Hot days in Kalgoorlie-Boulder

We have spent a few days in Kalgoorlie-Boulder where it has been so hot we have been glad of an air conditioner in the caravan. It's an interesting exercise to try to imagine life here 100 years ago without water and all the mod-cons we have today!

Water is piped all the way from Mandaring near Perth to a reservoir in Kalgoorlie. The pipeline was first built in the early 1900s and much of it is still part of today's pipeline. The photo above was taken from the reservoir and shows the Super Pit in the background.

The arboretum at Kalgoorlie-Boulder is a really lovely place. We found a cool breeze here, lots of lovely trees and a picnic area.

We went on a tour of the Super Pit which is the Kalgoorlie open cut gold mine. This reminder of what happens when your ute gets in the way of a big truck is at the entrance to the mine.

The trucks are BIG! See the ladder you have to climb to get into the driver's seat! With a load of ore they weigh about 400 tonnes.

The Super Pit is massive - 3.5km long, 1.5km wide and 500 metres deep.

The trucks look like little toys!

This one is about to unload into the crusher. Our tour guide gave us so much information that I couldn't retain it all. For all the facts and figures you could check out the web site: http://www.superpit.com.au/

We set off across the Nullabor tomorrow, so blessings to you all and we will catch up again closer to eastern Australia.

Christmas in Esperance

In Esperance we found delightful places to walk, ride and swim. We drove around the WA version of the Great Ocean Drive, avoided the wind farm (memories of flies from the last one), relaxed over Christmas, visited Cape Le Grand National Park and climbed a "mountain".

Twilight Bay was a great family swimming spot sheltered from much of the wind.

We enjoyed our Christmas lunch in the caravan with local crayfish.

A view of Frenchman Peak from Cape Le Grande Bay. I saw it and knew I had to climb it!

Well, we made it. The views from the top were amazing.

At Thistle Cove (still in Cape Le Grand NP) we enjoyed watching the water pound the rocks and afterwards walked all the way along the beach where the sand was squeaky white and the oyster catchers and gulls were taking their time feeding along the edge of the water.

Throughout Cape Le Grand NP we saw acres and acres of these beautiful trees in flower. Does anyone know what they are?

Blessings to you all from Kalgoorlie, the gold mining town of WA.

Albany

We spent six days in Albany, riding our bikes along bike paths, marvelling at the local wildlife, delving into the whaling history of the place and enjoying the marvellous vistas of the bays. We paddled in the waters of pristine beaches, saw three new birds and watched, horrified as one boat manoeuvring in the marina crashed into another causing damage which made it take on water and cause some blokes around to say that “Fred” would snot him one. They rang him and told him what had happened waking him up in the process as he had gone home for a kip before heading out to sea.

We waited around to see if “Fred” was going to snot him and to see how far the boat would sink. “Fred” duly arrived, did not snot him one, and proceeded to deal with the inconvenient situation in what appeared initially to be a gentlemanly manner. His boat was loaded and ready to take off on a fishing trip for Christmas crabs. The next day we checked out the situation again and found the boat floating, but moored and all the stuff which was on the boat stacked on the pier. We wondered how he got that much stuff loaded to start with. And what would he do if all those pots were filled with crabs? And what about the crab population? And this wasn’t even a big boat! I think I’m glad that the boat got damaged. The boat belonging to the bloke who caused the damage was still sitting in the harbour and we can only hope he was still in one piece and his nose still unbroken.

Tiger snakes. The locals told us that’s what they were. I’ve seen two of them. One when we were riding our bikes. We had to stop and give way. Snakes always have right of way, especially when you don’t know what sort they are but you do know that Australia has LOTS of venomous ones and I wasn’t carrying my snake bite kit. The second one I encountered on the same path, much closer to our caravan park while I was wearing thongs and was coming in from a barefoot walk along the beach. My heart stopped as this black snake with a golden tummy (just like the other one) slithered slowly only a few metres in front of me. I waited patiently while it slithered into the dense undergrowth and its tail disappeared. I went home fairly quickly vowing to take the snake bite kit whenever I travelled near the dense undergrowth again. All subsequent bike rides and bird walks saw me carrying an as yet unused snake bandage. I always take my phone so I can ring someone up. I’m not paranoid though, just a little terrified of being bitten by something serious.

