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Saturday, December 11, 2010

Our last WA Trip Post from Esperance

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We have had a fantastic trip through the coast of WA! The things we've done and the places and animals we have seen and experienced have been truly amazing.

Tomorrow we set off for our last great adventure for this trip in WA - we start the Nullabor Plain!

We spent 4 wonderful nights at Quaalup Station, an experience I won't ever forget and hopefully the kids won't either. We arrived on Sunday and stayed there until Wednesday morning. 4 nights with only one neighbour for 3 of those nights and the owners of the station for only 2 nights. We were left to "lock up". Can you think of places where that would still happen? I struggle to myself.

One of the most memorable experiences I have ever had was with Edna. For those of you reading this and know my background with painting emus, you will maybe get a glimpse of how I felt when Edna the Emu, a resident at Quaalup, decided I was the person to follow around. The below is a photo of Edna.

She was a constant companion for me, around the camping area and while I went bird watching and was even my "guide on the local Flora and Fauna walk. She seemed rather miffed when we packed up and left.

The resident kookaburra also thought they should advertise the Nature walk!Although the flowers and the information were spectacular:




We also had kangaroos for company although every now and then they felt the need to show off who was the bravest! There were a few mums with joeys that came to feed next to our camp but the boys tended to stay a safe distance except at nightfall when they would happily graze nearby.At nights, Annie would read the kids some of "The Hobbit" in the van while I sat outside under the stars. We have some video of the emu and the kangaroos sitting down next to me outside, calmly listening to the story. It really was a special place.
The following photo is a shot of some of the buildings, the original stone ruins date to 1858, and the mountain nearby early in the morning, so it wasn't just the (wild)life that enchanted us:


Although there was that Splendid Wren whistling away on top of the Banksia:

We did manage to get across to Cape Anne, which was very picturesque:We have thought about camping here, but had decided the Station was a better idea. After running across this guy in the camping area, we were both glad we did:


We eventually left Edna and Quaalup behind, and headed to Esperance. Cape LeGrande (Lucky Bay pictured below) was beautiful and we really needed to spend a week here we didn't have.



In Esperance itself the kids and Annie discovered one of the locals, Sammy the Seal. Not exactly dying of hunger but cute nevertheless and a huge hit with the kids:
Even though we feel quite sad our WA experience has come to an end, there are murmurings within the family such as "I couldn't learn anything more or read any more right now" or "I love Esperance." Why is that Moses? "It has lots of playgrounds!" or "I have really enjoyed WA but I miss my friends and school!" or "I really want to play cricket with my friends and ride my ripstick!"

I'll leave it to you to work out who said what.

So thank you to those who have read this blog over the past 3 months. We hope you have have gained an insight into our travels.

We wish all a safe and merry christmas and hope to see all of you soon.

For those Twitchers in the world, we are probably going to make to 180 birds in WA, but we are not over the line yet.

For those looking for things to do on long trips, we have a new game called "Twitch". It starts off... "I went to the nird (sorry this was a typo but I left it in, it should of course say "bird") hide and I saw a ....." Annie and I love the fact our kids say things like "Red-eared Firetail" rather than a magpie or a sparrow!

Signing off now,

WF's





Friday, December 3, 2010

Two Days in Denmark

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After deciding to hang around Denmark for at least 2 nights, we spent yesterday and today visiting all that we could manage of the local attractions. But before I launch into that, the previous days drive was interspersed with rather a lot of discussion about the Peregrine Falcon, mainly as seen on the Shanley's blog. The fact that the Peregrine is the fastest raptor through the air has created a huge quandary in the boys' mind: - do we go for the biggest bird as our favourite, or the fastest? And, how fast was the falcon going when it captured it's prey, and how did it hold it onto the wall, and did it eat it there or did it eat it on the wing? Thanks Pete for providing the children with another subject packed full of questions neither of us can answer, because, well, for me anyway, it is not as though we haven't had enough ie if a white pointer and a tiger shark had a fight, would the white pointer win? Any comments regarding the answering of these types of questions would be greatly appreciated, as after over 3 months of not working, my brain fails to compute these sorts of things.

