The way home

Sunday 29/12

After another packup we drove on to Esperence. The difficulty of finding accommodation at Albany inspired us to look early for somewhere to pitch the camper. Angela found a caravan park across the road from the beach that had a site available for two nights. 

The drive to Esperence took us through the wheatbelt of Western Australia. The harvest was in and the silos along the train line were all full and the overflow bunkers were being filled with fresh golden grains. The harvest had made big news in WA because the good growing season had brought about the biggest harvest in many seasons. So many fields with only stubble left. 

The huge forests of the southwest corner had given way to low trees that reminded us of the Victorian mallee. Esperence was a town that looked like it was yet to be discovered. Unlike Dnsborough, Albany and Augusta, Esperence didn't have the trendy cafés and restaurants or the beautiful new apartments along the beach. Maybe the distance from Perth was a factor, but all the accommodation was occupied. Lots of people holiday at Esperence from Kalgoolie. 

Monday 30/12

Monday morning we packed a picnic and beach toys to drive to Cape Le Grand for the day. In WA they know how to visit the beach! They don't park in a car park and carry everything across hot sand to a crowded patch of sand, they drive their car right onto the each and pull up anywhere along several kilometres of white sand. 

Parking on the beach at Cape Le Grand.

We found a nice patch of sand a respectable distance from other beach goers at Lucky Bay. The sand is so white and the sea so aqua it would have to one of the most beautiful beaches in Australia. The girls had a great time in the water that was not very deep and with gentle small waves. After lunch the girls built a sand castle and because we didn't have buckets and spades used Nicholas' shovel to dig a moat. 

An enterprising local had a coffee cart on the beach. We all went for a look and while Angela and Nicholas sampled icey coffee drinks the girls had ice creams. Some international visitors were entertained by some kangaroos that came down to the beach presumably for a tan. 

On the way back to Esperence we decided to drive the scenic beach road. The beach road was driving along the beach most of the way back to Esperence. Whilst getting on the beach was easy there were no signs for the exit at the other end. Along the beach were more people that had spent the day fishing, swimming or otherwise relaxing. Some groups had Polaris recreation vehicles to drive around the dunes. It really was a great day to more or less finish our holiday adventure. 

Tuesday 31/12

Tuesday, the last day of 2013, was packup day and move on towards the Nullabour and home. A fabulous pack up and we were on the road nice and early. We drove north toward Kalgoolie and through yet more harvested wheat fields. We stopped at Norseman for morning tea and found the town a little scary. The town looked quite closed up with many shops in themain street boarded up and empty. Oddly the town was named after a horse according to statue near the playground. 

Our biggest concern was about TC Catherine that had crossed the coast near Port Hedland and was tracking toward our location with strong winds and heavy rain still. We would need to find some good shelter for tonight. 

Just as the sign suggests, and boring to drive.

By the time we drove as far as Balladonia Roadhouse we were all ready for lunch, but not for the temperature. It was well into the 40s outside. Our lunch toasted as we ate and we were very eager to get back into the beast and keep driving. Funny even the beast was cooler than outside. Balladonia Roadhouse is very near where NASAs SkyLab crashed in 1979. They have a museum with details of the crash and subsequent visit from cleanup crews from USA. The shire even issued NASA a penalty notice for littering back in 1979. 

After just over 600km for the day we checked into the family room at Cocklebiddy Roadhouse. After Nicholas had refuelled the beast and was going back inside the room he noticed a snake laying across the room threshold. By the time Angela and the girls had returned with the manager and the manager's "snake charmer" the snake had found a hole near room 27 to slither into. 

 
The snake on the move from our door!

Thankfully we had taken a room because in the early hours of New Year's Day TC Catherine passed over us. She dumped over 10mm rain and the winds knocked out power, TV and phone for the roadhouse. The wind was so strong the rain came in horizontally. The lack of power meant there was no water for showers in the morning and no power to fire-up the coffee machine.

Wednesday 01/01

Happy New Years and Happy Anniversary to Angela and Nicholas. That makes is one birthday and one anniversary on this trip.

We continued east across the Great Australian Bight. We detoured a couple of times to look at the massive cliffs along the Great Australian Bight.

