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Published: February 19th 2010
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Ready to go!!!Hey folks,
Did you all have a good valentine day? Well this edition will be the valentine edition bought to you by Kate!!
We have been tucked away in the South West corner of Oz for the last week. After having a great time in Esperance we headed to Albany, which was 387km. In Albany we generally chilled out, relaxed and took it easy for a few days without driving around (which can be hard in an old van), so you guessed it we headed to the beach! It was lovely as they all are in WA but after enjoying swimming in the water, we were relaxing in the sunshine on the beach, when Matt read in the paper that a shark had been spotted here just 4 days before! It didn’t put us off though, you’ve got to go back in the water though can’t be put off by a shark story - it would give the lifeguards something to do anyway!! But, to be honest, we are not exactly swimming miles out, or in fact going anywhere without our owl heads constantly spinning around us checking for any dark shadows in there!!
After spending a few
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Margaret River days in Albany we headed to Denmark for the day and for a change we headed to a park not a beach for the day, we had lunch under a big oak tree (the tree’s are big in this area). We then headed to Walpole to “walk with the giants”, no not really tall people, just huge trees. The trees were really massive and 100’s of years old. If you just check out the pics you will see what I mean. They have a walkway that takes you up 40m into the canopy of the trees so you get a birds eye view which was great as we weren’t with the creepy crawlies at the bottom!! It was 600m long so took you in a loop around the forest which only has native plants and species in it so it is exactly the same as it would have been 50 million years ago! We spent a whole morning in the forest walking around, we just loved the silence that was there and the smell of the forest was pretty nice too. We met a guy from Brighton outside who randomly made Matt punch his stomach to show how tough he
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Kate, Jan and a colourful cow! still is at 65yrs old, still from his Brighton days he said!
We then went inland up to Bunbury. This was the largest town we have seen since Adelaide, so we cruised the shops and found a choice of two internet cafes! This was a luxury! We went around some job agencies too as interested what we can get for work for a while out here. Matt fancied a bit of Air Con later and seeing a film (Precious) so we treated ourselves. Unfortunately for Matt Precious wasn’t on so we got to see Invictous with Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman instead. It was really good, but we felt like we had stepped back in time and were in an old people’s home cinema as we were the youngest by about 40 years! It’s when you realise the people are more likely to be thrown out for snoring as they were falling asleep, than throwing popcorn that you wonder if you are in the right place!! That night we slept in a Pine Plantation and played Uno! No Frenchies to remind us of the rules though so we made up our own when we forgot!
The next day
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Jan's Chicken was Busselton and it seems WA just keeps getting better as this was nicer than Bunbury a fact about Busselton it has the longest wooden jetty in the world at 2 km long. We decided to stay in a caravan park here, so we could wash clothes and dry them on a washing line (a luxury) and fill Harry with water. It seems we had met up with all the golden oldies again as the average age was about 65 and they were all part of “Caravan Club” and not like you see on the Inbetweeners! There was no “sliding” going on for us in the disco! So we steered clear of the eating area where they were having a Caravan Club meeting which seemed to take forever and escaped to our favorite place McDonalds to Skype!!
We left Busselton and drove up the peninsular to Bunker Bay which was unbelievably beautiful! I don’t need to say it.. You know it…white sand, clear blue sea, so the spot for a bit of lunch before heading to Margaret River.
Now since arriving in Australia we have been in contact with Jan Naumowicz/Mrs Normo (Sammy’s Mum) as she emigrated out
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Lunch at Jan's house here 3 years ago, so we knew we were going to pop in and spend a few days in Margaret River with Jan. Margaret River is a great place, we can see why Jan chose to live here, it is what we have called a big small town, so it has all the shops you could need with a choice of restaurants and a few pubs and it has a good feeling to it. The region is a hugely well know for wineries and producing a huge amount of wine for Australia and shipping all around the world.
So Jan has opened her home to us and we have been staying here since last Friday. We have walked into the town along the river, been on a wine tour trying lots of local wines, chocolate and nuts (lush!), had a BBQ and some lovely home cooking (thanks Jan), watched Mike surfing (Sam’s bro) and enjoyed the lovely beaches. Mike invited Matt along to play 5-a-side football one night, so Matt was really pleased to be able to play football again, they had a great time but Matt has been suffering and aching ever since (it’s been a while since
he last played!) On valentines day Matt and I spent the day on the beach with a lovely picnic lunch and then we went out for dinner to a local restaurant called Gnarnarup and we had the best meal we have had in Australia, it was all gorgeous.