Speaking of being bitten. Did you know that flies bite? I hate them. They are a jolly nuisance and interfere with one’s pleasant exploration of the countryside. March flies are the worst. We went to see the wind farm which supplies the electricity needs of Albany. A very interesting place up a hill you have to climb dotted in many places along the paths with interesting interpretive signs telling the visitor about the Aboriginal understanding of the seasons and the building of this fantastic source of energy. It was built with a 20 year life span in mind and I think that is probably OK in this age of such development. The wind turbines are massive things and the nose cones were carried out here on a convoy of trucks. Only one fitted on the back of each massive truck. That must have been quite a sight! Back to the flies. Out here we encountered march flies like I never have before and they tried to attack our legs constantly. In order to read all this very interesting information you had to mark time, stamping your feet up and down constantly. You couldn’t stop or the flies would land and bite. I became very distressed, hence this trip saw me doing lots of up and down hill exercise very quickly and the photos were taken with not nearly so much thought put into their makeup. We got back to the car park, leapt into the car and just sat, recovering from the attack of the flies. David was much more tolerant and less stressed than I was but then he’s got hairy legs!

We went shopping at a place called Albany Dog Rock and wondered at the strange name, thinking of modern music or something like that. Coming home we saw a rock that looked like a dog’s head. It even had natural colouring where the eye should be. It was a massive rock, not quite Uluru size but taller than a house and we now understood the name of this suburb of Albany. The area has lots of rocky areas and often they are incorporated into the buildings like natural decorations. Mostly they are what makes up all the islands in the harbours and bays of the coastline around King George Sound.

We went for an historic walk around town one day. We looked at all the old buildings which made up the original settlement and were struck by the way in which the community has looked after its history.

The entrance to Princess Royal Harbour

A phone photo of the bandicoot we saw. This is the bike path we rode along every day and where we saw the snakes.

This part of the coastline is called "the gap".

The wind farm. You can't see the flies in the photo!

I like this Aboriginal saying.

The brig Amity which brought the first settlers to Albany in 1826.

In the stocks

Blessings to you all and we'll catch up again in Esperance for Christmas.

More of the south west of WA

So far in December we have:

• joined in the excitement of the Busselton Ironman competition
• enjoyed the Cherry and Harmony festival of Manjimup
• been dwarfed, enchanted and overwhelmed by the majestic forest areas of the sw of WA
• taken a trip back to the whaling days of Albany

And today we encountered a snake and two goannas on our bike ride and walk to the beach.

The Ironman competition took over the town of Busselton. We watched as a competition tent village was built. It was a real thrill to be amongst so many elite athletes. We did our own little bit of bike riding each day and I ran most mornings along the bike/walk path. But nothing of ours compared with the 3.8 km swim, 180 km bike ride and 42.2 km run all in one day!

Sometimes the bike transition was smooth. Sometimes it wasn't.

Eight hours and thirteen minutes after they dived into the sea, there was a winner. Most people took a great deal longer.

We met up with some friends in Manjimup and joined in the fun of the festival. The cherry pip spitting competition was lots of fun even though we didn’t join in. We had our own competition later with the cherries we had bought. David won!

These photos are an attempt to share a little of the majesty of the forests here in WA.

A big karri tree

Look at the beautiful white-breasted robin which sat still for me with my new camera.

If you are brave you can climb this tree. There are pegs in a spiral formation all the way up to the top of the tree. There is a platform half way up the tree and another at the top. Trees like this were used as fire spotting trees. Neither of us climbed to the top!

A majestic old red tingle tree.

A fire in the Walpole area caused the smoke haze which made the air a reddish colour.

We wandered through many of the tourist walks of the tingle and kari forests and walked 40 metres above the forest floor to get a bird’s eye view.

This was an amazing experience so we did it again without getting the camera out.

The old whaling ship the "Cheynes IV" which has been restored and is part of the fantastic whaling exhibition in Albany.