Again there were very few places to stop for lunch by the road with shelter. Thankfully the storm last night cooled the temperatures down to a manageable level. The lunch stop had to be in a car park at one of the viewing areas. Angela whipped up some nachos and Nicholas organised the daily caffeine hit with the coffee machine and generator.

Our lunch stop on the Great Australian Bight.

We made it to the South Australian boarder and on to Fowlers Bay, just a small detour off the main road. Fowlers Bay is an Eco Caravan Park; Eco meaning only warm water for showers. The park is completely off the power grid, no connection. Everything runs off solar power with inverters to bring it up to 240v if required. For about the first time since our night at Orange NSW we were cold. The wind was coming strong off the bay from the tail of TC Catherine.

Thursday 2/1/2014

We left chilly Fowlers Bay behind to drive to Port Augusta. Just outside Ceduna we stopped at the quarantine station. We had miscalculated our food stocks a lot! We handed over to the quarantine officer most of our fresh fruit and vegetables, until he volunteered that we were done. We thinks that is code for, "my shopping list is complete you can keep the rest". We had to stop at Ceduna to restock some bits for lunch after our donation.

We stopped at Wirrulla for lunch. Not much of a town but there was a car garage with a couple of banged up 1950s autos out the front.

The next town of note was Kimba. Kimba prides itself as the town halfway across the country. That would put us in the middle of nowhere and only half way to somewhere.

Halfway but nearly home!

We made it to Port Augusta for the night. The remarkable thing we found about Port Augusta on a Thursday night is no eateries are open for dinner. We thought that we would have dinner out and all the places we had found recommendations for were all closed or shutdown. We eventually found a pub and doubled the number of occupied tables.

Friday 3/01

Today was a shortish drive to Adelaide. The landscape changed again and became greener and we even ran into a bit of rain. The towns are again closer together. We went through some notable towns, Port Perie and Snowtown.

We had lunch at St Kilda, Adelaide, where there was an awesome adventure play ground. There were tunnels and ladders for the girls to climb, some of the longest slides we have ever seen.

What a playground!

We are staying a few nights in Adelaide at a caravan park not far from the city.

Saturday morning we took a reasonably short drive to Carrick house. This is a historical house that was donated to the State when the childless couple died. The beautiful Carrick Hill estate was the result of the marriage, in 1935, of members of two of Adelaide's most prominent families. Edward (Bill) Hayward was a son of the wealthy merchant family that for more than 100 years owned John Martin's Ltd, once Adelaide's greatest department store. His bride, Ursula Barr Smith, was a daughter of an even wealthier family of pastoralists. After their nuptials the couple took a yearlong honeymoon to Europe. Whilst there they purchased at auction much of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth-century paneling, doors, staircases and windows from the demolition sale of Beaudesert, a Tudor mansion in Staffordshire, England. These fixtures were sent back to Adelaide where architect, James Irwin, designed the house around these fittings. The house and history was fascinating and the girls just loved seeing the house as it was back in the 1930s.

Carrick House and gardens.

The other highlight of Adelaide is to have a Pie Floater. The old Pie Cart had closed so we had ours at Bakery on O'Connell not far from the city. All four girls really enjoyed their first pie floaters. 

Eating our pie floaters, better than they look!

After lunch Angela had some time to herself while Nicholas took the girls to a park for a play.

We spent the last part of the afternoon at the botanic gardens. They really are lovely gardens and worth a visit when you are in Adelaide. We wandered through the Bicentennial Conservatory, wetlands and the expansive green lawns.

The  the Bicentennial Conservatory or a giant discus stuck in the ground!

Sunday 5/01
Sunday morning we left Adelaide early and struggled to drive through the Adelaide hills with the car fully loaded and camper on behind. At times we crawled through the hills in second gear at 40kph. If the road wasn't two lanes we would be the head of a funny procession. Only fully laden trucks struggled more than us.

We drove to Robe where we had booked a night to catchup with the Coker and McQue families who were staying there. It happened to be Andrew McQue's birthday so we are going out for dinner, six adults and eight children.

All the kids together again.

