Happy Mothers Day!!! (from the Footie Game)

What a superb Mothers Day present - our whole happy family rejoined here in WA. Despite concerns, Patrick managed to catch all 3 of his connecting flights to make it to Perth for Saturday morning (for those familiar with Pat's simultaneous genius and absent mindedness you will understand our concern). It felt awfully good to give him a big hug at the airport. And I've given him a few more since (I think he's had enough now though, so I better wean off of them). Even Kyle is happy to have Pat to socialize with.

Despite our family reunion here, we do miss our own Mothers and the ability to give them a big hug for Mother's Day. So across the miles, love to you both. And also to our friends and family who are Mums too - hope you have a great day with your families.

Unfortunately, our family pet was not here for Patricks arrival. Our spider, which met everyone (George and Marucia included) at the front door since our arrival here, disappeared a week or so ago. You may remember our spider (golden orb - one of the safe kind) from one of the early postings. We're hoping she went off to have her babies (or else a bird found her too big and juicy to resist - but we're assuming she's relocated :-) Here is a recent portrait of her just prior to her 'relocation'.

We started Mother's Day with a lovely family breakfast out. Michael was lucky enough to again receive footie tickets from one of the teachers. We will be joining the teacher exchange group as a whole family in a couple of weeks, so I was quite happy to let Pat join Mike for the day since he's recovering quite well from jetlag. I think that university practise of late hours has helped.

Freemantle played Hawthorne Hawks today at Subiaco in Perth. It was an exciting game with Freemantle going down early, battling back by the half, back and forth in the 3rd quarter. Mike took his 'good' camera this time and captured some great action shots. Even you don't know the rules, hopefully you can sense the excitement!


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And in the end, Freemantle won, so the hometown fans were very happy!

Greening of Dwellingup and Forest Wood Centre

After a day at the zoo, Mike and I spent Sunday by taking a trip to Dwellingup. We had passed through just after the fires (link to original posting here), and we wanted to return now that the rains have come to check out the changes to the forest.

Where Mike had photos that were taken from similar spots first visit, I have posted the largest size and made the link to the image the original shot so you can see the difference. It is more dramatic in person since not only is the visual refreshed, but also the smell. Mike distinctly remembered the smell of the newly burnt forest, which has now been replaced with a fresh smell of new growth. If you look closely you will see sprouts of grass and leaves on trees in both photos.



Also in Dwellingup is the Forest Heritage Centre. One of the teachers at Pinjarra does wood working at the centre, and Mike was quite interested to check out the centre. They focus on wood from both a forest and a wood working perspective. The quality of work was very impressive, and the designs very unique and interesting. There were lots of nice pieces - tempting if we didn't have to ship them so far! They run some wood working workshops - Mike will hopefully attend one for a weekend (I'm really hoping he can make me a carving knife - we just have to figure out the transport home ! :-)

The centre is surrounded by forest with marked trails and a forest top lookout. This is not it
however - this is just a fire lookout tower (off limits for climbers).

Perth Zoo at a Tortoise Pace

A trip to the local zoo is always a pleasurable way to spend a day (at least for us it is). So that was our destination this past Saturday. Despite his grumblings of having homework to do, we 'forced' Kyle to join us. We originally had hopes of visiting both the zoo and the museum, but alas we took too long at the zoo - guess we took too long watching the Koala and Orangutan....

The best surprise of the day was how active all the animals were. I expect the cooler weather arriving has renewed their energy levels. Animals which are normally quite docile during the day were out and about. Even the tortoise above was doing laps around the area collecting food and keeping busy.

It is interesting to see the variation from the Toronto Zoo. The biggest difference in Perth, as you would expect, was the broader selection of Australian animals. Since we have wild photos of many of the animals, we did not post zoo shots - except for the Koala which does not live in W.A. These little guys were awake and eating - surprising since they sleep 23 hours a day. We spent a lot of time at the koala exhibit!

