out through the back of the cave as the bats squeaked their protest at the noise we were making.

The serenity of the place was invaded by the 30 people from our bus group. But the picture was worth a thousand words.

As we made our way back to the main road, we stopped into this ruin of a little colonial homestead.

The end of the day was fast approaching, so we headed home. All up we did close to four hundred kilometres. It’s been a big day out. The bush fires that are burning created another beautiful sunset, but unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of that one.

Tomorrow we head up to the Horizontal Waterfalls. Another big day touring.

In and around Derby.

2009-07-31T12:50:00.001+10:00

We left Wullare Roadhouse late in the morning. Most of the truckies have come and gone, except for this cattle truck. There’s 4 carriages on this one. Some even come with five.

We contemplated fishing along side of the Fitzroy River, but one) we couldn’t get the vans down there, and two) there’s crocs along the shoreline. (even though we couldn’t see them, they were there!)

The jetty at Derby. The tide was out so the water was very shallow and brown. We checked out what kind of fish were here and decided to come back later on when the tide was in.

This hawk, with 5 other ones, were circling above the pier watching the people walking around.

And as we came back from the jetty we noticed that there was a bush fire just outside of town. It ended up creating an orange haze in the late afternoon.

And as I write this, I’ve finished washing five loads of laundry and I TRIED to get the “Pilbara” red out of my running shoes. Now we’re on to the “Kimberley” pink dust. What’s the difference you ask?…not one thing. BOTH are red dirt.

Today, we’ll do some domestic touring and more fishing tonight. Might even get our last sunset over the Indian Ocean.

We’ve turned the corner ……

2009-07-30T14:42:00.001+10:00

We had heard so much about Cape Leveque that we thought we would head up there to have a look. We left the caravans in Broome and set up our tents at a little stopover called Munget Community or Whale Song.

Most of the Dampier Peninsula is owned by Aboriginal Communities, so we need to organize a booking for a camp site and since they didn’t have any spots left at Cape Leveque, (or Kooljaman) we booked in to Munget. Our site was situated over the top of a cliff overlooking the bay.

Not bad for “multi million dollar” views!! All from our campsite. We went fishing along this coast. I caught a little bream, Col caught a little whiting and he nearly caught a hammerhead shark! I turned to see, what I thought was a good sized fish, but that was only the dorsal fin of a four foot shark!! And once we both saw that, we decided that wading out to our waist wasn’t the smartest thing while those sharks were hanging about.

This is our campsite. The winds came up in the morning and we could swear that Col and Margaret’s tent was going to fold up any moment!

And of course the first thing you do, is inspect the amenities. Here we have the toilet with penthouse views across the campsite. And there’s a sign at the bottom of the stairs that say “FREE” or “ IN USE”. The only problem with that is when somebody forgets to turn the sign around. You could be standing there dancing around for a while waiting.

And this is a shower that any nature lover would appreciate. Many people pay to have this kind of shower in their homes. I do have to tell you though, that the shower walls are high enough for the average MAN, but if you happen to be a tall WOMAN,..well ..let’s just say, they you might want to squat down a bit, as the walls are a bit short.

Once we got the camp set up, we headed over to the little cafe/office to have some lunch. It was quite warm the day we arrived, so a nice cold drink and some lunch was needed.

Views from the deck were enjoyed while we waited for our gourmet pizza to arrive. Chris had a mango smoothie (milk shake) and I had carrot juice.

And we watched people come and go. And there was a mix of dogs and kids around the yard to keep us entertained.

Chris found a little mate that he wanted to bring home with us. The pup stayed with us the whole two days we were there. Even sleeping on top of our clothes bag tucked inside Chris’s jacket.

At first glance you could swear that this was a miniature version of a dingo. He actually belonged to the local aboriginal group, but he was deemed a ‘free spirit’ as he made his way around the campsites and cafe and the beach. Col nicknamed him “Ding” …short for …DINGO! of course.

The following day we toured around the area and noted that there were several bush fires in the area.

And with the breezes carrying it across the bush, those that lived here were keeping an eye on it.

Well, we came and saw,.. and decided that while there were some nice spots here, it wasn’t really anything to write home about. And after a rough nights sleep, we headed back to Broome to pick the vans up and start heading east. Rough nights’ sleep?..oh yeah,..we have a queen size blow up mattress which normally works really good. But after being told to make sure you blow it ‘all the way up’,..it started popping it’s gaskets and we ended up with a mattress that looked like it had giant measles. And then throw in the normal ‘rolling’ over in bed and lumpy bits…(sigh) yep…it was a couple of rough nights. So now a new mattress is needed. Did I say mattrESS…make that TWO SINGLE mattresses. I think that’s going to work out a bit better.