Robe was a very busy little town with lots going on. There was a carnival in town and lots of holiday makers everywhere. Most of the available accommodation was all full and the boutique shops were quite busy with people looking for warmer clothes. The Coker and McQue families had had some of the cooler summer weather for their holiday on the coast.

The Coker and McQue families showed us around town and took us to a playground near the house they were staying in. We had a lovely dinner all together and finalised the arrangement for a surprise for our children the next day!

Monday 06/01
Monday morning was another early start and the last pack-up of the camper for this trip! It was certainly with a bit of emotion that we folded the camper and closed the latches for the last time. The Coker and McQue families were going to a horse school for a trail ride and we had booked a lesson for our three girls. The girls lesson included looking after the horses with brushing, saddling, and then how to ride a horse properly. The lesson was fantastic and particularly Chelsea with her love for horses could not take the smile from her face. A true promotion from riding foam pool noodles around caravan parks to the real thing for an hour!

Do you think Chelsea is having a good time?

All having a brush.

While the Coker and McQue children went on their trail ride for a couple of hours the rest of us headed to Narracourte for a lunch and chat. All too soon the time was getting on and we had to leave to make it to Horsham for our nights accommodation. On the drive to Horsham we crossed the boarder into Victoria. There was quite a cheer that went up in the car for this milestone. We also gained another 30 minutes of travel time.

The second treat for the day was to stay at the Mayfair apartments for the last night of our epic trip around Australia. We have stayed there previously and they are very comfortable with lots of space.

To celebrate our final night away from home (possibly ever) we took the girls out for dinner to one of their favourite cuisines, Chinese! Oddly the two Chinese restaurants in Horsham are right next to each other. We chose the wrong one as it turned out! The staff could not have cared less about us being there and we were obviously an interruption to whatever else they had planned for the night. For only the second time ever we walked out of the restaurant before ordering and went next door and the difference was amasing.


Tuesday 07/01
Our very last day of the trip but the touring doesn't stop. We had booked a tour at Great Western for the Sepplet drives tour. This is probably the fourth time we have done this tour and it is so much fun. The tour takes the group through some of the 3km of tunnels under the buildings of the winery. In days gone by the wine makers stored and aged many bottles of champagne (they were aloud to call it champagne then) in the tunnels. The tunnels were dug out mostly by out of work miners after the peek of the gold rush in the 1850s.

The tour-guide we had this time was not as engaging or knowledgeable as previous tours we had done. We had to fill into the gaps for the kids with the bits that were left out. Interesting Chelsea and Chantelle kept asking about bits that were omitted from the tour, that they remembered from 2010 when we were there last.

Our last lunch stop was at the botanic gardens at Arrarat. It was a kind of wired lunch stop, we all knew that the next stop would be our house for the first time in 188 days.

Back past Ballarat, Baccus Marsh, Melton and then finally there was a deafening roar from the car as the tall buildings of Melbourne came into view. The excitement was electric for the final hour in the car home.

Well that is it, yes just like that the trip is over. 188 days away from home, 33,984km covered and infinite memories created. Will we ever do a trip like this again? Don't know yet, there are still lots of places to see and many places we would all go back to ... one day.

The end!

Dunsborough and Christmas

Sunday 22/12

Our first full day in Dunsborough and we are off to the shops to buy all the food for Christmas. What a good thing our rooms had three fridges. One was designated as the drinks fridge, the kitchen fridge had the bulk of the food and the fridge in Chelsea and Chantelle's room had all the overflow vegetables (knew they would leave that alone).

Nicholas was given the job of glazing a ham. A firm favourite with the children most Christmases. Nicholas took over the roasting BBQ in the courtyard area for a couple of hours while he basted and cooked the ham leg.

The glazed Christmas ham. 

The only other thing we did for the day was to walk the streets of the town to explore where and what we can do around town. Dunsborough was once a quiet little seaside town for locals, then it was discovered by people from Perth. Now it is a really busy large town with heaps of holiday rentals, and boutique type shops and coffee houses.

It simply wouldn't be Christmas without a tree to put presents under. 
Monday 23/12

The day started with a chorus "Are they here yet?" Today gran and grandpa are coming to meet us for Christmas. Good thing there is a three hour time difference, so gran and grandpa are already on their way but still wont be with us until mid afternoon. If we had a dollar for every time someone asked "when will they be here", we would have had a pile of dollar coins!