Melbourne to Perth and the south-west of WA

It has taken a while to get to writing this next chapter. Excuse? Well I have been reading a travel diary of Bill Bryson. He writes is such an engaging manner that I thought I should emulate his style. He tells a story, writes history, gives a travel account and keeps you amused all at the same time. Sometimes he is a bit lax with accuracy, but aaah why let that get in the way of a good read? Well, I’ve decided that I can’t write like he does because that’s not me so I’ll do it my way. You may not get the history from my blog but you all have the internet so you can use that if you would like to find out more about the fascinating places we are visiting. If you choose to remain ignorant then I can’t help that! And if you don’t want to read anything at all then you can either close your browser or scroll to the bottom of this chapter to look at the pics.

Melbourne

Since my last blog when Mitchell was born I spent a delightful month in Melbourne learning how to be a Grandma and annoying my offspring by doing bits of housework for them. You can’t stay at someone’s place and not do stuff! What a delight it was to be there all that time, getting to know my daughter in an altogether different way and watching Mitchell grow up, reading stories, singing nursery rhymes, teaching him how to say “Grandma” and remembering how to change nappies, put a pram in the boot and take babies for a walk. I tell you prams just aren’t what they used to be. This one only has three wheels and goes every which way but in a straight line.

I loved the weekends when I could go and watch my boys play cricket. I did think later that probably not too many 30 yr olds have their Mum come and watch them play. I loved it especially when some poor fellow went out, bowled Paul, caught Matthew.

And then the wedding. Well we all know how gorgeous Hayley is in her track pants so you can imagine how absolutely fantastic she looked in her wedding dress. What a delightful couple. We had a very happy wedding in a beautiful setting with lovely sunny weather and lots of wonderful family and friends. There was much laughter, dancing, good food and excellent wine. Now Paul and Hayley are honeymooning in Thailand.

Bindoon

We flew back to Perth after an 18^th, a 50^th and a couple of hours spent trying to cram too much stuff into too few bags. One big bag is left in Melbourne and the rest took me another couple of hours to fit back into the caravan. I am glad we are on a caravanning holiday. The only redeeming feature of aeroplanes is that they get you a long way in a short time. I’m only a small person and even I felt cramped and squashed. We unfolded ourselves when we got to Perth and were collected by some wonderful friends who spirited us away to Bindoon, a lovely little hamlet about 70km north of the capital. Over the next couple of days we were treated to tourism visits to Toodyay and New Norcia. You can use your internet to find out about these places but I will let you know that New Norcia is a beautiful monastic town in WA which is still owned and run by Benedictine monks. You can check the place out yourself if you wish on: newnorcia.wa.edu.au. The introduction to their well maintained website reads: “New Norcia has been home to a community of Benedictine Monks since the first Spanish missionaries established the town in 1847.” Why would anyone want to come to the WA and start a mission in the middle of nowhere? We visited the monastery, the chapel, the old schools and the pub which still operates and serves an excellent lunch.

Perth

We spent a week in Perth after leaving Bindoon and thought to start our exploration of this western city on our pushbikes. Not a good idea as we found ourselves either freewheeling down steep hills or climbing up them. After just 4 km we found the beach and decided to ride along the bike path. Well we got lost and it took us another 16 km to find the caravan park again.

One thing Perth does have is a good public transport system. We found our way into town via bus and train and then got on and off lots of free buses which took us around the CBD. The weather was wet and windy for most of our stay here so we saw two films, visited the Bell Tower and went on a wet and windy walk through a small part of Kings Park. The whole park is over 400 hectares so you could spend ages here.

Mandurah

Mandurah is a holiday by the beach just south of Perth. We stayed for a few days to thaw out, walk along the beach and stroll with our mouths open along the canals lined with multi-million dollar houses, apartments and hotels, not to mention the boats that were parked at their private jetties. Of course some boats were too big and had to be stored at the ocean marina.

David discovered an excellent bakery so we indulged ourselves with locally made pies and cakes for lunch one day.

Another day we went on the Captain Fawcett Commemorative 4X4 track. This track supposedly goes through some of Australia’s best Jarrah forests but we didn’t have time to see much other than the excuse for a track we were driving along. As we scratched the side of our car on the foliage which squashed us onto the track I did wonder why we were doing this, so every now and then we stopped the car to marvel at the beautiful forests, the old trestle bridges and the massive conveyor belt which still carries bauxite from a mine to somewhere else.