So, we are now into our last 10 days of actual WA experience before the great Nullarbor Trek, although we have found out that there are two bird obser vatories in WA: the first is Broome, ahhhh we missed that one!; and the second is the Eyre Bird Observatory, between Norseman and the WA/SA border, and we will be stopping there for a visit.

So, back to Denmark.

After leaving Walpole, we hit the hustings and made our way to Dinosaur Park, which was a place which had some impressive dinosaur skeleton replicas, as well as snakes and lizards (we got to handle bearded dragons and a carpet python, and then see some more wonderful parrots, including a few from overseas. Ruby got to hand feed the Papua New Guinean lorrikeet that then promptly took a chunk out of another man's finger - lucky Ruby had food!
From the dinosaur/reptile/parrot place we headed to a Toffee place, followed by a Honey place and finally a Chocolate place, We managed to buy toffee, honey and chocolate for everyone for Christmas but alas the Toffee was too hard, the honey too runny and the chocolate looked like it was going to be too soft so we had to eat it all ourselves. Sorry, but we were thinking of you all and it is the thought that counts, or so we've been told.

Day 2 started rather wet, as for really the first time since we left Alice Springs, we copped a full watering by nature, as opposed to the Fremantle floods from the very rare sprinkler bird (we have a few of these types, the insulation bird, the shrub kangaroo, the stick lizard, all of which have either been photographed, or nearly been photographed). We had managed to have the forethought to get the protective ends up over the beds (which we have decided against doing previously and been rained on a little bit), but this morning was not only wet but very cold. We headed off to the Visitor Centre here at Denmark, which is one of the nicest we've been to, and yes, we have been to a lot, we normally visit these when we pull into a new major town, and this one had the World's Largest Barometer, now there's something we didn't think we would see. There is a great display about barometers and the history of what was made when, which was great to show the kids in a practical sense and they understood better how things worked, if not why people would use them anyway. Next stop was a wood-turning shop next door and we watched while an elderly gent finished off the body of a wooden dragonfly, which was about the size of a chair leg. We then saw some other amazing wood carvings and lathe-turned pieces including a goblet that would only fit a drop of liquid, not so good if you want a drink, but amazing craftmanship. We finally headed out of town and ended up at the Cheese Shop. As impelling as it was to ask if they had any Jarlsberg, I refrained, and we managed to buy more consumables, including some delicious Raspberry Chocolate Fudge, locally made cheeses and some local Olive Oil.
We then headed off to find a particular bird, supposedly common in a particular spot, but as with 2 previous "certainty spots", we lucked out. We have decided this will be the last time we "chase a particular bird".
Back to the Caravan Park for a quick lunch then off to the Alpaca Farm. Maybe not quite Aunty Val's farm, but still pretty special as we all got to feed baby animals including calves, lambs, kids (goat-variety), as well as feed kangaroos, emus (they are actually quite gentle when they do peck at foor), a camel, a donkey as well as the alpacas and rabbits. There were also ferrets, a byson, a pony and llamas there. Great fun for the kids and Annie gave us all a sense of what grandad's clothes used to smell like with the ferrets. We saw racing pigeons be set free and they had their own race around a tree (?) not sure what that was about, and the kids got to hold a joey and pat the koala.

From there it was a trip back to Denmark and Annie had some retail therapy in the Alpaca shop and a tea-room bookshop, surely her ultimate shopping destination, while the kids had a play on the playground. Moses in particular is needing a little bit of time out doing normal things like go to more playgrounds, rather than get in the car and go to yet another "boring" place of interest.

Tomorrow we are heading off to Albany, followed by Fitzgerald River and at this stage, through Esperance to Cape LeGrand and then back to Esperance but things may change, depending on weather conditions and how much we like the places we are staying.