To keep the girls busy while we waited we took them on an excursion to Yallingup Sheering Shed. In this part of WA all the aboriginal place names end in 'up' which means place. Yallingup means 'place of love' best leave it at that. The sheering shed is part of a working sheep farm of 4000 sheep. Three days a week they take visitors into the sheering shed for a demonstration of sheep sheering, fleece cleaning and grading, dogs working with sheep, lamb feeding and wool bailing. The farmer was very good with the demonstration and involved every child at some point and even some of the adults.

We think perhaps these sheep have been fed before.

 
The dogs were amazing to watch. The Border Collie went out and brought a flock of about 30 sheep into the yard all on its own. Then the Kelpie took over for the yard work. The Kelpie is extremely agile and would jump on and walk on the sheep's backs. Each sheep in the flock has a different coloured tag in its ear. The tag identifies which year the sheep was born hence how old the sheep is. Chelsea would have been sent to market as mutton, Chantelle would have had a purple tag and Bianca a green tag, Nicholas would have been an expensive stud ram because he has produced 100% girls! All sheep farms use the same colour tag each year. That is very organised.

It doesn't look very comfortable for the sheep but they don't struggle or fight either. 

Go on let me at 'em, let me at 'em! The Border Collie was perched on the fence waiting for the command.

The Kelpie worked the sheep in the yard very hard. 

That's Bianca pressing a wool bale.

The sheering shed also had a shop attached filled with all types of wool products. Bianca bought a lamb, Chantelle a dog and Angela some socks.

Eventually, after lunch, gran and grandpa arrived in time for afternoon tea.

Tuesday 24/12

The day before Christmas and the excitement is at fever pitch! The only thing to do is to keep the girls and Angela occupied and busy. We drove down toward Augusta to the limestone caves in amongst the southern Karri forests. Angela had been organised and rung to book a tour but was told that it was not necessary. When we arrived the car park was very full and Angela managed to purchase the last 7 tickets for the 11:30 tour in Jewel Cave.

Jewel cave was first opened tot he public in 1959 after the first explorers of the cave dug out an entrance by hand to allow visitors in. The first entry to the cave in 1958 was through a small hole in the roof of the cave and down a rope. The cave sinks to a depth of 42 metres and is 1.9 kilometres long. The depth means there is a lot of stairs to climb to exit the cave and because there is a high level of CO2 in the cave we were all huffing and puffing when we reached daylight again.

Jewel cave formations. 

More strange Jewel cave formations. 

From Jewel cave we drove through the little town of Augusta and out to Cape Leeuwin to the lighthouse precinct. After a picnic lunch on the lawns we had a walk around the buildings that made up the lighthouse community. The cape is the most south-western point of mainland Australia and the point where the Indian and Southern oceans meet. All the cottages and the lighthouse were built with local sandstone over two years from 1895.

Been there seen the lighthouse lets go. 

After our expedition south to Augusta we headed back to our digs at Dunsborough to prepare to go out for dinner. We rang to let them know we were running a little late and they were very happy with that because they had no electricity. What a great dinner; with no electricity the lighting was all candles and the warm glow was fantastic. The only dish that they couldn't produce were espresso coffees.

Wednesday 25/12

Christmas Day had arrived and we were all excited but probably none more than Angela who just loves Christmas! Angela cooked lunch with the assistance of Nina because the oven in our apartment was not working well. Nicholas and John had collected patio tables and chairs for the lunch because the tables provided were not very good for eating at.

Christmas lunch on patio tables. 

Christmas lunch had all the trimmings that a Christmas lunch should. There was the turkey with stuffing, ham, cauliflower cheese, potatoes, pumpkin, peas, carrots, and beans. Nina had brought with her a homemade Christmas pudding which we had with brandy cream and brandy custard. John had made the traditional White Cargo which we all enjoy drinking. Mmmm what a delicious meal.

That's the Rudolf Nicholas made from a statue. 

After lunch we headed down tot he park to try out some new toys, namely battery powered water pistols. Really who would give young children water pistols? When we returned Nicholas was soaked to the skin from the pistol wielding young ladies. .