Busselton

We are now in Busselton and so I am finally getting up to date with my blog. Most people enjoy this area of WA because of the wineries or the world class surf beaches so what do you do if you are not too fussed about wine and would rather surf little waves? Well we found a chocolate factory! Once inside the door we stopped dead, such was the sight of so much chocolate so beautifully presented. We wandered around for as long as we were allowed. It was just as well that we got there nearly at closing time or we might have spent even more too much.

We have been to visit two lighthouses, Cape Naturaliste in the north and Cape Leeuwin in the south-west corner of Australia where we marvelled at the engineering and hard work of the people who lived here over 100 years ago and were once again awed by the sight of majestic hump back whales.

This is a wonderful place to walk and ride. There are bike/walk paths everywhere and none too hilly. This is the site of the iron man competition next weekend so we will be here until then. As soon as I have appended the photos to this blog we are off to walk down the beach again.

God Bless you all and I’ll see you again much sooner than last time.

The delightful little grandson.

Out...

Bindoon

In the chapel of New Norcia

Kings Park, Perth

Perth's Bell Tower

Canal Rocks at Cape Naturaliste

Near Cape Leeuwin lighthouse - the sign says it all.

Baby Jarvie

After a long day Lisa and Dale have a beautiful baby boy.

Mitchell Graeme Jarvie was born just 8 minutes before midnight on the 4th October. He weighed 4.130kg (9lb 2oz).

All the Grandparents are new at this delightful job. Well done and thank you to everyone who has helped along the way.

Kalbarri ~ 1st to 4th September

We left our interesting shell grit caravan park in Shark Bay and drove along the North West Coastal Highway which threaded its way through carpets of yellow, white and pink wildflowers and bushes of flowers that were mauve, red, yellow, gold, orange, white and blue. We found ourselves in a beautiful little town and took our bikes and rode up to one of the lookouts along the coast where you can see the Murchison River entering the sea.

I have done a couple of long walks here, one along the coastal cliffs where, once again, I watched Humpback whales performing in the ocean.

The other was along the river gorges which we reached via another 4WD track further inland. This was a "challenging" walk because of all the climbing although it was well worth the effort.

The scent of the wildflowers accompanied me on both walks and the scenery was stunning.

We are off to spend a couple of days with friends in Bindoon now before I fly to Melbourne to spend time with family while David continues his WA travel probably at a quieter pace.

Blessings to you all. The next blog will be from Melbourne.

Carnarvon to Shark Bay August 26th to September 1st

Carnarvon is a fresh food lover’s paradise. I had a ball! We bought and I ate lots and lots of fresh fruit and vegies and then went to the growers’ market on Saturday morning before travelling around the coast to Shark Bay.

See how they grow the table grapes under cover so the birds can’t get any!

We visited a museum where we found just the right cot for Lisa and Dale’s baby!

Shark Bay is an amazing place. From the stromatolites of Hamelin Pool to the marine life off Cape Peron we were entranced and educated wherever we went.

Stromatolites are an example of the earliest form of life on earth and continue to thrive in Hamelin Pool due to the extreme salinity of the water there. We also saw a beach literally made of little cockle shells. In some places the shells are estimated to be 10m deep.

We spent a day at Monkey Mia and enjoyed the experience with the dolphins as well as the vast amount of informative material at the Visitor Centre.

Our trip to Cape Peron via the high clearance 4WD track through the Francois Peron National Park was the highlight of our time here.

We watched a small pod of dolphins only a couple of metres from shore, saw Eagle Rays feeding in the shallows, watched Terns catching fish and feeding their young, watched hundreds of Cormorants fishing in the ocean where the confluence of two major currents attracts an amazing number of fish and walked along the cliff tops amongst the colourful and delightfully scented wild flowers. The scenery here is stunning. The cliffs are red, the sand dunes white and the sea is aqua blue.

Blessings to you all. We are currently enjoying the wonders of Kalbarri which I will tell you about next time.