The nocturnal exhibit was fairly extensive also. There was also a quite large netted in area with a large selection of birds.

The African exhibit was similar to Toronto - all the typical star attractions. Again, there was lots of activity by the rhinos, which is not very common in my experience. At left is a juvenile with it's mother.

The reptile exhibit was another favourite for us. There was a wide selection of snakes, lizards, skinks and such. Many behind glass of course as there are MANY poisonous snakes out here!

The crocodile was certainly the least active animal we saw. When Kyle and I first approached, we were certain that it was a plastic model under the water as there was absolutely no movement or signs of life. We were quite surprised when he (or she) very slowly surfaced for a breath. It is incredible how still they can sit - no wonder they can catch their prey off guard so easily.

And of course, the monkeys and meerkats are always fun to watch, and we did our share of that.

But the most memorable experience of the day was with the orangutans. Apparently their name in Indonesian means 'people of the forest' - and I can certainly understand why. The zoo has built a very elaborate area for them with segregated accommodation, but so that they can all climb up to platforms and see each other. They have successfully bred 25 orangutans in captivity at the zoo, and have recently released one into the wild - so far she is doing fine. They hope to release more based on a success. This little guy was keeping mom busy as she tried to stay near by while he was constantly on the move.

Each animal had its personality described, and there was one fellow who was described as being very social with humans and his favourite past time was to sit and people watch. And that is exactly what he did. He even came right up to the glass and sheltered the sun from his eyes so that he could peer through better. As I opened my back pack to pull out my water bottle, he peered in to check what was in there and what I was up to. I could have spent hours just sitting with him - he was extremely intelligent I suspect.

And on our way out, we passed the omnipresent pelicans - not part of the zoo exhibit, but entertaining to watch never the less.

By the time we headed out of the zoo, it was after 3pm - past lunch time and too early for dinner. We tried many restaurants, but with no luck as they all shut down between meals. So we hit the local pub instead - they don't stop the beer flowing between meals after all, and ordered some not so healthy potato wedges and a cool one (beers for Mike & I, a pop for Kyle :-). They hit the spot enough to get us home for a real meal.

Life's a Ball - a Masquarade Ball that is

We are now into week 3 of this term, and I'm still catching up on postings - almost there.

Well it is now fall, and the weather has certainly switched from summer. It has finally rained for several days - we actually had more than double the rain in April over last year. So things are now green, and the nights can get cool (down to single digits even!!), but the days are still pleasant hitting the high teens or low 20's - and later this week the high is 29 - so NO complaints!

With the 'cooler' weather, the school uniform for Kyle has switched over. As you can see from the photo it is quite formal. At least he knows how to tie a tie, even though he really does despise wearing the uniform. But being one of many makes it easier. I'm hoping he can keep it in reasonable condition so that we can recoup some of the cost at least.

Back on the weekend of April 28, Pinjarra had their school ball. We attended and Mike even presented the award for the 'beau' of the ball. We didn't bring overly formal clothes - but at least Mike had a quality white shirt and tie, so we didn't stick out too much.

The kids here attend the ball in both year 11 and year 12 - unlike Canada where the prom is for grade 12 only. Given the elaborate costumes, I can't imagine what the cost is to attend 2 years in a row!!

The music was very much a flash back to our youthful days - right out of the 70's, 80's and 90's. But as you can see, this is the music the kids enjoyed dancing to!

Break 1 - Day 12/13 The End, Eh Daddy?

And then it was time to go home. We all felt that we had our fill of travel for the time being, so decided just to drive home with no further tourist sites. Given the distance, we had one overnight to do. We left Coral Bay early for the longest day of driving. Since both Mike and I have bad backs, we stop about every 90 minutes to stretch and swap drivers which has worked well. Drivers passing by must wonder what we are up to as we do our yoga sun stretches :-). We made a short stop in Carnarvon to book a room in Geraldton for the night (very helpful info staff) and had an early lunch at Chicken Treet (first time trying a chicken shop). Then back on the road. Did not make any further meal stops – just swaps till we got to Geraldton.

