Our move to Karrinyup, which is a northern suburb of Perth, coincided with the increase in the temperature. The caravan park was delightful with lots of grass and lakes with ducks and swans. We no longer judge the parks by the pool as it is not warm enough to use them. Hopefully that will change soon.
Our old NBFs, Janet and Rob joined us on Friday and the days and evenings became a lot more interesting. Stephen no longer had to put up with just me, he had someone else to play with!! I must admit it was nice to speak to someone other than him as well. Over the next week we spent days sitting in the sun, reading and chatting and on occasions went for a drive to do some shopping or have a look at the coast.
Our weekend was very social. On Friday night we had dinner at Suzanne and Adrian’s home in Mosman Park. Suzanne and Adrian were our ‘partners in crime’ on the Great Escape cruise we had last year. It was as though we had just stepped off the boat, the conversation flowed as did the wine. Sunday morning we drove into West Perth to Jen and Warren’s apartment overlooking Kings Park and the Swan. They too were with us on the Great Escape last year. It was lovely to see them again and to recall all the wonderful memories we had of our 2008 adventure. We were privileged to cruise with them on Warren’s boat “Cyanic”, a 50’ Riviera, very nice indeed. We were joined by two other couples and Suzanne, unfortunately Adrian was singing in a concert and was unable to join us, for the trip up the Swan from South of Perth Yacht Club. We anchored near Freshwater Bay for a lovely BBQ lunch. Adrian joined us when we came back to the marina. Thanks to Jen and Warren for a wonderful day. That leaves only 3 from, in the words of Sue Pentelow, “the fishing trip”, that we have not caught up with. We hope to catch up with Sue as a visit to Adelaide is scheduled for the trip home so watch out Tasmania (Jane and Brian).
While watching the reports on the rugby league grand final over here (WA), you will all be pleased to know that the most reported item on the Melbourne Storm win over Canterbury was that the Storm originated from the old Perth Reds thereby somehow making it a Western Australian victory. Congrats to all of WA on this amazing feat!!!!
Wednesday I celebrated my ## birthday with lunch at the Soda Café at North Beach with Stephen, Janet and Rob. At the tender age of ## this is the first time I have ever been able to spend my birthday outdoors in the sun looking at the beach. We had a wonderful meal although the wine left a little to be desired. We drank it anyway!! A birthday with NBFs, what will the OBFs say?? Also a first, I received a birthday call from each member of my Dalton family. Obviously my being absent makes their hearts grow fonder, although Sue, I wish you hadn’t called me at 5.55am (or #:##)!! Thanks to all those who rang or emailed me, it was lovely to hear from youse all, especially Fynn, Maggie and Frances and of course, Cath, Julian, Pat and Fleur.
On Thursday morning Stephen drove the caravan to a nearby service centre to be ‘serviced’. By noon he was back to pick me up at Janet and Rob’s where we said our goodbyes and headed off to Woodman’s Point, which is about 10 kms south of Fremantle. As it was still WA school holidays we were biding time before heading south. We will probably not see Janet and Rob on this particular journey again as they are heading back to Qld and we are not. You can now feel happy Ails that we no longer have any friends left on this trip, unless we befriend someone else!! However, they are coming to see us in Melbourne in the new year.
We spent Friday in Fremantle at the Maritime Museum, the market, walking around the streets and admiring the wonderful old architecture of this very quaint town. We also drove to Cottesloe Beach just so that we could say we had been there.
