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Published: January 15th 2009
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Bunbury
A trip out on the boat. Maybe we'll catch something.. maybe not. After what seemed like years of planning we finally made it over to Western Australia to stay with Amy & Ethan. It was luxury to be picked up from the airport and delivered to a nice comfy room and a home cooked dinner! We deliberately timed it so we could spend Christmas there and were fortunate enough to be invited to Amy’s Christmas Party, I was to accompany an old guy that turned out to be originally from Chatham and Steve was set up with the cleaning lady! But with free dinner and booze who is to argue! Feeling in the Christmas spirit we headed out the next day to get a Christmas Tree (which the boys had to cut down themselves!)
We arrived in Bunbury (where they live) in time for the crabbing season, so Ethan took us out on his new boat to go crabbing. Loaded up with chunks of spleen (nice) the boys put the crab pots into the water and we had a cold beer while we waiting for a bite. We caught six that evening, enough for a mighty feast.
The next day Steve and Ethan got up early to take the boat out
Bunbury
Our catch for the day. Not bad! to sea. With hired diving equipment, they went looking for lobsters to catch for Christmas dinner. Ethan does this on a regular basis and is quite good at locating and catching them. They spent about three hours in total moving around on the boat diving looking for crayfish. Very tiring work climbing in and out of the boat, putting on scuba gear and diving! At first they had no luck and were going to give up, but on their third attempt they managed to catch five of which three were 'size' (they were big enough). Along with Ethan’s other catches at home in the freezer we had six or Christmas dinner. Lovely.
So after spending a few days with Amy & Ethan, we borrowed the car and did a road trip up north. First we drove to the Pinnacles National Park. We drove pretty much straight through and arrived early evening just outside the park. We took camping gear with us and set up camp to get up early the next morning to go and see the Pinnacles at first light. We got up at 5am and made our way into the park. On the drive in we saw
Rottnest Island
Kelly's bike had yet another problem! loads of Kangaroos and Emus running around and most of them in front of the car in the road! We got to the park just as the sun was popping over the horizon so managed to get some great shots with the shadows being cast everywhere. It was an amazing sight and we had the park pretty much to ourselves.
Later that day we made our way back down south towards Perth and over to Freemantle where we would book on to a boat to take us over to Rottnest Island. Rottnest Island (named rat nest island by the dutch because they though the native quokkas were rats) is an island where no cars are allowed so the best mode of transport are push bikes. So we got kitted out and went cycling. After about ten minutes Kelly was complaining that her front wheel was buckled. So we turned around went back and got another and headed off again. Then after about ten minutes she complained the seat was too low. We stopped but this bike was old and the seat wouldn’t move. So after a long ‘discussion’ we decided not to go back again and carried on making
Margaret River
"yes this is good wine, I'll buy the case" our way around the island.
We cycled past numerous beaches of which were all beautiful - white sand and clear blue waters, but stopped at one called City of York Bay and pretty much stayed their for the rest of the day until the wind picked up and we took off . We saw most of the island and went back to the boat. After returning from Rottnest I noticed I’d lost my Brazilian flag beach towel though - gutted.
So we headed back to sunny Bunbury and we caught up with Amy and Ethan again as we had planned to all take a trip down Margret River (a famous wine region) to go camping and guess what... drink wine. We decided not to take the boat and loaded up the 4x4 with all the camping gear. We stopped in a secluded camp site just outside of Margret River village. Each pitch was hidden away in a small clearing in the woods and each site had a metal fire pit and hot plate so you can have bbq’s. We bought a load of lamb steaks and as soon as the sun went down we stoked up the fire
Bangkok
Happy New Year... on an Elephants arse! and ate. For some reason the food was really good, not that we are bad cooks, but it tasted REALLY good. Must of been something on the hot plate that we didn't clean off properly, or that fact that we were drunk on wine and beer?!
Christmas eve was fast approaching so we had to make our way back home. Christmas day was really cool, we had our first hot Christmas ever and went down to the beach in the morning for champagne, strawberries and cricket! Lunch was back at the house and we had a feast! Crayfish (rock lobster) that Ethan and Steve had caught with their own fair hands, barbequed prawns and roast turkey for the Pommies. As usual we ate too much and drank too much and left the washing up for the day after. In was a shame but we had to leave soon after Christmas to fly to Bangkok which is wear we planned to spend New Years Eve...
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