Perth, Rottnest Island, and Exmouth

We're off on our travels again! A few days ago we left Sydney on a five hour plane ride for Perth. We arrived, all very tired, because we had to get up at 6ish in the morning, and headed promptly off for the markets (Karen's idea, obviously). After being dragged around to look at hats shaped like mushrooms and foldable cutting boards, we went to Fremantle Prison, which was built as a convict prison in the 1800s and was operating until 1991. We were going to go on the normal tour, but one of the staff said that Kate was the biggest 8-year-old he had ever seen, so she was allowed to go on the tunnel tour. The tunnels under Fremantle Prison were dug for a supply of fresh drinking water for the prison and the town. We hiked in some parts and boated in others. Gagi and Tess were having trouble, as neither of them had long enough arms to push off both sides of the tunnel at once, therefore pushing off one side, running into the other, pushing off that side, you get the idea. The tunnels had lasted a hundred years before they came. Just as they were getting the hang of it, they ran into the rainwater drainage pipe. At one point, there was a hole in the ceiling where you could yell stuff and the people above ground could hear. Kate shouted "Oh my gosh it's walnuts!" Tess shouted "This is your conscience!" and John shouted "Save big money at Menards!" Karen unfortunately did not want to alarm passerby. One day we went to Rottnest Island and biked the whole thing on tandems. Tess got a large amount of axle grease on her leg that still hasn't come off. We saw some Quokkas, some native kangaroo rat-like things and some great views of the lighthouse. Then we headed off for Exmouth via propellor plane for 2 hours, where two days ago we went snorkeling with manta rays in Coral Bay. It was very fun, even though we didn't see a lot of rays but snorkeled with a large female and smaller male manta (about 8 feet across). Yesterday we went swimming with whale sharks. It was really cool! They're really neat animals - about 15 feet long - so it's like snorkeling with a school bus - they are filter feeders and only eat krill, so you don't have to worry about losing an arm, which is nice - Dad did see several reef sharks snorkeling, fairly large, but they are fairly shy. Also we saw a few humpback whales, dolphins and a sea snake. It was pretty cool. The drives to such places are incredibly monotonus, open scrub land punctuated by the occasional termite mound, with lots of sheep, cows, and kangaroos on the road so the driving is more interesting for Dad than for us. The only good thing is that Kate can't play her "sing everything you see"game. In Sydney, it's usually something like "A caaaaar, and a stoplight and a road and a treeeeeeeeee!!!" Here it would be more like "sand, and a road and some sand, and more sand..." We've also started watching Glee which has been fun, and also slightly annoying, as we are treated to off key renditions of Mr. Cellophane and Defying Gravity by Kate. Hope everyone is well,
                                                                                                                                   Tess

Birthdays and Mother's Day

Hard to believe that we only have a few weeks left here! Kate's class had a farewell 'play' at the park Friday (though she's still in school this week). Tess celebrated her 12th birthday at Moo with a cadbury creme egg milkshake (oh yeah!) and moo burger. She also participated in the girls qualifying races for cross country and placed second in her age group (clearly not taking after her father, who ran the same miles as the varsity runners, just slower). On Saturday my girls took the train down and met me after a Wollongong shift on my birthday to go have high tea in Royal National Park which is a massive park south of Sydney with many waterfalls that cascade over cliffs into the ocean - the peppermint tea was the highlight. Kate keeps her pinky out properly when drinking (but often has her tongue out as well, ruining the effect). We went to Pompeii, our favorite Italian restaurant a block away for thick Italian hot chocolate (awesome with or without chocolate gelato in it) and pizzas, then white chocolate gelato with melted nutella for dessert. Heaven... Mother's day John worked and the girls joined Ila for her baptism celebration next door. Great excitement (and noise) this morning when excavators and dump trucks arrived and began ripping up the sidewalk in front of our house. We'll have to see what we can immortalize in the fresh concrete... We're getting our cat fix as a large rag doll named Cocos moved in a few doors down and climbs along the back fence and into our yard every few days - he's beautiful, though not as friendly as Hank is.

Philip Island and etc.

Looks like we forgot an adventure! (and a few other bits - like the fact that we made cookies and whoopie pies and Kate sold them from our driveway yesterday during the garage sale day in the neighborhood - made $20 - sold all of them in 1 hour! - and a cool helicopter training picture - I don't get to do the water stuff, just the paramedics get wet - so I watched from shore and took pictures)

A few weeks ago we went to Philip Island off Melbourne which is famous for huge motorcycle races on their speedway (one of which was going on the weekend we were there) and also for the fairy penguins that come ashore on a different part of the island. We took our seats in the bleachers at dusk and watched them raft into the beach and and waddle up to their burrows in the hillsides. They are about 15 inches high and come in in groups of 10-20 that they split up as they get into the trails that lead to the penguin burrows - like condos, really, minus the ridiculous condo association boards and rules that never let you host a proper party or really express your individuality in any way at all...  But I digress... we couldn't take pictures at night, but the next day there were some penguins under the boardwalk, so we took a picture of them. They can be out at sea fishing for days at a time and then come back to throw up dinner for the family (a concept that was not well-received by smaller members of our family). We took a cruise to a seal colony (Tess and Kate got a turn steering the boat), went to a chocolate factory (that had versions of famous artworks in chocolate, and yes, that's a waterfall of liquid chocolate behind us), saw the pelican feeding (he didn't eat the gull), went to 'Amazin' Things' that had a lot of cool illusions (and a slide that you drop vertically onto - awesome!), went to the market and a petting zoo, and spent lots of time on the trampoline at the farmstay. Oh yes, and we ate a lot of chocolate...