Anyway, we’ve landed here just south of Derby at Wullare Roadhouse. And after packing all the winter woolies away last week, the night cooled down to around 10 deg/52F and with only two thermal blankets, Chris woke up at 4 this morning snuggling in. I woke up, threw my extra blanket on him, put the heater on, and he’s back to snoozing again. I may have to drag that doona back out.

Anyway, we’re sitting on the Fitzroy River, but you can’t go swimming as there’s crocodiles in the water up here, not that you would KNOW that, as there’s NO SIGNS. Queensland usually has “Auctung” signs, but not here. Western Australia doesn’t believe in signs for tourists. And trying to find the touristy places is hard, as there’s no signs to let you know what’s in the area. And bitumen roads are few, so it’s more of a challenge to find places to see and visit. I think the government budget is too small to accommodate the tourist trade. Who knows?

We’ll be in Derby later this morning and we’ll be there for 5 days. So more fishing is in order before we take our flight over the Horizontal Waterfalls next Tuesday. Oh yeah,..and there’s “R n R” as well, before we leave.

Life in the fast lane……at Broome?

2009-07-25T23:23:00.001+10:00

Here we are enjoying life in the fast lane. Well,….maybe not in the fast lane,..just the slow lane, cause it IS Broome. It’s hot and humid here. And after being in dry, cool climes, it’s taking some getting used to. So after a couple of rough nights of sleep, ‘nanny’ naps are par for the course.

Last night we had a sunset dinner overlooking Cable Beach and guess who forgot her camera? (me) It was a REALLY nice sunset and I can see why it was a popular place for sunsets. The meal was fantastic and the company was fun.

Well, we landed a couple of days ago and as per usual, we refuelled, restocked, and got the lay of the land. And because there was a queue for the laundry facilities yesterday, Chris was up there bright and early this morning. (good husband, that he is) 6am to be precise, putting clothes in the washer. By the time he was finished putting the clothes IN the washer, there was a queue behind him.

And now the clothes are done and we did a little touring around the countryside.

Tonight, we just came back from the picture theatre. We saw Ice Age 3 in this theatre. What’s so special about this theatre you ask?

It’s an out door cinema, complete with wooden floors and canvas seats. And with a quarter moon sitting just above and behind the screen, it was awesome. I really loved that outdoor environment. It was a cool balmy night and the moths flashing about, looked more like shooting stars. Even the occasional plane came in for a landing over head at the nearby airport, but it didn’t detour you from enjoying the film. This outdoor cinema has been here since around the early 1900’s. There really should be more of these cinemas, they’re so cool.

This is one of the old pearling luggers getting renovated. Broome was discovered in 1861. And once the British realized that they could make money from the pearling industry, they brought in divers from Japan, Indonesia, and the local Aboriginals. And needless to say, pearls were abundant in all the local shops.

And we’re not sure if this is the same square rigger that followed us up the coast from Fremantle or not, as it looks a bit brighter than the last ones we’ve seen along the coastline.

We took a trip out to the lighthouse this afternoon. This particular one isn’t made out of stone like the others. It’s made out of timber and steel.

The rocky formations around the lighthouse were beautiful as the reds and ochre, contrasted with the azure blue sea. At low tide, there’s even some dinosaur foot prints out on the rocks. But they’re only visible at extremely low tides.

This pool was created for the original lighthouse keeper’s wife, who had severe arthritis. She would bathe daily in the warm salty water.

As we made our way back, we realized that a sea eagle had made it’s nest above in the lighthouse. Here, she is eating a fresh caught fish, still squirming.

We ended the afternoon quickly, as Chris was eager to have a nap. What with the warm temperatures and humidity, he hasn’t been sleeping well at night. So he was eager for a lie down this afternoon.

Tomorrow, we head out to Malcolm Douglas’s Alligator farm and then pack for our campout at Cape Leveque. (Which reminds me, we’ll be out of radio range for a few days.) Well, I’m off to do some catching up on my Facebook games, emails, and general stuff, see ya when we get back!

Hiding out at Eighty Mile Beach.

2009-07-21T19:28:00.001+10:00

We headed out of Tom Price and landed in Port Hedland. There wasn’t a lot to do there. And in actuality, we stayed at South Hedland because Port Hedland was booked out. So we stayed at the dubious Black Rocks at South Hedland. Dubious?..you ask.. yes dubious.

We pulled in and were told there’s ten spaces left, “pick whichever one you want.” HUH?! okay. And we picked out a spot, miniscule that it was. Obviously an older caravan park due to the ‘small’ spaces. Very cramped it was. But we made it in and we made it out. I KNOW that Col and Margaret were EVER so happy to leave that place. One thing it DID have going for it, was that the washing was only $2 per load. No dryers,..and if you could find room on the clothes line, it was good.

