48 hours and we start for home.

We have been catching up with some last minute sight seeing. Suzanne took us up into the Perth hills the other day to see a dam - reservoir to you and me - at Churchman Brook which is in desperate need of water as you can see. We went on from there to have a look at a garden at Araluen but as it is autumn here there were not too many flowers to see and then to a pretty town called Kalamunda. We have also made our last trip to the sea with Lynne and Aldo and family and got our feet wet - not really warm enough for swimming. We said goodbye to the friends we have made at church and had a farewell BBQ with some of them. On Saturday we went to wish Pete a happy birthday and say goodbye to the family - a sad occasion as you can imagine! Today we took a trip into Perth with two couples from church and spent time drinking coffee, more coffee, eating pies for lunch - then more coffee before we parted. Today is also ANZAC day - the equivalent to our Rememberance Day - lots of services and parades and people with medals everywhere - very moving. Tomorrow we are moving some furniture for Suzanne - so that she can, at long last, have her bed back - and then some final packing before we leave for the airport on Wednesday evening. Jean's cousin John is arriving from Sydney at lunch time and will meet up with us for the afternoon.
We do not expect to have any internet connection while we are travelling in South Africa - so we probably won't be putting anything more on this Blog until we are back home in two weeks time.

Winding Down!!

Since we came back from our trip up to Exmouth we have taken things a little slower! One day we went to Suz's college for lunch- cooked and served by the students, but we purposely chose a day when Suz wasn't serving! It was a good meal in a nice environment. On her day off Suz took us down to Rockingham which had a fantastic beach. We also investigated the coastal road. One day we spent one and a half hours each way on the bus to Ikea - sad aren't we - but we wanted to spend a bit more time looking round. It was smaller than the UK ones and had some different things as well. We couldn't buy anything (except a pudding bowl for Nic) as we are already overweight and have posted 2 parcels home. Jean has met up for coffee with a couple of the ladies from Church which was great. We spent another day in Perth visiting places on the free Red Cat bus route, and today have been to see a couple in Gosnells and then on to Armadale. Pete's brother and family from Liverpool arrived in the early hours of this morning so we had a farewell family visit to San Churros in Freemantle yesterday. They serve lovely hot chocolate and Spanish Donut fingers which are dipped in bowls of chocolate - yummy!(Unfortunately Pete is missing from the photo as he was taking a picture at the same time!). Suz has a day off tomorrow so we hope to go up to the Perth Hills. We then have only one more week to go before we leave for Cape Town!

Pinnacles, Dolphins, Blue Blue Sea & Coral

We have just got back from our trip up the west coast - 3400 km - 8 days travelling up to Exmouth with stops on the way up and back. Some of the roads are very long and straight and empty - you can see about 8 km at a time and the excitement comes when there is a car in sight, or even better a corner, but the ultimate excitement has to be the sighting of a Road Train - a three trailer 120 Tonne truck, or lorry to you and me - Wowie.

Anyway back to the scenery - Our first stop was the Nambung National Park which has the Pinnacles in it, these are natural limestone and give the impression of a moonscape.

Our next point of interest was Monkey Mia best known for the wild Dolphins that come in to interact with mere humans every morning - some of them are fed fish by visitors but not enough to survive on, so they have to go out hunting for the rest of the day. We stayed at Denham 25 km away but with a very clean warm sea which was very welcome at the end of the day.

Exmouth was a very long drive and the town was not the most exciting place in the world, but is on the edge of the Cape Range National Park which has an amazing coastline with pristine water and sand. We spent a lot of time in the water so came out looking a bit like prunes!!

On the way back we called into Coral Bay to go out in a glass bottomed boat onto the Ningaloo Reef - totally different to the Great Barrier Reef on the east coast - the coral is far more diverse in its appearance, a bit more like plant leaves and the fish were not as pretty but some people did see a shark and a turtle. All very exciting.

Fish, Cheese, Wine, Chocolate & Stalactites

We spent last weekend staying with Lynne and Aldo and family which was very enjoyable. We spent time relaxing with the children, seeing more Kangaroos, exercising their dog and visiting their church - which is big.

We then went away with Suzanne for a couple of days to give her a break from college, homework and work - she has not really had a break since she got here.

We decided to go down to Margaret River which is about 300 kilometres south of Perth. On the way down we stopped off at Busselton to have a look at the jetty - which is about 2 kilometres long - and visit the underwater observatory at the end. To get to the end we had to ride on a "Dotto Train" which was an interesting experience, once there we had about an hour to go down to the sea bed - inside the observatory - to see what fish were about. We were fortunate to see shoals of Herring, Yellow Tails and Taylor come by together with lots of smaller pretty fish - well worth the trip.

When we were driving by we also went into some cheese factories - to sample the goods - and some wineries to do likewise - need to be careful for those of us who were driving - and a chocolate factory - no need to worry here except it spoils the appetite for lunch.