We all feel as though we are almost at an end to the new experiences of our time away. With Melbourne only 2 weeks away, and 5 or so days of travel to get there, we are trying to fit everything in we can. It seems we all agree that Denmark is a place we would like to come back to as it has a lot of great features including the beach, the inlet, the river, the hills and the karri forests, national parks as well as a lot of really interesting places to go. We didn't manage to get to the Leather place, and a winery hasn't been visited here either even though Mad Fish is 7 kms from town. The town has a very friendly feel with people around the shops and lots of arts and crafts as well as horse riding and sporting clubs, not to mention the great bird-watching areas both here and nearby.

Photos to follow at a later post.

WFs

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Pemberton to Walpole

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We have had more fantastic wildlife experiences over the past few days. Below is a video from a week ago while we were at the Eagle's Heritage park.

Banjo holding a Black Kite


Today we went to the Treetop Walk, which is an amazing suspended walking platform that is over 40 metres above the ground at certain points, and sways in the wind. Hopefully the following video will give you an idea of the experience we had:




We have also seen a few unusual animals, the quenda
and the brush-tailed phascigole,

as well as another snake on the road, although this one was probably injured as it didn't seem to be able to do much other than raise it's head. We were wondering what to do in such circumstances, as we both felt we should probably do something to help it, but it was gone by the time we drove back.

Walks around the campground and into Walpole occurred yesterday and then we drove part of the Big Trees Tourist drive. The Karri, Jarrah and Marri trees are very impressive and today we went to see the Tingle Trees. There is so much green Kangaroo Paw flowering at the moment that as with a few other things during the trip, makes us laugh how we screeched the car and van to a halt to stop and take photos of Kangaroo Paw a few weeks ago. We now have a growing list of "boabs" - our codeword for "seen enough of those not to get excited now" and I think we are ready to add Kangaroo Paw to the list.

2 days ago we went for a walk in Shannon National Park, and as we came to the first sign, Moses was looking curiously at the sign. "Daddy, .... does that say "Walk Trail"?" As you can imagine, the interest in reading signs has increased. I have a suspicion he may have been spurred on by Banjo's ability to read "Scones, Jam and Cream" at one of the wineries we visited! Anyway, very exciting.

The kids are very keen photographers now, and are learning the tricks of how the camera works, what makes a good photo, and with some help from Annie, have even worked out how to add audio to a photo. Moses has taken a lovely photo of a Kookaburra here at Walpole and then recorded his own version of "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree." We can only hope it doesn't create issues with Men at Work!

At the suggestion of the Shanleys, we made it to Greens Pool and Elephant rocks today. It is truly beautiful as you guys suggested, although a bit cool for a dip. The weather has been very kind to us for our trip, but we are starting to feel the cool days down in the south of Western Australia. Another place visited today, only the second one (well, 2nd that I am aware of anyway) during the trip, the first being at Broome, was a Bead Shop. The strangest place, it was a real shop but it was on a farm, and on the main highway, and when you drive in you aren't really sure if you should enter any of the buildings as there are no signs. Anyway, it was good enough to spend 45 minutes in there for some of us. I hope you have all asked Santa for an anklet or the like!

Our time seems to be slipping by rather fast now and we are finding it difficult to fit all the places we want to visit in before we set off on our very exciting adventure across the Nullarbor. In the next little while we hope to go and stay at Denmark (tomorrow), Albany, Fitzgerald River, Cape LeGrande and then back to Esperance. The more we read, the more we want to see, and the kids have been wonderful embracing all the activities we suggest.

We hope Greatie had a wonderful birthday and are thinking of Mum and Geoff, as well as both Shirley and Bob.

Until next time,

WF's

Friday, November 26, 2010

Dongara to Pemberton

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Hello All,

it has been a while since the last post and I hope I remember the places we've been.

We left Dongara and stayed a couple of nights at Western Flora, then headed to Jurien bay and then back inland to Willowbank Farm, We stayed there a couple of nights and then went back to the coast to Guilderton, then Yanchep NP and finally hit the big smoke of Fremantle on Monday 15th,

Some of the highlights prior to Fremantle were the flowers and grass trees, more bird watching, and some quiet nights followed by some rather noisier nights due to the A-Van Christmas party being held at Willowbank, then the relaxing walk by the river at Guilderton and then the Lake at Yanchep.

