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Published: January 14th 2012
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We had, as you may remember, a lovely time house-sitting for an artist in the bush in the run up to Christmas; we arrived in Fremantle (it claims to be Perth's sister city, but really its arty and upmarket suburb) on the 23rd into the welcoming arms of Liz, Nigel and their three (grown up) children. They're friends of my parents, but I hadn't laid eyes on them for, we worked out, precisely 10 years and Alice had never met them, but we all got on very well, and Liz was a wonderful host. After lunch we quickly scooted off to the airport to pick up my parents, Sue & Gary who flew in from Adelaide where they'd been doing a quick tour of the south east.
After Richard (Chris's brother) arrived on Christmas eve, the whole party was assembled. Sue & Gary had rented a really beutiful house just 10 minutes from Liz's house, it turned out to be very well equiped and a lovely place to spend our time, a definate increase in standards for us!
Christmas day was lovely - canapes, cricket on the beach, swiming in the pool followed by a great bbq at Liz
and Nigel's house. Alice even managed to speak to the family at home on Skype. It wasn't really like Christmas but just a good day spending time together. Other than socialising we didn't get up to too much, partially because there aren't many tourist activities in Fremantle, and partially because, at 40 degrees it was just too hot for much activity.
Having said that, for Gary's birthday on the 29th we took a boat tour from Fremantle to Perth and back. In the evening we met the Thomases on the beach to drink bubbly while watching the sun set. An unusual birthday for Gary and another excuse for a few drinks; we also made it into Perth on one or two ocassions to see the museums and walk along the river.
2012 was welcomed in with my first ever murder mistery party which I enjoyed more than I'd expected, and Chris was much worse at than expected giving away some key clues to everyone before the game even started. Murder being followed up by drinks on the beach again, I think I could get used to warm new years eves more easily than warm Christmas.
After taking
our leave from the Thomas family and Bertie (the car) the Higginson contingent set out for Sydney. This time we were all staying in different hotels, all within close enough distance to walk between when needed. We spent the time exploring the botanic gardens, and the beaches in the suburb of Manly - we ate out a lot and really began to feel, on our second trip to the country's first city, that we were beginning to get our heads around the place.
We picked up the hire car and headed north, it should be obvious that we have a prediliction for road trips and had decided the only way to propely see the east coast was to drive from Sydney to Brisbane. We were more or less direct, stopping just north of Newcastle and then Coffs harbour on the way, but took a side-track to Dorrigo on the New England Plateau for a few days, a place we visted on our way through 4 months previously and one of our favourite areas of Australia (although up against some stiff competition). We spent a few days seeing waterfalls and pretty towns, gave mum and dad their first taste of
a rainforest and generally enjoyed weather that was 5 or 10 degrees cooler than on the coast.
Mum & Dad's penultimate Australian day was mostly spent in the car driving the 6 hours to Brisbane, with only a stop in Byron Bay to dip our feet in the pacific and watch the hundreds of beautiful tanned people strut their stuff around its streets. In Brisbane Mum & Dad went to a hotel and we returned to our friends Rosie & Sam who had been so kind to us when we passed through all those months before, once again they proved to be wonderful hosts and on their final night, after a good Italian meal mum & dad were able to come back to their house for a drink, a freshen up and a sit by the river. They left us about 11pm in order to catch their 3am flight.
On Friday we're off to New Zealand for a month long tour of the south island!
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