And here we are now,..hiding out at Eighty Mile Beach. Sun, Sand, and Surf. And no reception for computers OR telephones.

Known as Eighty Mile Beach for obvious reasons. As far as you can see, beach only and little or NO PEOPLE.

We watched the sun go down over the ocean on the first day here. The second day, we decided to do some fishing. We did find a spot that was a creek outlet. Unfortunately, as we waited for the tide to rise and fill the inlet, we came to realize that it would never fill unless it was an EXCEPTIONAL high tide. So we opted for fishing along the shore which resulted in no fish, no bites, not even a nibble.

But we HAVE been finding some WONDERFUL seashells. My small collection has grown to a large dish now, to hold the many beautiful shells.

And today, being the third full day here, Chris has fixed the plumbing problem that we’ve had for the past 4 months, whereby we didn’t have any water in the bathroom vanity bowl. We do now. Which means we can brush our teeth in the bathroom instead of the kitchen sink. And we’ve read books and watched DVDs. We’re off to do some fishing this afternoon, which had the same results as before. HOWEVER, we DID find a rod and reel. After leaving a note with the caravan park office, the gentleman who lost it, picked it up at “happy hour”.

Tomorrow will bring another leisurely day and now that I’ve finished the Matthew Reilly book,Temple; it must mean it’s time to work on the crochet. BUT only after one more day of fishing and if there’s not another queue, I’ll even try washing a couple loads of clothes.

Tom Price.

2009-07-10T08:39:00.001+10:00

Tom Price. A small mining town that’s named after a geologist who discovered the rich iron ore in this area.

We hopped onto a bus and headed off to Rio Tinto, where there’s big money and even bigger trucks. We donned our safety glasses and helmets before leaving the visitor center in town out to a large iron ore mine.

These trucks were HUGE to say the least. As you can see by comparison to a normal 4WD ute.

The views from the mine are great. Approximately nine hundred people are employed here.

This was the result when one of those large trucks ran over this ute.

These engines total 12,000 hp. which tows ore filled cars to Dampier on the coast. The length of the average train is about 2.5 to 3 KILOMETRES long!!!

These cars are waiting to be filled. It takes roughly 3 hours to fill all of the cars.

The ore gets crushed and sorted here.

Once we returned to the visitor center, we stopped here at a display truck. As you can see, these trucks are huge. I feel positively little here!

The mine tour was an interesting tour, filled with lots of facts and figures. But lets just suffice it to say, it’s big business and it’s one of our top exports to other countries.

And this morning, we’re up at 5:30 again getting ready for the next tour which leaves at 7:30.

Continuing through to Tom Price….

2009-07-09T14:36:00.001+10:00

Okay,..continuing on….

We landed at Hammersley gorge only to realize that there’s no camping in that part of the park. But there was a stop for trucks and roadtrains just inside the turnoff.

So, we stayed there for the night so we could have an early start the next day.

The gorge was great! The boys had decided they would go swimming. We were told that the waters would be freezing I opted out.

The rocky walls were something.

So the guys headed down the gorge to parts unknown. It wasn’t too much later that Chris returned and said, “Kath! you GOTTA go down there!..It’s GREAT!”

And even after watching Col gasping from the initial shock of cold water, I jumped in. Later, as the people started coming into the ravine, we decided that it was time for a quick cup of coffee and heading out to Tom Price.

The beauty of the country once again, is unsurpassing.

Well, after collecting loads of dust, I’ve cleaned everything up and we should be ready for our trip out of the Pilbara by Saturday. Today, we’re heading off on a tour of the Tom Price mine. And tomorrow, we’re doing a tour of Karajini National Park. We were told there was LOTS of people in the Karajini campgrounds and it was practically standing room only, so we opted to stay here and take a tour bus in from here.

From Karratha to Millstream NP,..to Hammersley Gorge.

2009-07-09T12:14:00.001+10:00

So many days have passed since Karratha and so many things have happened, that I will only gloss over the bits that stand out the most.

My computer reception at Karratha was sketchy at the best, so I couldn’t upload anything. I even thought there was something wrong with my computer because Chris could get reception, but me, with the new “ yew beaut” computer couldn’t get ANYTHING. But, we’re now at a place called Tom Price, which is a large mining town in the Pilbara range area. I’ve already uploaded all the photos and processed one blog, so here’s a couple more coming up.

Here we go…

After we left Karratha, this was our first spot that we stopped at. It was inside a riverbed. The water left in the river is called a billabong. There was small fish in it and plenty of birdlife around it.

We had a lot of ground to cover across the plains. We were heading into a national park called Millstream-Chichester NP.