Tess - Australia's got talent...

Today Tess sang (along with several other school choirs) the Australian national anthem at the Roosters National Rugby League game before many thousand screaming fans! Never going to have the opportunity to do that again...

This evening's moon was amazing coming up over the ocean - we walked the sea walk to Bronte for dinner after the rugby game and it's hard to think of a more beautiful moonrise, it looked absolutely huge.

Tess and Kate have 10 days of school left - hard to believe! Then our moms and Karen's stepfather will be here and we'll have 2 weeks of travel prior to returning home in mid June. It's gone incredibly fast - the days are getting very short here now and the leaves are falling off the trees - like most Australians, the leaves are pretty laid back - no blaze of color, just a little brown and fall down... It's been less rainy recently, so we also hit the observatory to look at the sun through their solar telescope, and saw sunspots and solar flares - we'll try to get back at night one of these nights for the nighttime views - at least we know how to pick out the Southern Cross now, which may be helpful one of these days trying to get home on the Sydney roads...

Daddy's still taking surf lessons - every time he gets a little better they put him on a smaller board and he falls a lot again... but it's still fun! Tess and Kate got to check out Dad's work car the other day - they were pretty impressed with the AW139 - it's a machine - more power and lighter weight than a military Blackhawk! They took the train to meet me after a shift in Wollongong, a surf community about 90 minutes south of Sydney where we have another base.  We drove down the coast to Jervis Bay and took a cruise to see the dolphins (humpback whales should be coming up anytime now, starting in later May) and stayed on a farmstay for the night. One of the highlights was a vanilla custard neopolitan at the Huskisson bakery which required a stop both days!

Hamilton Island

On Tuesday we went on a sailboat snorkel trip called "On the Edge". It was very rough on the way out and the visibility was not very good, but we did get to go to Whitehaven beach. Kate enjoyed riding upfront on the trampoline. She was, however, very disappointed she wasn't allowed to jump, because the captain said "you can fly up ten feet in the air if you land at the right time, and that's great fun until you land on the very hard and unforgiving deck." She and dad got drenched.

There is a great ice cream parlor on the island, which is incidentally called "The Ice Cream Parlor." Kate was eating her chocolate and hot-fudge-carmel (hot carmel, beats me why they don't just call it that) when several rainbow lorikeets flew down to help her eat. They were on her shoulders and climbed across her shirt in attempt to get the ice cream. They attacked dad as well. Soon, two sulfer crested cockatoos joined in.

Yesterday Kate and I rode the kids quads on a course and kicked up a lot of mud. Our legs were covered in mud and we had spots all over. Kate ran into the bushes three times and had to be pulled out by the attendant, which is ironic because she has been teasing me about crashing a go-cart into a tree because my dog ran in front of me, so I swerved. Who's laughing now?

The beach is very interesting. I don't want to say the low tide is dramatically shallow, but let's just say to get a foot of water it's a fifteen minute walk from the beach. You can actually walk out to some islands. Kate went out during low tide this morning and came back with no less than 102 hermit crabs. I found a huge one yesterday that had very sharp claws. We also took a sailboat out this morning, and mom was extremely disappointed there was not enough wind to bring it up on one hull. Mom and Hobie-Cats are, let's just say, interesting.

This morning we went on a tour at the wildlife center on the island and meet a wombat named Hippo. We also met some dingoes, Dakota and Dozer, and a few koalas named Elvis, Willow, Oprah and Phoebe. We also saw the 5 month old baby koala who is really cute.

Surf camp and sydney show

John had another shift without a call yesterday, which was rather boring, though it did give them time to wash the helicopter, which was a first - it's not every day you get to bucket wash a $16.5 million dollar aircraft - there was, however, a huge rainbow on the drive to work which made it worth going in anyway.  Weather has been a little breezy and cooler but today was fabulous! Last day of surf camp for the girls and we also went to the Sydney Family Show in Centennial Park which is more of a kiddie carnival than the Easter Show - the girls enjoyed the bungees and Kate went in a 'hamster ball' which she loved, in fact, we may have to get one for her to use around the house - it would keep the crumbs from her sandwiches contained. Speaking of sandwiches, the girls were excited to find marshmallow fluff at the 'reject store' (sort of a unclaimed freight store up the road) so they had a decidedly nutritious sandwich for lunch of nutella, peanut butter, and marshmallow fluff....

Last day of a 4 day surfing camp on school holidays - as you can see, the girls are doing well, Tess is down to a 7ft long board and enjoying it a lot! Kate got 'washing machined' yesterday and was a little tentative today, but still had fun.

Tomorrow we're off to Hamilton Island for a week of exploring in the not-so-wilds of Queensland...
cheers,
jh