Thursday 26/12 Boxing Day even in Western Australia. The girls had a fun morning playing with their new things from Christmas.

We had a booking for lunch at Leuwen Estate vineyard. The vineyard was just past the town of Margaret River and the restaurant had a fabulous view over the lawns in front of the stage then across a creek to the Karri trees towering in the background. It was a lovely vista in front of which we had a very enjoyable lunch. The girls could disappear between courses down to the lawn area to play. They even found another little girl to play with and enjoyed a game of elastics which Chelsea got for Christmas.

Friday 27/12

Friday we all were able to enjoy gran and grandpa's Christmas present, a private winery region tour. We started the tour with a stop for everyone, the Yallingup Maze. This is probably one of the most difficult and tricky mazes that we have ever attempted. The maze had secret doors and an elevated platform which needed to be used to get from one part of the maze to another. The object of the maze was to reach each tower in order from 1 to 4.


After the maze we visited a winery before heading for lunch at Duckstein Brewery. We very nearly ran into a crisis as Duckstein was so busy that they had closed the kitchen to new orders. Some quick talking by Angela we were able to sneak our order in and avoid the 2.5 hour wait for our food. The food was German style with lots of sausages and chops and sauerkraut.

The afternoon brought more wineries, including Windows and House of Cards and a chocolatier. We finished up the day at Simo's ice-cream. Simo's is a local icon located up in the hills above Dunsborough. The locals thought he was mad opening an ice-cream place so far out of town, but judging by the number of cars and people it is a screaming success. Simo's also has mini-golf an adventure playground and massive lawns with BBQs.

No one was really hungry for dinner so we ordered some food from Squid Lips and prepared to pack up to leave the following morning. There was a large amount of provisions to take back to the camper and there were several trips to be made.

Saturday morning gran and grandpa had a very early start to make it to Perth Airport for a 10am flight back to Melbourne. The rest of us finished packing and started heading to Albany for the night.

The road to Albany took us through some huge Karri forests and some regenerating Jarrah forests. Along the way we stopped at a farm that made cheese from sheep milk. Quite delicious and not strong cheese like other sheep cheese we have eaten.

Just out of Walpole we pulled off the main South Coast Highway and headed to the Valley of the Giants. The Valley of the Giants gets us up walking 40 metres above the forest floor through the canopy of the tingle forest to enjoy the majestic views over the canopy of the 400 year old Tingle trees. A combination of insect infestation and bush fires makes most of these trees completely hollow though still growing.

Walking the spans in the tree tops. Lots of looking out not down!

We made it to Albany and eventually found somewhere to setup for the night.

Perth

Wednesday we spent most of the day Christmas shopping at Karrinyup Shopping Centre. Angela and Nicholas separated the girls to go in search of special Christmas gifts for sisters. It was indeed a treat to spend some time in a large shopping centre again, even Nicholas enjoyed shopping just a little bit. The centre had a huge Christmas tree and stage where various community groups and schools sung Christmas carols. We are always up for a good free activity and the shopping centre provided Christmas biscuits to decorate with icing and lollies supervised by two lovely elves. 

Our big day at Karrinyup Shopping Centre. 

Making yummy biscuits with help of some local elves. 

After loading the beast with all our new purchases we drove back to park for a swim and play on the jumping pillow. The jumping pillow is a new experience for the girls on this trip. A jumping pillow is a huge pillow filled with air that children (and some adults) play on; somewhere between a trampoline and a jumping castle. 

Thursday we had a day of exploring Perth's beautiful beaches. We were staying at Karrinyup which is north of Perth city, about 15 minutes from the coast. Just a little further north we started our exploration at Sorrento Beach near Hillary's Boat Harbour. Even on a Thursday morning there was surf life saving patrol at the beach and the girls loved swimming in the water. 

Swimming at Sorrento Beach. 

We eventually were able to extract the girls from the water to drive down West Coast Highway to find a picnic spot for lunch. At Watermans Bay there was a picnic table and a playground that over looked the bay below. The bay below was quite sheltered from the wind and a reef off shore sheltered the cove from the waves. 

