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Mandurah
Kids excited to head off crabbing!Arriving in Perth was a sweet moment: for 10 years we had been telling Grady’s family in Perth that we would visit on our Trip and now here we were. The reunion for Grady however, was short as he was flying out the next day to work back East (thanks Pete). The timing was excellent because a friend had offered work to Grades and as soon as he had committed to go, he had a phone call from a quoted job wanting a start. This meant that Grady had two jobs to fly back for and hopefully would return with more cash for the trip home. It also meant that he was away from us for a month.
For the next 8 weeks we stayed in Perth with Grady’s Auntie and Uncle. They were kind enough to offer us a parking space for the car and van and to plug in to their power. They live in a two bedroom unit with a small courtyard though, so patience was required on all accounts! They were so good to us the whole time we were there: feeding us, organizing places to go and loving the kids, who had missed being near
family - particularly their Grandparents. I have always gotten along well with Grady’s Auntie Bev, and I really enjoyed and appreciated their company while Grady was away. The kids were thrilled because it was “hard waste” time: when people leave out their unwanted junk to be collected and disposed of or recycled in the tip shops. Every morning without fail they would venture out in the neighborhood looking for presents for us. They brought back an Aboriginal painting for me, an old typewriter, a dolls pram, doll, toy cars, ride on car… the list goes on. I had to keep reminding myself that it was amusing the kids (especially when they returned with a purple beaded curtain) and secretly collected a hard waste pile to leave behind on our departure!
Whilst Grady was away, we went on a few outings: Hillary’s Beach with its playground was a favorite of the kids, as was the Swan River where they collected Jellyfish for their Jellyfish Sanctuary. I got talking to a lady on the Swan who couldn’t believe the ages of the kids. From the way they were talking to her, she assumed Seth was early High School, not 10 years
old (his height certainly helps). It was a valuable conversation for me, as I was at this point starting to have a little concern about the kids’ schooling (I haven’t really pushed the issue) and could see that even though they probably aren’t up to scratch as far as their education goes, their people skills had vastly improved.
Grady was away not only for our Wedding Anniversary but also for my birthday, so Bev and Ab decided we would all go to Kings Park for my birthday outing and take tea. Kings Park is a beautiful expanse of native trees and grassland. It really is a perfect place to take a family for a full day of walking, ball games and a picnic. All the kids could name the Boab tree: so familiar to them after months in the Kimberley. We also enjoyed our first look at the Jarrah and Karri trees (we have two friends named after them) found in the forests in the South. The sky was black though, and my birthday soon became memorable for an entirely different reason.
As Ab, the kids and I rounded the path to a pond area, the heavens opened. Fortunately
a marquee was standing, so we raced towards its sanctuary whilst the kids had a play in the downpour. Their demeanor soon changed though when the rain turned into hailstones - golf ball sized with spikes all around! Ab was being so protective of the kids, shielding them with his body but being pelted in the calves with the hailstones and we tried not to think about possible damage to the cars.
When the stones changed back to rain, we made our way back to the car - hardly damaged at all (phew). But what a difference in the area! Where previously there was cleared grassland was now full of leaf litter and - what a scent! Every breath was filled with the aroma of the surrounding fauna: a perfume more pleasing than any from the houses of France.
The rain was still pouring however, so we sat for an hour in our cars eating burnt chow mein (I cooked on this occasion) and I attempted to maintain order in my car (impossible). The trip home (normally about 15 minutes) was a futher 2 ½ hours away, due to traffic lights being out and the city congestion. We drove with
Cousins
Seth, Beau, Nicholas, Bridget, Chloe, Gabby the windows down as much as we could, to enjoy and remember the delightful smell - I won’t forget my birthday in a hurry!
On March 25 I received a message that one of my dearest friends had suddenly passed away. I had never before experienced such a shock of grief and there are no words to explain how awful it was. Sue was like a sister to me and in fact she called me her “little sister”, so my grief was like the loss of a close family member. Only three days before, she had called for my birthday and we had a lengthy chat. Looking back, I am so grateful for this last time to talk; I knew she loved me and I loved her very much. Her faith in Jesus as her Savior was so strong through many adversaries in her life and knowing she is with Him is true comfort in such a horrible time.
Dealing with grief and yet having to go on with “normal” life caused me to crave the company of Grady, who wasn’t due home for quite a few days. I also missed everyone much more, knowing what was going on.