This hill called Pyramid Hill is the forerunner into the national park.

These little Zebra finches were fluttering around the campsite. It was hard to get a good focus on them as they kept moving too fast for the cameraman.

And unbeknownst to us, there was an oasis about 500 mtrs from our campsite. We discovered it by accident. And it wasn’t too long ago that a cyclone that came through. The floods flattened the grass around the area and left debris everywhere. There was a homestead here called Millstream and as with most colonial homes, they parked it right next to the fresh water running creek, not knowing that it spreads out during floods and cyclone season!

The sheer beauty of this lagoon made you want to stay and bask in the serenity of it all. The water was around 4 to 6 ft deep and crystal clear. You can even see the fish!

This is also where I had my first canoe trip. It was awesome. Where we started off, the corellas were screeching and you can hear the people talking, but as we paddled up river, the noise diminished and then you could hear the wind in the trees and the babbling creeks flowing into the Fortesque River. We only paddled a couple of times into the banks and went aground on one shallow area. But it was still fun!

We stopped at the cliff lookout to view the sunset over the valley. Tomorrow, we head out to Tom Price.

On the way to Tom Price, halfway down the dirt road, we came across this. There had been an accident where a truck overturned. There were 16 people on board. 6 adults in the cab and 10 kids on the back. A large bull walked out in front of their convoy and they swerved to miss it. Three people had to be airlifted out. I was so surprised to see the fire dept., the police dept., and the helicopter way out here in the middle of what seemed like nowhere.

The dirt road had been lined with cars and people. It was so sad for the family. I think Chris unconsciously slowed down a little after that. You just never know when a roo or a cow runs in front of you out here in the bush until it’s too late.

We stopped here for lunch. You’ll notice that the spare wheel covers on the back are red, not black. Once again, there was a bit of dust in the van. (which I spent yesterday cleaning up) Here, Chris was getting ready to tape the door up. Most of the dust seemed to be coming in from there.

We headed into the Hammersley Gorge area.

As we wound our way through this small gorge we came out the other side to our turn off and our campsite for the night.

Next stop, Hammersley Gorge….(too be continued…..)

Karratha, a busy little mining town.

2009-07-08T20:48:00.001+10:00

We made our plans to start at 8:30 this morning to do our sight-seeing. We headed out to check the road to Millstream/Chichester National Park. Chris wanted to make sure that it would be suitable for the caravan..and it was.

So our next stop was to have morning tea by the river.

But there wasn’t anywhere to stop, so we continued on back to Roebourne to visit the gaol/visitor center.

Roebourne gaol is one of those gaols that has a sordid past. Most of the inmates were aborginals, who were brought out from the scrub to act as slaves for the British colonials. And when the aboriginals rebelled, many were tortured and executed. Not exactly a glowing history.

We wandered around the town checking out some of the ruins of the colonial buildings that were left.

When we travelled around the peninsula to Cossack, we discovered another little historical town and so many wildflowers!

The colours caught my eyes.

Cossack, once a thriving pearling town has turned into a ghost town of yesteryear.

We stopped in to a little area where we thought it would be good to fish and Margaret proved us right! She caught two yellow-fin bream. We also caught some more little ones, but kissed ‘em and threw them back. And once again, I caught 5 or 6 “Rock” fish and lost more hooks.

At the day’s end, we drove to the top of “TV” hill and looked out across the bay. It was a pleasant end to a pleasant day.

Tomorrow, we head out to Dampier and the southern peninsula. Maybe even do a little more fishing. I think I’m getting into the swing of this.

Exploring Karratha….

2009-07-03T08:23:00.001+10:00

Well, we’ve settled in Karratha for the next few days. We had stopped in to a little place called Onslow, where fishing was the primary sport and the salt mine was the primary occupation. So there wasn’t too much around to see, apart from those two things. We were all eager to leave it behind. Onslow’s boast, were the tall termite mounds, if that gives you any indication to the “wonders” of the area.

After that, we headed up to a little place by the beach called 40 Mile Beach, where we were told that the fish practically jump on the line. Now THIS was a nice little spot as we parked the vans on the crest of the sand dune overlooking the sea.

We threw our lines in, only to have the fish grab the bait .. and then catch the hooks under the rocks!! I lost 6 to 8 hooks fishing there. But the seashells we collected more than made up for the lack of fish.

The following morning we decided to head out to the mangroves to catch some Mangrove Jack. And while the sunrise was spectacular, and the light was just shining over the horizon, we headed over there to see if we would have any luck.

My knees and hip were playing up, so Chris threw his line in and I took photos from my comfy chair. As we drove in, you could hear and see the fish coming up to the top of the water, but nothing took the bait. And there was a few lines that got snagged in the reeds under the water.