Geraldton had been our first traffic lights since Alice Springs, and so to come into Perth and see roughly 15kms of traffic jam (thankfully on the other side of the road) was a bit of a shock, and then followed traffic lights. It is amazing to think we had travelled 11000 kms and seen so few traffic lights.
The Forrest St Camping Ground was very enjoyable. Andrew and Emily were very kind and hospitable and the kids enjoyed seeing things for the first time in 3 months, like tv, as well as enjoying the arrival of Elwood, or was it Elton, regardless Andrew and Emily's new pup was a big success. Alas the sprinklers came on a couple of times unexpectedly and we were treated to a van cleaning rinse but apart from that we were all a bit sad to leave Fremantle and family. Apart from the tv and the dog, the kids and I enjoyed an afternoon at Adventure Park, a water-based theme park with water slides, while Annie had a relaxing day to herself in the shops of Perth. But probably the best day at Fremantle was the Wednesday when we visited Rottnest Island and we saw the quokkas as well as riding the bikes around the island for the day, the boys especially wanted to just ride and ride.
Andrew and Emily kindly took us out for dinner on the Thursday night for my birthday and then Emily and the kids decorated some cupcakes on Friday morning which we had on Friday night.
Our last farewell saw the introduction of our new best friend, "M", the navman. A very generous gift from the Freo couple (+ Elmo) and we named her "M" after Emily and the James Bond character. She likes to tell us where to go, especially when we veer from her chosen course. We will be forever in debt for her being in our car.

From Fremantle we headed off and down to the Margaret River area and stayed 4 nights at Conto Campground. Toilets and running water but no showers. We all loved this area for its natural surroundings and some very special wildlife. WE visited a few of the caves around this area and there was great excitement at the prospect and then finding of the "motorbike frog". We visited "Eagles Heritage Wildlife Park" and the kids were able to have a Black Kite sit on their arms (with the special handlers gloves). Considering their interest in birds, and for the boys especially, the birds of prey, this was a real treat and hopefully something they will remember for a long time. One of those quirky moments happened here as Banjo raced over to the van from about 100 metres away, almostbreathless telling Annie she "had to come quick". "What is it? Annie asked. Mum, mum, there's a snail over here, I've got photos and a video! We also indulged in the odd winery or two, but were a bit disappointed with the visitor's centre, our first real disappointment in WA of these centres. They have been great but the M.R. one seemed set up for winery tours and not much else. On one of our day trips, this time to Redbank, Banjo was rock hopping and nearly jumped on a snake, luckily the snake decided to disappear into its hole in the rocks.
So on we travelled to Pemberton and the Karri Forests (not to mention the showers!). We have been so fortunate with this trip in that the kids have been so wonderful and keen to experience all we have thrown at them. Travelling through endless trips to see wildflowers and trees may not seem very interesting to kids, but our kids seem to take it all in and then question mum and dad about what tree or what plant or flower or bird or town population .... the list of questions is endless, and it is only when we see the transference of an idea to a concrete thought that we know they are all actually listening and learning. On the way into Pemberton (sorry, this is an example) Moses declared something that Annie and I had a smile about at first, until we realised what he had done. During the trip, we have come across lots of "pied" birds, ie oyster-catchers, butcherbirds etc. As we drove between Margaret River and Pemberton, Moses piped up and said, "look, pied cows!" There were indeed, black and white cows in the paddock.

We have done a few walks and a few drives around pemberton, but tomorrow we will head off into the bush again and Shannon National Park for some more unpowered camping, although this time with showers. The campsite here is a little bit hard to leave for the kids as they have been able to hand-feed the ring-neck parrots ie one on your hand and one on your shoulder and another ready to land on you, as well as Pacific Black ducks and Wood ducks. Yes the adults have indulged in the fun as well.