Jan told us that we had to keep Tuesday free, we didn’t know why until we spoke to Sam on the phone and Jan produced a piece of paper showing confirmation of a Bushtucker Canoe tour. Well, Sam was very kind and has treated Matt and I to a canoe tour along Margaret River. Well, the day came and we were up early (well early for us) and headed to the bush tucker tour car park. We were brimming with excitement and really looking forward to it. There were 35 people on the tour which apparently is quite a lot for this time of year as it is coming to the end of the Australian summer. We were met by our tour guide Chris (who for EDF people was just like Mick Hobden, looks wise and personality so please someone forward a picture to Mick and tell him I thought
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Mike falling off his surf boad in Margaret River he’d followed Dave Smith out here!!!) Chris was great he made it a really fun trip and got everyone involved and even managed to keep about 6 French kids entertained most of the day which was no easy task! We got chatting to a lovely girl from Durham also called Kate, so we made a team with her and Sam from Perth in one canoe. There was a bottle of wine to be won at the end of the day for the first team to cross the line in a race and Kate was up for the challenge like we were!
So we canoed down the river, stopping at a couple of places for Chris to tell us a bit about the history of Margaret River and then we made it to our lunch spot . This was brilliant Chris pulled out a make shift table from the bush, after showing us leaves you could use as “soap” to clean up first. He then pulled out of his Esky lots of different “Bush Tucker”. So on the menu was Emu, Kangaroo, Witchity Grub, nuts, chutneys, all sorts of fruits and different spices and flavours to add to the food.
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Mike standing up! So as it was on the menu I had to try the witchity grub - well if Katie Price can do it, so can I!! So I cut off a bit (there were only a few and several other people wanted to try it so I couldn’t eat a whole one, thank goodness!) and Matt grabbed the camera for my photographic evidence for Sam…well it wasn’t as chewy as I expected but the taste got worse in your mouth and was pretty disgusting, so I quickly tried to eat something else to take the taste away!! YUK!!
The next adventure was a cave, so all 35 of us piled in and heard another story from Chris followed by the offer of a crawl through the back part of the cave which got pretty tiny and was about 50m long. Well I was feeling pretty brave after my grub experience, Matt didn’t want to do it (claustrophobia not quite overcome yet) and Kate (Durham Kate) wasn’t sure, so I tried to reassure her if she went right behind the guide then I would be behind her. Kate (Durham Kate) agreed so we threw off our flip flops and followed Chris
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Kate and Jan in Harry! into a dark wet narrow tunnel, we immediately had to crawl as the ceiling was so low! It got to the point where we were crawling on hands and knees was no longer an option as it got a lot smaller, so we were lay flat on our stomachs on the ground pulling ourselves along!! Matt you made the right decision not coming through, I thought at this point! But it was great we made it out and although very dirty we felt proud of ourselves.
We walked back to our canoes, paddled down the river a bit and then all jumped out for a swim in the river, no crocs or sharks here!! So there was just the canoe race the three of us were feeling quite competitive by now, don’t think Sam from Perth at the front was as keen but the three of us talked tactics and gave it a good bash!! Unfortunately we didn’t win and nearly capsized trying but we loved it!!
So it was a brilliant day and we made a new friend from it too, who we hope to see again in New Zealand. Thank you so much Sam for this present
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Valentines Day on the beach we had a ball.
So its been a lovely week in and around Margaret River, hope you all had a good week? Please let us know what you are up to, it’s always so great to hear from people back home whether it’s on here, e-mail or good old face book!
Take Care
Lots of Love Kate and Matt xxxx
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Age and Sarah
non-member comment
Hello happy campers
Hello guys, you've spoilt us with 2 blogs in 2 weeks!! Great to see you guys looking amazingly healthy and tanned..... its sickening...... I think it was definatley right for Matt not to go through the cave - I could imagine him having a panic attack and getting his head stuck Ha ha.. Matt - I hope you managed some no-look megs and double knees during your footy game