We decided to drive further around the point and found these little Sturt Peas. They’re a wonderful ground cover with very beautiful colouring.

We stopped here for morning tea to watch the tide go out. And after our coffee and biscuits, we needed to make a move to get to Karratha, so we headed back to load the vans up.

I’m really surprised that the National Park group hasn’t claimed this land. The seashells that are being washed out of the sand and the rocks, I’m sure, are thousands of years old. You can SEE where this was an old seabed. But I’m sure the campers and the fishermen are glad they haven’t claimed it yet.

And on this wide spot in the road, the boys put air back into the tyres and I listened to Vivaldi and played Codewords. Well, it only takes one person to put air in the tyres, so SOMEBODY (me) needs to keep occupied while they’re busy.

And now that we’ve landed at Karratha, I’ve washed five loads of clothes and took the doona and the flannel sheets off the bed. We’re heading into tropical weather once again, so the summer wear will start coming out again. And we’ve restocked the pantry for the van AND the car.

Tomorrow we explore this area and maybe even throw a fishing line here. We’ve only got a few places left to fish before Broome and then we start heading inland…and home. And if I can keep my computer working, I might even be able to post this blog! Darn thing keeps playing up!

Exploring Exmouth

2009-06-29T14:03:00.001+10:00

To explore Exmouth, we dropped our caravans off at the Bullara Station. Like the Hamelin Homestead, it too, is a working station. I’m starting to notice that quite a few stations are taking in caravans and campers to bring in those tourist dollars. And surprisingly enough, the actual caravan parks are BOOKED OUT along the northern part of Western Australia. You wouldn’t think that you would have any problems getting accommodation when you travel for miles and miles through bush land and scrub. But yes, you do indeed have to book ahead, otherwise you’re off to the side of the road for the night.

At any rate, we did have a great time at the station and along the Exmouth peninsula.

We found a nice shady spot under the trees, complete with a campfire area so we could roast that large piece of pork I bought in Coober Pedy.

This shearing shed no longer in use, epitomizes the wool industry and country life. Take note of the motors used for the shears, along with the timbers used.

The posts, long ago created by the early pioneers and settlers . Farmer Tim, no longer shears sheep, he has the breed for meat export only.

And these little lambs as you can see are not the Merino variety, but a long legged breed.

And no station is complete without the outdoor “dunny”. Although, this one is VERY modern on the inside.

Complete with a flushing toilet and bore water shower.

We stopped at Exmouth for morning tea and found that square rigger we saw earlier at Monkey Mia. And there were a few dolphins in the bay as well.

I lost a hook to the “rock” fish above, so I decided to throw a line into the marina behind Chris. And lo and behold, I caught a rather large bream!! Unfortunately, it was the ONLY fish we caught. I had to get Chris to get the line and fish away from the rocks. He also cleaned and scaled it for us.

The Exmouth lighthouse was our next stop. From there, we had 360 deg. views from the top of the hill.

This odd looking fellow is a bustard. I thought at first it was a baby emu, but no. It’s also known as a “bush” turkey. They are native to this area.

The road stops here. At Yardie Creek. We had to wait for low tide so we could cross. I did step out into and I sank about 6 inches into the sand, so there was no way a 3 ton Scout was going to make it across this.

While it doesn’t look that deep, it was quite deceptive.

So in the meantime, Chris and Col headed up the gorge to have a look while Margaret and I made a cup of tea.

I’m only sorry that we didn’t make it in time for the tour boat ride up the gorge. The contrasting colours and high cliffs were beautiful.

And as we waited for the tide to get lower,

you wouldn’t have believed me if I told you. But out here,…in the middle of nowhere,..the lone piper could be heard. And in actuality, his wife was taking his picture as the sun set. In full regalia.

I wanted to ask him to play Amazing Grace, but we had dropped the air in the tyres by then and we were ready to make it across.

One by one, we started across.

Col, being second

And this lone englishman here on holidays, he too, came across.

Next stop was to find a place to camp for the night. We found a small camp area and quickly set up the tents just on the other side of the dunes. The winds came up the following morning, so fishing was out of the question. So we headed south towards Ningaloo Reef and Coral Bay.

The kangaroos were thick through here. Mingled with sheep and goats, all tried to quickly get out of our way.

The colours and sizes of the wild goats was amazing. Along with some of the horn sizes on the billies.

Many sand dunes were interspersed with the scrub and just the other side the beautiful waters of Ningaloo.

Coral Bay, the hotspot in WA. So many tourists! We stopped in for fuel and grabbed a quick bite to eat while we watched the swimmers and snorkelers.