I'll try to collate some photos and videos of the last 3 weeks or so for the next post, but thought I should at least get this part done tonight.

Hope all are well, will be looking forward to hearing all your stories when we see or talk to you next.

Shanleys, thank you for all your comments, we love reading them, keep them coming, cracked 160 WA birds today.

WFs

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Kalbarri to Dongara

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We stayed an extra day at Kalbarri as Ruby had picked up a stomach bug and we were planning to stay at Coronation Bay which only had drop toilets so we thought that wouldn't be nice for her or for anyone else who caught the bug.
We eventually left kalbarri and drove through a few places, including Pink Lake, the photo above.
Annie and I had reservations about all the places we visited so we eventually ended up at Dongara-Port Denison yesterday and we'll leave here for Eneabba tomorrow.

One of the amazing sights we saw yesterday was this Osprey which was at one of the places we stopped to check out but didn't like. Did like the Osprey though.



We also saw some wonderful patches of flowers, but when we saw the tree below we had to stop and take this photo. The photo probably doesn't do justice to the vibrant orange of the flowers.

Today we had an enjoyable stroll along the banks of the Irwin River in the morning and then headed out in the afternoon to Mingenew and Coalseam. Mingenew is in the wheat belt and we both had a chuckly over the Giant Grains sculpture and had to have a photo!

After spending a short time at Coalseam Nature Reserve, during which Moses had a huge splinter into his knee, we drove home starting about 45 minutes before dusk and came across this snake on the road. Yes it was alive, yes we were close although stayed in the car, and yes, it did seem rather large!
A close up of the snake's head.

We have made it to 120 WA birds identified and catalogued with photos. Pete, I think Clive is safe! The whole family gets involved with identifying and the kids pore over the bird books in the car, requesting looks at the recently taken photo and then declaring their selections. Moses declared a Black-faced Cuckoo Shrike at about 50 metres at Cape Range, and Banjo picked a Woodswallow as we rushed past in the car doing about 75 km/h. Both were correct. Birds of Prey are of particular interest and we often stop the car if we see some soaring above. We have a saying from the trip "it's a Boab!" which has come from our excitement of seeing our first Boab tree when we were driving across from Katherine to Kununurra, to seeing so many Boabs the excitement wains. Nankeen Kestrels are an example of "a boab" as are Pied Cormorants.

Our next post will be from Fremantle. We will be there on Monday 15th and will be staying with Andrew for about 5 days.
Hope everyone is feeling better today than they were yesterday!

WF's

Monday, November 8, 2010

Some Trip "isms"

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We have been away for a while now and along the way we have had a few little moments of mirth. The following is a short collection of statements and sayings by the kids mainly. M is for Moses, B for Banjo, A for Annie:
A: Moses are you looking at the termite mounds?"
M: No (crossly) I'm looking at the ant hills!

B: I never knew my arm would feel so heavy (after taking his cast off)

B: That fish got caught when it went after my squid's testicles! (tentacles)

A: What do you think that is in the distance kids?
M: It's a perch
A: What's a perch?
M: Where people go and talk to God.
(this was coming into Port Hedland and I don't think we ever found out what the building was, but it looked like a very high holding tank of some sort)

B: It's a ... a ... gunfish (trigger fish)

M: Do earthquakes make a salami wave? (tsunami)

B: It's a picfic gull (pacific)

B: It's a grunny's eagle (Gurney's Eagle)

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Still at Denham ...

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We all seem to be finding it hard to leave Denham. Possibly because the wind died down, or maybe because we are all relaxed here.

Have spent a few days not doing anything spectacular, although we have been back up the Peron Peninsula and back to Monkey Mia. At this stage, we have decided to stay one more night which brings our total to 7.
Ruby was able to feed the dolphins today, Moses caught a family first ever squid last night (first cast and then thqat was all we caught but it was a decent sized squid), we all had a fish late this afternoon and Moses was again the lucky one to reel in a decent sized flathead and a decent sized whiting which we had for dinner with the calamari.
We continue to see amazing things ech day, a seasnake around the pier where we were squid jigging stands out.
We will probably go from here to Perth in a couple of weeks, but part of that will be the weather.
We are thinking of those who are water-logged around the country and hope all is well in your homes.