Saturday morning we left for …….. we didn’t know ……. but as the weather had again turned sour we thought we would head away from the coast and go inland. This turned out to be a very good idea as the drive was delightful with rolling green hills and lots of farm animals. We drove through Pinjarra, where we stopped at the Saturday morning farmers’ market and tasted juices, fudge, olives and cheese and bought some handmade curry paste and some bio-organic rump steak. Next stop was at Coolup where diesel was a record low 113.9 per litre. This is the cheapest we have paid on the whole trip. We were thrilled when we arrived at the next petrol station and it was 120.9 per litre. Finally a win!! Next was Harvey where we visited HaVe cheeses and tasted their samples. We purchased a lovely soft triple cream Ash Blonde brie and some yukky blue for Stephen. The day was disappearing and the weather starting to close in so we settled on stopping in Collie. What we thought would be a lovely little country village surprised us when we were confronted with a town of 19,000 which swells to 30,000 mid week when the miners arrive Monday morning. We unhooked the van and took a drive out to Harris River Estate and Block 42 Brewery for a taste then onto Wellington Dam for a look see. The dam was full but we were told that the day before it had been overflowing – dam, we missed it. We continued through the Wellington National Park, a very pretty drive to see the King Jarrah, which was a dud. By now it was quite late so we decided to try one of the 5 pubs in town for a counter tea. We settled on the Fed (The Federal Hotel) where the clientele was very reminiscent of the “Bay of Pigs” at the old Vic Park: an IQ of around 90 and an average of 3 teeth each. The night was very, very cold and the following morning grim.
Sunday we had the same plan ……… none. By 9.30 we were in Boyup Brook, the country music capital of WA. Yahoo!! Of course as it was so early nothing was open, except the churches so we headed for St Dodgem’s and found ourselves in …. Bridgetown. This was a lovely little town of 1,600, but most of them were still asleep. As the rain came down we bought a hot chocolate at the café then as the town came to life and shops opened, we strolled around and visited the Christmas shop, as you do. While there we received a call from the Mitchell Footy Tipping crew who were waiting for us to arrive for the end of season BBQ. Stephen gave them his bank details so that the winnings could be directly credited to his account. He does live in a fantasy world at times. The drive through to Nannup was lovely - at one stage the temperature reading was 12 degrees although it was quite sunny - and we decided to spend the rest of the day there. A trip to another cheese producer and a winery rounded off a very pleasant day. Our side trip into the country proved to be a winner.
The big news item this night was that Guy McKenna (Gold Coast) had signed Brandon Matera, son of Wally and nephew of Peter!!!!! It’s really hard when you are travelling in a different country!! You don’t know what major news items you are missing. Now we do believe that “WA” stands for “WE’RE ALONE”.
Monday saw us driving through Busselton to Yallingup, by the beach. The weather report had promised improved conditions over the next week so we were preparing for some sun. We spent 3 days waiting for it to come out and, it finally did, …… as we were packing up to move on Thursday. Meanwhile we spent a pleasant couple of days taking in the wineries, galleries and food of Margaret River, always hard work!! We also managed to fit in a couple of stops along the coast to check out the surf and the Canal Rocks, a real find. The sea has carved canals through the rocks and when the swell hits the rocks the water surges through the canals in a very dramatic fashion. As we were climbing down the rocks Stephen tripped and fell. What is it with this guy, the month of October and not being able to stay upright??? This time the result wasn’t quite so dramatic with just a skun knee. Another pleasant little excursion was to the Ngilgi Cave (pronounced Nil Gee). I have never really been a big wrap for cave trips as they are usually dark smelly places with bats. No such thing at Ngilgi, you experience stunning stalactite, stalagmite, helicitite and shawl formations lying beneath the limestone ridge which forms Cape Naturaliste (copied this from the brochure). We went down to the bottom of the cave 37 metres below the surface where there is an underground amphitheatre with these stunning crystal formations rising and falling. I really hope Stephen’s photos do it justice. We also drove to the lighthouse at Cape Naturaliste. Stephen was in a particularly stupid mood this day. As we were climbing to the top of the lighthouse he was leading the way with me following. As you do when you reach the top and there is a door, you slam it in front of your wife so she can’t get in unless she knows the secret password, leaving her and 10 other people stranded on the steep steps. Of course this backfires when the door won’t open and someone has to practically get in a pinch bar to rescue the idiot who is left red faced. Who was laughing now??? Me. We stopped at Bunker Bay on the way back, a truly beautiful beach with whales playing off shore and surrounded with very expensive holiday homes.
We now move onto Pemberton, who knows what awaits us there.
http://picasaweb.google.com.au/stephen.hede/PerthCollieYallingup?authkey=Gv1sRgCNaGq6_fkojT2AE#
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