Our day ended back at Bullara Station. We had our beautiful pork roast for dinner complete with roasted vegies and fresh apple sauce.

We left the following morning headed to Onslow. And we’ll be here now for a day and then on to Karratha.

The Exmouth peninsula was nice, but not quite as spectacular at Steep Point Peninsula. Yardie Gorge was the high spot on that day.

And now we’re off to explore Onslow and it’s surrounds.

Dismal days in Carnarvon

2009-06-24T21:53:00.001+10:00

I should have figured it all out when we parked right…at the back…of the caravan park. Complete with it’s own bowling green. We unpacked everything and headed straight up to the shops for food and put the cruiser through a car wash. There was a bowl's tournament going on right outside our door. Old folks in their whites having a great time. Even had over the loudspeaker that you can join the boot scootin’ in the hall, or gentle gym. All of these geared around the 70 + yr olds. And this place was PACKED with them.

And then the rains settled in for the night and the rest of the day. We went for a drive around town to see what it had to offer. Not much. There were storm warnings out, so even the fishing fleet was grounded.

We wandered around the marina for a few minutes, but with the weather so bad, we headed back to the caravan to settle in for the day.

Today, we basically cleaned up, partially packed up, and took a trip down to the jetty and lighthouse museum.

The weather was still gusty, but at least the rains had stopped. We wandered around the lighthouse keeper’s house and through the sheds. And there was a small train trip up the jetty which goes over the mangroves.

After the rains, the water was very dirty at the mouth of the river.

But the local birdlife didn’t seem to mind it all.

Well, we’re packed now and ready for an early start in the morning. We’re headed to Bullara Station, which was recommended by the last caretakers of the last station we stayed at. From there we’ll explore Exmouth and the peninsula. i believe more camping and fishing are in order.

A truly WONDERFUL weekend!!!

2009-06-23T01:42:00.001+10:00

We landed in Carnarvon late this afternoon. We’ve spent the last two days camping out, on the furthest peninsula in Shark Bay. It’s been an awesome time.

We left our vans at Hamelin Station, which is an actual sheep farming station.(aka ranch) And then we headed off to the most western point in Australia, Steep Point.

We stopped here for morning tea. We had heard a story about a mackeral in these waters, so I tossed a line in to see if I could catch him. I actually spotted the two foot beast in the shallow waters, but he never even went near the bait! hrrmph!!

We crossed sand dunes and salt lake pans.

It was like we took a wrong turn and landed in the Sahara desert!!

We stopped here for lunch. While I made sandwiches, Chris threw a line in and spotted a dorsal fin that belonged to a 4ft shark in these shallow waters. I collected some really neat pieces of coral and seashells along this shore.

This was our camp for the night. Right next to the seashore. Once the tents were set up, we headed up to the furthest western point for the sunset.

We watched the sun set at this point. Col even spotted some whales out at sea, making their way north to the Broome area.

The power of the ocean is beyond comprehension until you come and listen and watch the roaring tide hit the cliffs with such fierceness. And just behind that spray stands Col, right on the edge of the cliff face.

I always get nervous when he walks so close to the edge. It’s like a 100 ft drop to the rocks below.

And the first day of camping ended at Steep Point, the furthest west you can go in Australia.

We woke up the next morning to fresh air and a cup of coffee. As we sat there waking up, I notice some fish jumping around in the water. So we all quickly grabbed our gear to start fishing!

Fishing Goddess that I am, ..I didn’t even bother changing out of my PJ’s. I just rolled them up and started fishing! I caught two fish and found a starfish!

But this was no ordinary morning!..we saw some dolphins come in and the fish were just SKIPPING across the TOP of the water! It was the most amazing site! The dolphins swam furiously chasing and eating the fish we were trying to catch.

But we had four fish, one each for breakky and it was beautiful! Four pieces of whiting.

These blowholes dot the cliffs along the shore. These two at False Entrance are fairly large ones.

The water was like a washing machine. The swells enormous and pounding the the coastline with ferocity.

It was getting late in to the day, so we started heading back to the vans and it was still a long way to go. Ol’ Eagle Eye, Col, spotted more whales making their way north. Unfortunately, they were too far for me to take a picture of them.

We came back to the spot we had our previous morning tea, and while the boys put air back into their tyres, Margaret and I collected shells and watched the sun go down.

This has been such a wonderful weekend. Not only did we see more fantastic sights, but we started the weekend with news that Scott was going to ask Jenny to marry him. Congratulations to Jenny and Scott, we wish you both many happy years together.

A big day out, but a wonderful day out too.

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It’s been a LONG, but WONDERFUL day. We got up at 5am and left at 7am to go and feed the dolphins at Monkey Mia. (pronounced my-ah, not me-ah. It’s Aboriginal) This ritual has been going on for years. It was in 1963 that the governments listed this whole Shark Bay area a World Heritage Environmental Marine Park.