After lunch and the girls had gone off for a play Nicholas noticed a dorsal fin in the water off shore. After retrieving some binoculars we confirmed that it was not a shark (they had been in the news such a lot recently) but two dolphins with a baby swimming about in an area clear of the reef. 

Our lunch spread at Watermans Bay. 

The sheltered little cove at Watermans Bay. 

After having our fill of dolphin watching we continued down West Coast Highway to City Beach (unfortunately we missed Scarborough Beach this time). City Beach was also patrolled and with the dumping waves, justifiably patrolled. Nicholas went in with the girls and all had great fun until Bianca was dumped by a wave. Bianca decided she didn't like swimming with waves anymore and sat out with Angela. 

Still further down West Coast Highway we stopped at Cottesloe Beach. Cottesloe Beach has little parkland but is mostly residential. Cottesloe Beach was not patrolled but that didn't stop us going in for a swim. The waves were more gentle but kept taking the girls further down the beach. After having afternoon tea on the beach, iced coffees and fruit mince pies, we drove back to camp to prepare for a night out. We drove through the suburb of Claremount and Angela spied a very stylish looking 'boutique' shopping centre. Nicholas had an uneasy feeling we would be back there before long. 

We (read Angela) packed a picnic to take to Carols in East Perth Park. The carols is a benefit for homeless people in Perth (not ones in camper trailers though) and sponsored by the City of Perth. The setting in the Victoria Gardens beside the Swan River and Claisebrook cove was quite picturesque. The gardens had a Hoop Pine tree decorated with Christmas lights. A lot of the children that came to the carols armed with cardboard, which initially puzzled us until we saw the grassy hill they were sliding down. Of course Chantelle managed to 'obtain' some cardboard to slide on!

East Perth. 

Santa came for a visit and we think it was an official Santa helper because we saw the same Santa and helper in Perth City a few days later. The last song for the night was Jingle Bells and all the children were invited down to the stage area to dance and sing. Bianca had some great dance moves going on and was quite impressive. The performer put the microphone down for various children to sing into. The first of ours was Bianca, then Chantelle and finally Chelsea had the microphone to sing the last few lines of Jingle Bells. They each sang in tune and in time wonderfully. What a great carols it was just a pity it was not better supported with larger crowds. 

Santa with our girls. 

Huge Hoop Pine Christmas tree. 

Friday morning we went back to East Perth to visit a children's book store that Angela spotted the night before. It has been difficult to have enough books to keep the three girls with pages to read. When they get their hands on a book and have it read in less than a day the number of books read and the parcels of books sent home has, so far, been mind boggling. We had a lovely walk around East Perth which is a very stylish area. 

We drove on to Kings Park, no visit to Perth is complete without at least a drive, preferably a walk through Kings Park. The day was very hot, well into the 40s in the shade and being close to Christmas there were office parties all over Kings Park. We found a vacant BBQ at a respectable distance from an office party. An observation this trip is the placement of picnic tables (where there are some). They seem always to be in blazing sun during the middle of the day when they are most likely to be used. At cricket grounds the engineers place light towers so that their shadow doesn't fall across the pitch, yet a park cannot place a table so that the shade falls across it in the middle of the day. We had a lovely patch of grass in the shade of a ficus that was growing through the dead trunk of a host tree. 

On top of the tower at Kings Park. 

Perth city from Kings Park. 

It just so happened that not far from Kings Park down the Stirling Hwy was the Clairemont Shopping Centre. Just to make the girls day Angela suggested that we go there to Shoes and Sox to buy new school shoes for the three people due to go back to school in a little over a month. Oh what diabolical touture we inflict on our offspring, ha ha ha ha. In compensation we did take the girls to Koko Black for a drink. 

Each year as a family we have a day out in Melbourne city just before Christmas. Saturday became our day out in Perth city. Our first stop was Myer to say hello to the jolly old man with the belly like a bowl full of jelly. Myer had changed the rules this year an allowed people to book a time to see Santa online to avoid the queues. When we arrived the queue we could see was reasonably short, but what we couldn't see was all the people queued up online. Consequently the queues moved at glacial speed. Eventually we had our chance with Santa and told him they all wanted books for Christmas. With that it was coffee-o'clock for Nicholas and Angela. 