Bev and Seth
Morning out at the Lake A friend of the family (Gavin) took the kids and I out for McDonald’s the night Sue passed away; just his presence was a real comfort to me.
I was so pleased when Grady returned to be with us and we enjoyed an outing to the Perth Mint where we learned the history of the Gold Rush, attempted to lift a solid gold ingot worth over $500,000 and watched an ingot being poured. As a memento of our trip, we had a commemorative coin made, which we thought was pretty cool. Another day out was spent in the sand dunes at Lancelin - the largest expanse of sand dunes in the Southern Hemisphere. We had fun driving up and down the dunes and attempting to sand board standing up - it was much easier on our bottoms.
We visited Mandurah with Bev, Ab and John (longtime friend of the family) and his wife Kerry (about an hour south of Perth). John thoroughly enjoys crabbing and had previously taken Beau out in Perth; now Grady and the other kids also joined in. John dropped Grady out in thigh depth water and took off in the boat with the kids.
Grady and Cody
Watching the swans... kids are trained to say "bang bang" at the black ducks. Grady was left with nothing and no one but water all around. His job was to walk around until he saw the claw of the crab sticking up, in which case he was to scoop it up into a floating bucket tied behind him. I loved hearing Grady retell when he felt a crab claw grab at his foot and how he had to maintain “manly composure” and not scream like a woman!
Out in the boat with John, the kids had an absolute ball; he was so good to them and they really appreciated the time he took. Everyone returned with 12 crabs to boil up, which we messily enjoyed that night - a great day!
Another long time friend of Grady’s family is Margie, who we met at Fremantle one Saturday. Margie and her husband were so generous to pay for us to have fish and chips on the dock overlooking the water. It’s a really nice area and quite the iconic thing to do in “Freo”. Maybe it was the fact I hadn’t had fish and chips since October, but it was most assuredly the best fish and chips we’ve ever had - and boy do
Grady and Seth
View over Perth from King's Park we appreciate a good feed of F&Cs! We had a great day with Margie, meeting up again before we left Perth - she’s good fun.
For the remainder of the time in Perth, we enjoyed the company of Grady’s cousins, who we had been really looking forward to visiting. They were all so good to us and we were spoiled by each of them. We had two sleepovers where Grady and I had a room to ourselves, meals out, movie nights, Maccas for the kids and even Easter Eggs for them. The kids reveled in the attention from Aunties, Uncles and cousins and it made Perth so much nicer for us.
On our final weekend, Perth was hosting the Red Bull Air Race. Back east, we had often seen the TV commercials advertising this event and Grady had always wanted to go, so was thrilled to be able to see it with the two boys and Ab. The event certainly didn’t disappoint and he wants to return for another year.
After one day short of 8 weeks in Perth at Bev and Ab’s, it was time to move on. They had been so good to us and
Sandboarding
at Lancelin - awesome fun. we really appreciated the time there. On our way South to Busselton we took a detour through the hilly pasturelands to Gnomesville. The kids had collected a gnome on one of their many trips out to view the hard waste piles and we decided to leave the gnome in Gnomesville with the other gnomes there. It was a cute little place, although I was quite ill-prepared for the thousands of gnomes - after a while I was pretty sick of looking at them; they were everywhere!
Money was pretty tight with a few unexpected bills and work needed to prepare the car for the last leg, so I didn’t want to pay our usual $50 for a powered site at Busselton. We instead went to the church camps in the area (there are heaps) and was allowed in by the Anglican Church Camp for $30 a night. Right on the ocean and with a rec room, camp kitchen and good amenities, it was the right choice.
Margaret River was next - the producer of 15% of Australia’s wines, so you can imagine the wineries everywhere. Of everything though, we were most looking forward to the chocolate factory, the cheese
factory and the fudge factory - all of which we frequented. The chocolate we tasted and blew our budget for is the best we have ever had (and we do speak from experience!) - creamy but not lacking in the full chocolate flavour, with just the right amount of copha so the chocolate dissolves before sliding down your throat (can you tell we eat a lot of chocolate?). We ordered Hot Chocolates for all, with a side of chocolate for lunch. It was sublime (3 year old Cody even closed his eyes to savor the taste).
