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.

The Humpback Highway at Exmouth

Yesterday we went on a fantastic whale watching tour on the boat Aliikai which is a 20m vessel. We saw so many Humpback whales we lost count and a couple came to within 15m of the boat, obviously making contact with us, putting on a bit of a show, moving from one side of the boat to the other.

I was so busy enjoying the whole whale experience that this is my best still photo which shows only part of the animal's back.

This little video taken with my very ordinary digital still camera is my attempt to catch a glimpse of what it was like to be there.

These massive mammals spend their summer in Antarctica filling up on krill and then head to the waters off the Kimberley coast to breed and calve. They snort as they come above the water. We saw them breech, give the pectoral wave and tail slap as well as just move their humps above the water.

Today we moved south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Blessings to you all and I will post my highlights of Carnarvon next week.

Millstream Chichester NP to Ningaloo Reef

Since the last blog there have been several highlights on our journey south along the west coast of Australia.

From Karratha we took a one-day trip into Millstream-Chichester NP where I walked the “camel trail”. This was a trail set up by cameleers in the 19^th century to get from one watering hole to another. I walked an 8km section between Mt Herbert and Python pool. It was a walk amongst the Spinifex topped Chichester ranges where often I could see forever. It was a wonderful experience to be out there on my own walking along rugged tracks and imagining what it must have been like for people who didn’t know there was a car park 8km away with someone who had a picnic lunch ready to eat!

While we were in Karratha we spent a considerable time trying to digest the enormity of the North West Shelf Gas Venture. The enormity of the project is mind-boggling.

We are currently in Exmouth home of the Ningaloo reef which is a place I have been waiting to see. I had hoped to see the massive whale sharks but they left at the end of July. The marine life here is so diverse and prolific that one can’t really be disappointed. You can see the Humpback whales frolicking in the ocean with or without binoculars. Tomorrow we are going on a whale watching cruise so I will update this page if I get my very own close up photos.

Yesterday we went on a reef cruise and snorkelling tour. The boat was a glass bottom boat so we were treated to some wonderful viewing of the coral and fish even before we got in the water. Before we had moved away from the beach we saw a ray swimming around in the shallows.

Being under water with the coral and the fish was a remarkable and spiritual experience for me. There were schools of pretty fish just swimming around doing what fish do best. They didn’t bother about the people swimming above them. Everything was so quiet, peaceful and beautiful. I swam away from the boat a little and around some enormous coral “bombies”. These were alive with fish, some as small as a 1-2cm in length.

These photos were taken in parts of the Ningaloo reef by Aleksander Nowak. (alekandgina@hotmail.com)

As we head south towards Perth and my flight to Melbourne on the 8^th September we will be visiting Carnarvon, Monkey Mia and Kalbarri before meeting up with friends not far out of Perth. Blessings to everyone.

Karijini National Park ~ 11th-13th August

On the way from Tom Price to Karijini NP we stopped to take a photo of the mountain I climbed. (Well nearly all the way up! I am at last finding the uphill muscles which never seem to get a workout in Koondrook.) This is Mt Bruce.

So here we are in Karijini National Park. We have discovered a fantastic place where mountains and gorges fill the landscape. We set up camp in Dales Campground and headed straight for the gorge.

The first view from the lookout really took our breath away. The cliffs are beautiful and the gorges really deep and scary. A lot of the rock is layered like slate and we walked down to Circular Pool where some people were swimming in the very cold water.

We walked and clambered on up the gorge a few kms, marvelling all the way at the beauty of our world and loving just being here, past lots of Snappy Gums and Paperbark trees, to Fortescue Falls and Fern Pool where more people were swimming in equally cold water.

Back up on top we looked down again at where we'd been. Here you can see Fortescue Falls.

The next day was the day for the challenges of the gorges in the Weano Recreation area.

Once again we marvelled at the view from the lookouts and then made attempts to walk into some of the gorges.

They get wet, slippery and dangerous as this shakily taken photo shows. It is a view of the handrail to help you get into “Handrail Pool” in Weano Gorge. If you want to go any further you have to swim through the pool of very, very, very cold water and enter territory where you need skills that I don’t have!

Hancock Gorge was another beautiful place. To go all the way down this gorge one needs to get wet, too.

The sides of the gorge are truly stunning and are sometimes reflected in the water which flows down the gorge.

During our third day at Karijini NP we explored the lovely relaxing gorge called Kalamina.

We walked for about 3kms enjoying the flat rocks which made for easy walking and the beautiful pools which accompanied us on our journey.

This dragon lizard took up an interesting stance near our campsite. Cute little thing isn't it?

Blessings to you all and we will be in the Pilbara for a little while yet.