Shooting the breeze with Santa. 

In Forrest Place the City of Perth had put together a bunch of children's activities, all free. There were rides and face painting and the Santa from carols the previous night was walking around with his special helper (Mrs Clause should have more say in who Santa hires as helpers). So while Nicholas and Angela sipped iced coffee drinks the girls, under our watchful eye, took off for free rides. 

One ride in Forrest Place. A cup of tea. 

Again we tore the girls away to explore some more of the city. Off one of the street malls was London Court. London Court is a Tudor style version of Melbourne's Block Arcade. Twice each day London Court produced snow to rain down on its visitors. We turned up for the midday snow storm and what fun to stand under the snow. The snow was like washing up suds blown out of industrial blowers from second story windows. 

Snowing in London Court. 

After some more retail therapy Angela left Nicholas alone and unsupervised with the kids while she went to do some secret stuff. Nicholas took the kids back to Forrest Place to the queue for the giant snow globe. The giant snow globe is a pressurised dome with plastic snow and about 12 children and their adults play in there at a time. Very hot in it but really good fun. 

That's a blizzard in a snow globe. 

Sunday morning and we checked the weather, in Melbourne it was 17 degrees and in Perth three hour earlier it was already 30 degrees. Another warm day in Perth. Probably the only way we would have had a summer this season as there was not much warmth in Melbourne. 

Sunday we had the day in Freemantle. Our first visit was to the Freemantle Prison, not because someone was locked up but they decommissioned the prison in 1991 and it is now a World Heritage Site open to the public for tours. We started with the Doing Time Tour that went for about 90 minutes and explained the history of the prison, prison life and changes to the prison over the 140 years of operation. The prison was built out of stone quarried from the prison grounds by its first inmates in the 1850s. Four divisions each of four stories were initially built within the walls and later two additional divisions were added for women and one for 'the deranged'. The prison had a colored history that was more or less ended in 1988 when the inmates of division 3 rioted and burned the division. The riot led to an enquiry which found the prison inadequate and a new prison built closing Freemantle in 1991. 

Being led down the path at Freemantle Gaol. 

We all enjoyed the tour so much we decided to come back after lunch and upgrade our tickets for the Great Escapes Tour. Down at Freemantle docks we had lunch at Kaili's Fish 'n' Chips. It is a bit like production line fish 'n' chips but the food was really good. Eating outside was the go as there was a slight breeze that just kept us a little cooler as the temperature nudged into the 40's. We didn't have time to get back to the prison for the next tour so we checked out the Freemantle Maritime Museum (always room for one more museum). The museum had artifacts about WA's shipping history and a really good explanation on how they restore and protect fragile artifacts when they find them. We would have liked more time there but also wanted to make the last Great Escapes Tour.

Some of the best fish 'n' chips on the docks. 

The Great Escapes Tour took us through some more of the prison and we relived the events of some of the escapes from Freemantle Prison. There was one accidental escape when a prisoner was up a ladder mending a wall. He lost his balance and fell off the wall on the freedom side. The guard supervising the prisoner could not leave the ladder in the yard with 160 other prisoners so by the time the alarm was able to be raised the prisoner had run to the main gate begging to be let in! Some escapes were well planned some were pure opportunistic. One well planned escape saw Brendon Abbott (AKA the Post Card Bandit) on the run for a number of years. 

Some art work discovered under layers of paint. 

The escape proof cell with three grills on the window and jarrah lined stone block walls. 

Sunday night there was carols by candlelight at Scarborough Beach. Another picnic and we staked a claim with a good view in the ampitheatre on the foreshore. The carols were compared by a local TV personality who did a great job. Santa arrived on a SLS buggy for a visit. We decided that he was a Santa school drop out because he didn't do very good ho ho hos and his voice was not very Santary (iPad tried to correct to sanitary). Carols was fantastic and was really starting to put us all in the festive mood, particularly those that are generally less festive. 

Carols at Scarborough Beach with a near perfect sunset in the background. 

Monday we planned a much less active day out in the Swan Valley. The Swan Valley Information Centre had put together two car trails that started from the Information Centre. We did the Swan Valley 'Amazing Valley Chase' that took us to several interesting stops in the Valley including a Chocolate factory, coffee roaster, ice cream place, and a nut and nougat place. When we returned to the Information Centre we were given a family certificate for completing the challenge and solving the mystery. 