On the return journey we stopped off at the Ngilgi caves just to see how different Australian caves are to those in the UK - they are pretty much the same except a lot dryer at the moment, no real rain for over a year. These caves are part of a huge complex but we chose only to do the short easy bit - what a surprise - three hundred and fifty nine steps later we got to the middle where we were given loads of information about stalactites, stalacmites, straws and upside down mushrooms - mind blowing.

Got home Tuesday evening very tired but we did enjoy ourselves.

We are getting ready now for our next trip which is up the west coast to Exmouth - not sure what internet access will be like so it may be a little while before you hear from us again.

PS Thanks for all Jean's birthday cards which have arrived early!

Still can't get boats out of our system

Having looked at all sorts of boats on the water - on the river, on the sea, in the marinas, being put in or taken out - we decided that a visit to the Fremantle Maritime Museum was in order. Exhibits ranged from homemade boats made from sheet metal to the successful Americas Cup winner a few years ago. The highlight for Suzanne and me - Roger - was the submarine tour. HMS Ovens was in service from the late 1960's to the late 1990's although never in a battle situation. Suzanne was very interested in the size of the galley which served 63 meals 3 times a day and I was particularly interested in the machinery. Can you imagine the noise when these two engines were up and running - they were used to generate electricity to charge the batteries which were used to power the electric motors that drove the propellers. Now that was exciting wasn't it?? Well we thought so!

We also decided to visit a well known local cemetary to see what the locals get up to there. Well they eat amongst the graves, they fight amongst the graves, they bring their young along for an outing and they generally have a good time! This is a regular meeting place for the local kangaroos and there were a lot there. All wild but well used to having people around them. We spent probably about an hour here watching them and taking loads of pics. In the end the light gave up on us and we had to leave them to it.

We are currently in the middle of celebrating birthdays - Suzanne, Nic and Jean - and so we went to the theatre on Sunday night - now that sounds posh does't it? We went to see the farewell tour of Riverdance which was excellent and we all enjoyed it very much. Now we must get down to the more mundane activities of eating birthday cakes, drinking celebratory wine, munching chocolate and anything else that comes along.

We are very conscious that we only have about 6 weeks left before we start our journey home - doesn't time fly?

Don't forget Christchurch

We know it is only about 2 weeks ago that the earthquake hit Christcurch, but a lot of other events worldwide can so easily take our attention and without realising it we can so easily forget.

We were there ourselves only 4 months ago and found it to be a most beautiful city - as those of you who have also visited will know - and to see the devestation is heartbreaking, but it must be even more so for those living and working there.

Please keep Christchurch and her people in your thoughts and prayers as they come to terms with what has happened and continues to happen. Not just tremors and the like but also issues like employment for those working in the devestated areas and the effects this will have on the local and national economies

We have included some of the photographs we took when we were here just to show you how magnificent this city was and hopefully will be again.

Yes we are still in the land of the living

We have just returned from visting our friends Gavin and Liz in cold Melbourne. Temperatures varied from between 13 degrees to the mid 20's - not as warm as we have been getting in Perth. We went sightseeing some of the ares devestated by bush fires 2 years ago - so much damage! A lot of the properties have been rebuilt, but not all of them. Some of the trees have begun to recover but not all will. We also went walking in rain forests, in amongst large ferns and huge trees - we also saw a Lyre bird, but the pictures are not very good - shame! A camping trip had been planned for this time with Gavin and Liz and Yes you've guessed we went, and no we didn't have enough warm clothes with us - this is summer in Australia - WRONG. We went up country to Beechworth, Echuca and Ballarat. Beechworth is Ned Kelly country and like most places with a little bit of history it is over played - we saw a 12ft statue of him, we ate his pies and we heard all about his exploits and seen replicas of his armour - we are Ned Kelly'd out.

While we at Beechworth we visited some old friends from way back - Geoff and Linda Upton who came out to Oz about 5 years ago, with their family, and have settled into a smallholding just outside the town. They are both doing very well and enjoying themselves, their son Oliver has recently got married. Neither of them appear to have aged - so something here must be good for them.

Echuca is on a river and used to be the second largest port in Victoria. While we were there we went for a trip on a steam powered paddle steamer named the Pevensey - not after the village in Sussex but after a sheep station somewhere in Victoria - she was built about 100 years ago and originally used for moving freight down to Melbourne. Weather still cold. We then moved over to Ballarat to look for some information on the grandfather of a friend of ours - lots of pictures Alan but nothing very specific. Raining. Packed up and went home to warm up and dry the canvas. Helped Gavin repair his garage. Did some more sightseeing in Melbourne. Had an evening with some people from Gavin and Liz's church who are going to Cusco in Peru, where we were earlier on our trip, they were interested in our pictures. Pulled a muscle in my neck and had to have it massaged as we were flying back to Perth the same day. Still cold. Got back to perth in the evening - it's hot! Now having to get used to it again!! Celebrated Suzanne's birthday with a BBQ at Pete and Nic's and a swim in their HOT pool - great.