When we got there the dolphins were already waiting for their FREE handouts. It was interesting to see these beautiful wild mammals swimming so close to the beach ready for their interaction with humans.

The rangers keep a strict control on how much fish is fed to the dolphins so they learn to feed themselves and their babies.

These little guys were resting on the end of the jetty and just watching the people.

THIS,..is where we got the most excitement from. Here at Cape Peron, we spotted two sea turtles, a couple of sting rays, 3 tiger sharks, and several dolphins. All swimming around this cove for food. We spotted some Skipjack, aka Spanish Mackerel, nearly 3 feet long!! And one of the ladies in our group spotted either a sea snake or an eel amongst the rocks.(even though nobody else saw it, “sure Sandy,sure”) We spent quite a bit of time at this point just gazing into to the cove to see what else we might find, as dugongs were known to haunt this area as well. (there’s more photos in Flickr Slideshow)

We stopped here at Gregorie’s beach for lunch. Once we finished, we headed up to the beach to have a look.

This is one of those special places where the contrasting colours are just vibrant. We played in the water and we played in the sand.

And Chris chased the birds for us, so we could get the birds in flight.

One by one, they flew off.

And, our first incident happened. The Scout got bogged,..or “temporarily stopped” as Col says. But with a few shovels of sand away from the tyres, he was out in no time at all.

This was a beautiful beach. Once again, the red sand met the blue ocean and it all it does is make you want to take a swim despite the cold temperature of the water.

We weren’t sure if these guys knew they were just standing on a sandy shelf or not. But the group quickly dispersed once they realized there were fresh oysters on the rocks below.

There were some large salt pans that we travelled through to get to the tip of the peninsula and back again.

And then incident number 2 happened. The Scout got bogged. AGAIN!! 4WD never got engaged. Margaret said there was a loud “clunk”. Well, that’s not good news, but once again, sand was dug out away from the tyres and Col kicked it into gear and made his way to the other side of the hill on to the beachfront. And much to his chagrin, Chris gave him a hard time about getting bogged TWICE in one day. But he took it on the chin gracefully and with good humour.

We stopped in at the Big Lagoon on the way home. Here we had a cup of coffee and biscuits to end the day’s excursion.

Yes, it’s been a big day, but an absolutely beautiful day. You couldn’t have asked for better weather. And we saw so many fish and wildlife today, it was exciting.

Tomorrow?..don’t know, I’m still savouring today.

As we make our way up along the WA border.

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This is where we were today. Overlooking Kalbarri. Rob, this is where we were, when you and I were talking on the phone earlier.

View from the Hawk’s nest. The Murchinson River flows very gently through this valley. The warm sun felt good on our backs as the cool breeze flowed around us.

Just a little further up the river, we found a spot where we could walk down to the water. Chris was braver than I, (and better balanced), so he managed his way over the rocks to take this picture.

This Banksia almost looks like ice creams in trees, as we travelled along the roads.

We stopped here for a quick cuppa and a bit of a fish. The tea and biscuits were great, but no bites on the fishing line.

At the end of the day, we came back in to town and these little guys, Galahs, are EVERYWHERE! feeding on grass seeds as the sun goes down.

We didn’t stay to watch the sunset tonight, but we did have a peek at the waves washing ashore.

And today, I feel a bit more settled knowing we’re on the last leg of our journey. We have three more months to go and I can honestly say that I’m ready to head home now. But there IS more to see and do, so we’ll take it all in as we head back to Hervey Bay.

Walking in Jurassic Park and sampling seafood…

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Move over Fred Flintstone. I’m sure we went to Jurassic park today and the only thing missing was the dinosaurs!

A little over 100klms north of Perth is a park called The Pinnacles. These limestone structures were left over from 400 billion years ago, as they formed up around the tree roots of the ancient trees. The sands have formed up and receded down around these rock formations for years.

This one way path led us through this valley of limestone boulders. It was an eerie sight to see these still standing after so many years.

It was an amazing sight to see this, and I was so surprised to see so many people here! It’s amazing what you find in the remotest places!

We ended the day near a small outlook across the water. As you can see, we’re due for some rain tonight.

And for the first time in 18 years, I had some lobster for dinner. The lobster we saw further down in South Australia, was far too expensive, but this little beauty was only $20!! So I bought two. And while poor Chris has allergies to some shellfish, lobster included…he did not go without. He had scallops and pickled octopus. So a seafood fest was to finish our night out. And tomorrow we head up to a little place called Monkey Mia.