WFs

Sunday, October 31, 2010

A few quiet, boring days at Peron Peninsula

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After our trials and tribulations of Point Quobba, we arrived here to some more wind, but things have changed a bit and it isn't as windy and we are expecting a few quieter days.

Yesterday we headed over to Monkey Mia to see the dolphins being fed. Our family was extremely lucky as there were 8 people (out of about 100) chosen for the first feeding session, and Banjo was chosen. We took our time so much afterwards that we were there for the second feeding of the day. This time was much nicer as there were only about 30 people and this time, Moses got his chance. There are photos and videos on posts below.
We then set off for a viewing afternoon at Eagles Bluff which had a lovely boardwalk, but very little in the water below. This was a little disappointing as we had hoped to see a range of stingrays, sharks and hopefully a dugong. We decided to leave our disappointment behind and headed to the Ocean Park Aquarium, aout 15 kms south of Denham. We had a great time watching smallish sharks being fed, and some gorgeous little turtles that were being nursed back to health before being set free back to the wild. As we approached the "nasties" tank, our kids quickly identified each of the dangerous marine life in the tank - lion fish (Ruby has now seen two in the wild!), puffer fish, box puffer fish, and then we were treated to be able to see a true stone fish. It really was weird. We also saw some of the reef fish we had seen snorkelling so it was nice to ask the very knowledgeable young people working there what each one was. They were equally impressed by our kids' knowledge about the various fish and eels and other things in the tank and were very friendly.
We came away thinking we had had quite a good day, and then tried our luck in a small lagoon with the fishing rods until just on dark. We have photos of quite possibly the smallest fish ever caught! Never mind, a lovely dinner of soup was whipped up by Ruby.

Today we set off to the Peron National Park with hopes of seeing a dugong. After our experience from yesterday we weren't overly confident, but there are supposed to be between 11,000 and 14,000 living in Shark Bay so we drove off in hope. We weren't disappointed.

We probably saw 10 dugongs in total. But where we saw them was filled with other life in the ocean. Skipjack Point Lookout was a fantastic viewing platform and the wind had dropped markedly so we could see almost everything. The list included the dugongs, mantarays, cowtail rays, sharks, turtles, dolphins and schools of different fish. The kids were very excited, and were buzzing as they went to bed tonight with the excitement.

It is experiences like this that we will remember, and we are very thankful that we have this time together as a family.

WFs

Photos from Monkey Mia and Peron Peninsula

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Dugong in the water at Skipjack Point, Peron Peninsula




Kids spotting dugongs, rays, mantarays, turtles, dolphins, sharks and fish at Skipjack Point



Mantaray at Skipjack Point




Moses feeds the dolphin at Monkey Mia


Dolphin at Monkey Mia

videos from Denham/MonkeyMia and Peron Peninsula

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Moses feeding the Dolphins at Monkey Mia






Dugong from SkipJack Lookout at Point Peron, Peron Peninsula


Friday, October 29, 2010

Coral Bay to Denham via Carnarvon and Point Quobba

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For those of you wishing we would stop having fun, you have your wish but we managed to get some beautiful experiences in anyway.