Tuesday was the last day of the Perth Ashes Test and Australia needed six more wickets to win the series and the little urn. We decided to go as a family. We went in by train and someone that wasn't Nicholas was offered a seat on the train not once but twice! What is with that? At the ground we found a great spot on the grass (on the crowd side of the fence) where we could stretch out and watch the match or read a book. Nicholas and the girls had a great time during the lunch interval playing tag and stacks on dad. Of course the highlight was Austalia taking all six remaining wickets and winning the little urn!

After the cricket we went back into the city to a beach Tourism WA had built in the CBD. I don't know why, they just did, maybe it was a beach with no sharks. There were beach umbrellas, deck chairs, buckets and spades and the girls had a great time until they started packing it away for the night. We moved on to the State Library that was close by. 

We stayed in the city because there was a nativity play on that night. The City of Perth puts on the play each year for four nights and thousands of people come to see it. We found a table on the edge and had dinner while waiting for the play to begin. What a show! There was a huge cast including a real donkey, three camels and some sheep that got a little cranky. There really was no apology in Perth for why Christmas is celebrated in the city and if you don't like it buzz off. It would be good to see Melbourne take that approach. 

Camels back in the streets of Perth. 

After a late night Tuesday, Wednesday all we needed was a quiet relaxing day. The beast needed a service again before we tackled the long drive home and while Nicholas delivered the car to the service centre Angela took the girls for school. Nicholas managed to procure a loan car for the day while the beast was at the health spa. 

The afternoon was most exciting. While Angela had a haircut Nicholas and the little girls had a movie afternoon back at camp. A very relaxing day just what we all needed before another big day out on Thursday. 

Thursday morning we were off to Rottnest Island. We took the ferry from Hillary's Boat Harbour because it was very close and easy parking. The ferry ride only took 45 minutes and the girls were extremely well entertained by Mr Bean on the TV in the main cabin. Chelsea was in stitches with the antics of Bean, that one really does have a wild sense of humour. 

Our arrival on the island coincided with a walking tour about some of the shipwrecks that had occurred over the years. Just off the island is a maze of reefs and rocks that caught out many a sea captain. There was one captain who mistook the signal from the lighthouse to stay away as come closer which didn't end well. In 1848 a pilot service was started from Rottnest. The pilot was rowed to the ship, or occasionally if the conditions favourable they hoisted the sails, to guide the ship through the reefs. The tour took us to a sheltered beach around the island a bit where we stayed for lunch right on the beach. 

The three girls were super keen to hire some bikes and ride about the island. Nicholas and Angela were a bit apprehensive, particularly as none of us had ridden for almost six months and Bianca had only come off training wheels weeks before we left. The hire place agreed to let Bianca have a trial before we committed and she did super good. We grabbed five bikes and headed around the island anticlockwise. This took us first to the army barracks of WWII vintage. Kingstown Barracks provided living accommodation for four warrant officers or sergeants and 72 rank and file personnel, officers mess, cottages, Army institutional buildings, small hospital, dry canteen, workshop, store, railway buildings, and supporting communication and observation structures. The barracks were decommissioned in 1984 after use declined post war. 

We rode on to Parker Point and saw the wreck of a fishing boat that broke its mornings during a storm in Freemantle and navigated itself to Rottnest and crashed on the shore. Incidentally we heard a report on the radio that a ship that broke its moorings a couple of years ago has finally shown up on the coast of Africa. The girls had a really good ride and Chantelle and Bianca really got up some speed going back to the village down hill with the wind. 

A lovely day at Rottnest and we even saw a few of the 10000 quokkas that enchantithe island. They make it clear that we should not feed the quokkas however they have worked out where the food is kept and just need the opposable thumb to work the zip. 

I can smell food in there how does this zip work!

Friday we headed to the Swan Valley again to complete the second of their challenges. All three girls enjoyed driving around solving the mysteries. Probably all the books the girls read.  

Saturday morning Hip hip hooray, it's off to Dunsborough today and Christmas is just around the corner.