Rolling ourselves out of the Chocolate factory, the next stop was to taste test at the Cheese Factory and leave with crackers, tasty cheese, smoked tasty and camembert. Unlike the chocolate, we are rationing this for a while to make it last.
Not yet full of Lactose, we bought a treat at the Candy Cow (Fudge Factory). All flavours under the sun were there and we left with Banana Choc, Bubblegum and Irish Cream fudge. Meeting up with friends in the National Park that night is it any wonder our children’s behavior was embarrassing with such a sugar overload!
We camped in the
More cousins
Sydney, Chloe, Seth, Cody, Grady, Beau, Reece, Lynley, Emily National Park for two nights, fishing for a day and catching some herring. It was great to catch up with Russell and Rachel, who we had met in Alice Springs at the start of our trip and who were on the start of their own trip around Australia with their 3 kids.
Augusta was the next town to visit - where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet at the Cape Leewin Lighthouse. An ancestor of Grady’s had been the lighthouse keeper and Grady’s mum had visited the area as a little girl years later. The story goes that the wife of Grady’s ancestor (lighthouse keeper McColl) washed over the rocks there and drowned in the sea. He died not much later and the family says it was a broken heart that killed him.
Anzac Day was spent camping nearby on the banks of the Alexandra River. We were not in a hurry to rush around on a busy weekend of traffic and enjoyed the time there. We made friends with a retired couple who have offered the use of power and parking at their shack in Coffin Bay (SA), which is very generous of them.
After Anzac Day we
Cousins
Greg, Deborah, Grady, Emily drove to Pemberton, which is surrounded by the Karri forests. The Karri are the tallest tree after the Californian Redwood, so it is little wonder they call this place the “Valley of the Giants” - the trees really did look like giants peering down at us. Around Pemberton there are three tall trees with pegs in them to climb up to the top. Two of these are genuine fire watch trees (it was more logical years ago to create a tower out of a tree than to build a tower out of timber - true) and the third is the 75 metre tall “Bicentennial Tree”, pegged into a tower to commemorate Australia’s Bicentennial Celebrations in 1988. Grady, Seth and I climbed the Gloucester Tree at Pemberton (61metres) and each enjoyed the view at the top, whilst Grady, Seth and Beau climbed the Bicentennial Tree and could just see the ocean from the towers at the top. The boys were really proud of themselves for such an achievement. Grady piggybacked Chloe up to the first platform at 25 metres, so she even was able to share in the experience, with Cody yelling to let him go as well (we drew the
Farewell Perth
Chloe, Emily, Beau, Seth, Grady, Cody, Bev, Melitze, Ab line at him going up).
From here we spent the night at Shannon’s Campground (well worth it - hot showers and everything) before our earliest departure yet at 7:30am to get to Albany.
On the way to Albany we stopped at the Tree Top Walk - we have one near to home, but it is privately owned (ie EXPENSIVE). For our family it was $25 to do this walk in WA and it was a really enjoyable time. Towards Albany we detoured to see Green’s Pool and Elephant Rocks - beautiful scenery and one of our favorite for the trip.
In Albany we stayed in a caravan park (run by a lovely family from Montana USA) and it honestly felt so good. We had been in the bush for over a week and just to be in the park we felt like humans again. Our “only one night” soon changed to two nights, as the first day was spent cleaning ourselves, putting washing on and enjoying sitting while the kids were happy in a playground with basketball.
Albany is the largest town in the South West of WA and we could easily have filled in a week or more
Kiss Gnome
Gnomesville there. Instead, we spent a day at Whaleworld and saw The Gap and the Natural Bridge in the afternoon.
Albany was the last town in Australia to stop whaling, in 1978. The whaling station has been turned into a whaling museum: with a whaling vessel, movies, artifacts, photos, a tour and skeletons there for the public to see - everything in whaling except the smell. Apparently the smell was so bad that no words could describe it and you could not get it out of the clothes of the workers. Visitors to the station when it was operating reported that they could taste the smell in all their food for up to a week after their visit. We all really enjoyed the tour and everything about Whaleworld. Cody got to see his first 3D movie (about whales). All was quiet waiting for the movie to start until it did and Cody (3 years old) yelled: “what the heck!” and for the next 15 minutes tried to touch the screen. I am not in favor of whaling, but I appreciated what was once a necessary thing to do before synthetic oils were developed and whale oil was required.