Despite having booked and paid for our room ahead, when we arrived they told us there no rooms available due to a mix up. After some shuffling around, we did eventually get settled. But only after we had to move rooms after having poured a glass of wine and unpacking the eskie (that's a cooler mate). That evening we were lucky to catch an interview with Bill Bryson on TV which was timely given we were just finishing his book on tape ‘The Thunderbolt Kid’. As I mentioned previously the books on tape are a great success and something we will definitely repeat for our July trip in the camper van drive from Alice Springs to Darwin.

The next day we were at last homeward bound - just one stop in Gingin at the honey farm for more honey, honey ice cream & pollen. En route Mike stopped and captured some of the sights which have been typical on the drive - the windmills and roadside fruit/veggie stands.

We also stopped by the Leaning Trees of Greenough. They are quite fascinating - this is just one of them, there are many. The tree trunks grow horizontally due to the salt winds off the Indian Ocean.

And so we arrived back home with a couple of days to spare in the break to give Mike and Kyle time to catch up on school work and get organized.

As for me, I'm pretty much like the trees of Greenough and continue to take life in a relaxed pose.

Break 1 - Day 11 Manta Rays and MORE

We rose to a very overcast morning with high winds. We weren’t quite sure if the tour would run – there were rumblings around the camp that some tours were not going out. But we packed up hopefully and headed over anyway. The Whale Shark tours go out past the reef – and their tours were being decided upon still – but the Manta Rays come inside the reef and so our tour did run (that's our boat at left). The boats are assisted by spotter planes to direct them to the rays/sharks.

Although it was still windy, the sky soon cleared and we ended up with good weather after all (ho hum, another beautiful day). The spotter plane had little luck at first – and even when he finally spotted a ray, we lost it almost directly once we got there. But they finally found another one, and we all got in the water to check it out.

It turned out we had found a ray who was visiting a cleaning station. We all had a nice long swim with it as it hovered around. The water was quite churned up due to the winds, and the manta was mostly down fairly deep, but it did come up higher on occasion. We could see the cleaner fish working over its body and the larger fish swimming along by it also. It was very majestic and smooth. We were at the surface floundering around to try to stay put, and it just glided around effortlessly. It was an incredible experience!

Next we headed over to see some green ocean turtles in an area where they come up to breathe and feed in the shallows (out deep – just in the midst of the outer reef). The turtles were a variety of sizes, some very large; close to metre in diameter. They were fast though! They would come up for a quick breath or two, and then they were gone. Hard to catch on film.

We also spotted dolphins en route - a group of 4. There were 2 mothers and 2 calves, feeding in the shallow water. It is easier for the small dolphins to fish in the shallows, so the mothers bring them there to teach them to fish.

We then headed over to a section of the outer reef for snorkelling. We all (3 of us that is – actually all of the boat less one fellow who was nervous of the sharks) did the more challenging swim with the guide. We first visited the area where the reef sharks come for cleaning – there were a couple of big ones there.

Sorry - no photos of the sharks this round. It really is amazing swimming near these creatures. One or two of the reef sharks are okay to be round, but when they start to accumulate in numbers (as they did at Lakeside on our previous snorkel), it does become a bit unnerving - and we would take off. But here there were only a couple and it was intriguing to watch them get cleaned.

We then swam across a ‘canyon’ in the coral where the tide currents were a bit stronger, but the reef was spectacular. It was great to see the variety of coral on the outer reef especially – there were many different types here from what is in the inner reef.

The fish out here somehow seemed brighter also – but that was perhaps my imagination.

All in all it was great day – one of the best for sure. I think we got great value for our money given that we spent $140 pp for this vs. $360 pp for a whale shark swim (by the way – they did end up going out on rough seas, and they did get to swim with one – but it was not smooth!)