The last couple of days in Perth before we head off…

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Forty five pictures. That’s how many I took of this beautiful sunset over Lancelin, north of Perth. We watched the crayfish boats come in and drop their loads off and then moor their boats for the night. The locals tolerated our presence as we stood on the jetty sipping tea and watching the sun slide down in to the Indian Ocean, as they tried to manoeuvre their cars around us.

We found this Gravity Observatory in the middle of the bush near GinGin. THIS, was a very interesting place. They talked about the laws of gravity and the effects of gravitational waves on the planet. A real eye opener. No, this picture isn’t an eye…but a black hole.

This little guy was out the front of the building. He was very busy eating as much of the nectar that he could, off this Banksia bush.

Earlier in the day, we stopped for lunch at Two Rocks Marina. We sat in the back of the cars eating our sandwiches as we watched a fishing boat come in to the marina on the opposite side of the road.

THIS is one of the things I love most about Australia. It’s pristine waters. I never get tired of seeing the azure water.

And tomorrow, we get ready to continue our trip. We’re even going to try and squeeze another movie in before we go, as it will be the last time for a while. In the meantime, enjoy the photos on Slideshow. I do apologise for so many sunset shots, but it was bound to happen, especially after taking so many.

Big day touring off the Western Australian coast

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We did a WHOLE day of touring yesterday. We chose Option 5, which was to have a ferry to Fremantle, a tram tour IN Fremantle, and then a ferry out to Rottnest Island, which is just 19klm off the coast of Perth, and THEN,..a tour coach ride on the island. Needless to say it was a BIG day.

We were picked up at 7am and taken to the jetty. It was then we realized that we were REALLY early. So we wandered around and took a few photos of the general area.

Perth is one of the nicest cities I’ve seen. The air is clear, for one. The Saturday morning traffic is calm, flowing freely through the city. So I played with all the different options on the camera trying to get a ‘feel’ for it. And Chris went to get a warm cup of coffee.

At 9am we headed to Fremantle, towards the mouth of the Swan River. The overhead speaker telling us about the “who’s who” owning which house, along the shores.

Our Tram and driver, stopped at the top of the highest hill, which was reserved for the Soldiers Memorial. You’ll notice that the trams now have wheels instead of tracks. This allowed the driver access to streets so that we could see more of the city. And after seeing the old historic town, we’ve decided that we might head there tomorrow for the Fremantle Markets and more photos.

These markets opposite the jetty, allowed us to grab a quick bite to eat before heading off the Rottnest Island.

We landed on Rottnest Island, noticing the pristine waters that are similar to other areas in Australia.

There are MANY moorings here for boats. And little did I realize what a hotspot it was for tourists.

There’s accommodation here on the island, but there’s a catch. They run a ballot to pick names out of a hat, so you can have the princely privilege of paying up to $2000 per week for a unit. Now mind you, you CAN have up to eight people stay in the unit, but still. And if it’s in the middle of summer, you can overlook the little bay,…. where today there’s only 3 boats moored. But in the summer, you won’t be able to SEE the little bay because of the boats being moored.

And these little guys are called Quokkas. While they move like a kangaroo, they have a ‘rat-like’ tail on them, but still a marsupial. Rottnest Island was originally called “Rat’s Nest” Island because of their rat-like appearance. It was later adopted to Rottnest Island. These little guys are very cute, but if they eat human foods, they can be come sickly and die.

And because it was an island off the coast of Perth, the colonials decided it was a good spot for a gaol. But this gaol was for aboriginals and later became a boys farm as well. And then later closed to become a tourist attraction.

The waters surrounding the island can match any tropical reef in Queensland. The clarity of the water was fabulous.

Most people hired bikes and rode around the island at a more leisurely pace. But we were on the ‘whirlwind’ tour which captures a bit of everything.

And this morning, we’re off to the Fremantle Markets. It’s their last day, so we’re hoping to cover that and see a few more historical buildings up close and personal.

Perth, we’re actually here, half way around Australia.

2009-06-02T10:49:00.001+10:00

We’re in Perth. This means we’re half way around Australia now. We have four months left to explore the northern part of WA and the top end of the Northern Territory. We’ve already figured out whatever we miss on this trip, we’ll pick up on the Canning stock route trip, so it won’t be a problem.

Today is going to be “organize” day. Chris is getting tyres replaced and a general service on the Landcruiser, while Col is getting his differential fixed.

So today, we have to work out where things are. There’s a lot to see here in Perth, but the rains have started up and it looks like it has settle in for a few days. So I reckon a movie or two is in store, and maybe some retail “GIRL” shopping. And we have to work out whether to see everything in one day or break it up over several days. We’ll be here for a week or so, so there’s no rush.

Okay!! What to see first!…now where’s those tourist pamphlets?