We had heard about the Fremantle Doctor, but no-one told us about the Cape Range Surgeon, the Coral Bay Neurosurgeon, the Carnarvon GP, or the Point Quobba ER Specialist! Wind, wind, and windier! We left Cape Range to get out of the wind. Made it to Coral Bay and enjoyed probably more than we should have, with a ride on the Quad Trek to Oyster Bridge and the Lagoon for some snorkelling. The Oyster Bridge was amazing, and the kids loved the quad bikes ("faster Mum!" and "faster Dad!") So after spending Australia's monthly Exports amount on the Quads, the boys and I went fishing, while Ruby and Annie went on a Mantaray boat trip for some swimming with a mantaray and some amazing snorkelling further out on the reef. Moses caught 3 small flathead, Banjo 2 dart and I was fishless again.
Had one final snorkel (Annie and Banjo did anyway) before setting off for Carnarvon. Fresh fruit and vegies were beckoning and a restock before our sojourn to Point Quobba. The kids were very keen for a bit of Harry Potter audio book, so we asked Banjo to do most of his times tables. He managed to get through his 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, 6's, 7's, 10's and 11's. I think we found his mathematical achilles heel!
We arrived and setup the Jayco behind one of the many shacks around (we weren't really sure if this was kosha but did so anyway) and used the verandah for our "annex" as it was a little bit windy when we arrived.
We spent the night in relative calm as the wind swirled past the shack. We awoke to a stiff breeze and decided to head up to Quobba Homestead and beyond. With hopes high the wind would abate, we set off, marvelling at the cliffs and seascapes, and were treated to a delightful display of breaching by a humpback whale about 70 metres off shore. Continued on to the cairn for the HMAS Sydney and then tried to find the "best rock fishing ledge on the coast". I swear I just wanted to look .... well ... anyway, the signposting wasn't too flash (ok, so we had no idea where we were really) and we had a lovely saunter through the sand hills along a beautifully paved goat track (glad we had the 4WD!). We eventually found the rough area the ledge was supposed to be in, but by this stage we were all getting a bit fed up of being in the car so headed back to camp via the blowholes. They were ok but not fantastic at the time.
I was not to be denied my attempt at fishing, so Annie dropped me off, went back with the kids and got some afternoon tea and warmer clothes for everyone not fishing, then returned to a despondent fisherman. The wind was starting to pick up more and more as it got closer to dark. We ate dinner, another sumptuous meal whipped up by Annie and Ruby, and then the wind started to come in harder. Our little Jayco fought bravely all night, the kids were pretty brave too. Annie wanted to pack up by 11:00 pm as it was roaring outside and had shifted and we were in the line of fire. Neither adult got much sleep, so at first light we were up and trying to get everything packed.
We eventually headed out at 7:30 am, a new packing up and leaving record time! This seems to be important to the kids when you are in the car and heading out. They did realise quickly we were keen to get going and helped out.
We drove in to Carnarvon after 2 days of being windswept and without a swim or a shower. We decided the car and the Jayco needed one first so we headed to the car wash. ("Oh yeah, the Jayco is white, not red!")
We continued on and made it here to Denham, near Monkey Mia, and guess what, there is a Denham Doctor too! Oh well. We have all enjoyed a fairly easy afternoon going to the visitor's centre, the pier and then dinner and a most welcome hot shower in non-salty water!
Tomorrow (Saturday) the plan is to get up early and go to see the dolphins, and hopefully catch some fish!

WF's

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Videos from trip to Coral Bay

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Hopefully I'll have more success this time. These are not in order.

Swimming with the Turtle!


Banjo Catching a Golden Trevally at Cape Leveque


Richard catching Golden Trevally at Cape Leveque


Moses and Banjo at Millstream National Park


Spear Making Part 1


Spear Making Part 2



Mud Crab Catching Part 1 & 2


Family Swim at Circular Pool, Karijini National Park

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Photos of Ningaloo Reef and Mesa Camp Cape Range National Park

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Family watching Turtles frolic in the water below


Turtle coupling


Exhausted female turtle takes a break on the beach


Kids and small emu at water tap for Mesa Camp


At the site of the turtle nest Annie and Ruby had witnessed the night before


The Beach Stone Curlew



Ruby Stalking a Crab



Richard snorkelling


Reef fish


Mesa Camp by the dunes. The beach is just the other side of the dune, Our Jayco is second from the left


Emu by the turquoise waters of Ningaloo Reef


Emu near the sign at the water tap. "Sparingly...."


One of the crabs that scurried around the dunes and beach (and the campground!) at Mesa Camp area


Butterfly fish


Annie and kids at Turquoise Bay


"Gill" from Finding Nemo fish


Clams at Mesa Camp beach