On the way
Gnomesville
About a tenth of what was there... home the scenery at The Gap (a sheer drop to the crashing waves beneath) and the Natural Bridge (a bridge of rock at the beach) were once again really pleasant and we left Albany the next day wanting more and planning our return - always a good way to leave a town.
Esperence was next after sleeping on the side of the road. We stayed in Cape Le Grande National Park at Lucky Bay. It was a beautiful spot with the whitest of sand, the bluest of water and our van parked overlooking it all. At night we were able to sit up with a million dollar view, all for $18. Lucky Bay was not so lucky for one four-wheel driver who managed to get his car bogged quite deep in the sand and weed. A minor earthquake at Kalgoorlie had caused an unexpected high tide and while this bloke was out in his boat his car sank into the soft sand. I felt so bad for him - it was hours until he could get out and with not much happening around, it seemed everyone staying there managed to get a sticky beak of the predicament.
We enjoyed
a few days at Esperence and the kids and Grady got a bit of success with their fishing as well, which is always a bonus. We had been taught a new form of fishing without bait by the couple we met in Augusta and it has proved to be our new favorite way: a float with a hole in it to stuff berley inside and a hook with a green straw on the shank. So simple but so effective!
Leaving Esperence we went to the jetty to visit Sammy the local sea lion who is in residence before a side of the road rest stop and the beginning of the Nullarbor, including the longest stretch of straight, tarred road in Australia (90 miles, according to the sign). We were looking forward to driving the Nullarbor for ourselves as so many people had commented how awful and boring it was. I am sure it would have been awful had we driven it at the start of the trip, but by now the kids were used to traveling and even though it was boring, it certainly wasn’t a problem and we managed to have one big day covering 640kms before stopping at
the border of Western Australia/South Australia. We paid for a night at Bordertown and took notice that the residents of Bordertown have their own unique time. What is 6pm in Western Australia and 7.30pm in South Australia is 7pm in Bordertown. This is the only border we have crossed to have this.
Skyping family from Bordertown we learned that a close family friend (and the dad of one of my best friends) had passed away the day before. The kids really lost it after this and we spent quite some time comforting them. This man was one of Grady’s “heroes” (and a hero to many in Grady’s age group) - from a time when men were men. It is very hard to say goodbye to people like this who we love and look up to and very hard to be away at a time when those we love are suffering. Butch loved the Lord and because of this we have every confidence in seeing him again.
With family and friends constantly on our minds, it is no surprise that we had been approaching this last leg of the trip with the destination in mind. Reaching the Great Australian Bight
Leewin lighthouse
With one of the cows for the annual "cow parade" in Margaret river region.. there are 80 in total. was refreshing after the barrenness of the Nullarbor and reminded us that there is still so much to see and experience before arriving “home”. Yet another night on the side of the road and the next day we headed with Streaky Bay in mind. About an hour from Streaky Bay we saw a turn off to Smoky Bay (2km off the highway). We figured since we were there we would check it out and once seeing the area, put the legs down in the caravan park. Two days at Smoky Bay were fantastic with the best jetty fishing we have ever had - a stone’s throw from the caravan park. I wonder where else could we lie in bed while the two boys go fishing and return, announcing they had caught two squid already - while their friends back east are getting ready for school! In the two days we caught 11 squid, four 2lb salmon, heaps of tommy rough (Australian herring), mullet and even a blue swimmer crab. This is the kind of fishing we had been looking for and the Eyre Peninsula certainly delivered.
As I type this, we are currently at Coffin Bay, plugged into the
shack of the kind people we met in Augusta. We stopped in Streaky Bay today and have found the place we want to retire in! It was a lovely place, but we still prefer Smoky Bay for the fishing and squidding, purely for the ease of access to the jetty from the caravan park (and the heaps of fish). As far as living in a town though, Streaky Bay is the place we want to be one day. It is a weird feeling that we will be back with friends and family within two weeks - I am really looking forward to seeing them. It is only now that I am able to see how we have changed in the last 9 ½ months of traveling and I am excited and anxious all at the same time to see how we slot back into life.
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Heather
non-member comment
I really enjoyed your Australia post and beautiful photos! I wish I had gone on trips like yours with my family, when I was young! My blog is looking for travel tips, photos, etc, to share. If you have the time, check it out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com, or email us at dirtyhippiesblog@gmail.com. Continued fun on your travels! Heather :)