Yallingup to the end

Well the past month and a bit has flown by! We have been staying in Yallingup for that long now and it feels a bit like where did it go? We got out and saw a bit of the area right away. We rented a Hobiecat and had fun out in the bay. We have gone to many beaches in the area and Tom and I got a chance for another 3hr hike along a portion of the cape to cape track. Nathan was keen to not miss out so we took him on a small hike on the trails the next day. The weather has gotten steadily hotter and hiking is now not part of the agenda.



We have explored the surrounding areas. Margaret River is known for the 100 + vineyards and the tourist area around here.  Bussleton is a larger town to the north that is known for a 2 km long jetty that was just reopened with a big party that we went to. It was a family occasion with sandcastle building, treasure hunting, a magician and a puppeteer that were good for Nathan. We went a bit further north to Bunbury also to Tessa’s parents who lent us some bikes and had us for a nice lunch.



 

Nathan the supervisor in training



We have mostly liked staying close to home and going to the beach nearby. Nathan has been entertained by counting the stairs every time we head down there. We are ½ block to the stairs, 106 stairs and ½ block to the main beach. At the beach, Nathan is usually the supervisor telling Dad where to dig for a pool at the tide line.  Nathan gets in when it comes to the complicated bits like tunnels and bridges. The kookaburra comes everyday if not more than once.

We haven’t seem much new for animals out here. A few reptiles is all, I think. We found a bobtail lizard in the garage one day and it turned into a tough job to get it out. Later we learned it is a good sign to have a lizard, as it means there aren’t any snakes. Well it shouldn’t be living inside anyway, but I hope it stuck around the yard. We saw some black lizards called black skinks and a baby brown snake, or Dugite as they call them in WA. There have to be a lot of snakes in this country, but that is one animal I prefer to not see.

I have been going to a pilates class in Dunsborough and have been trying to get a bit of running and yoga going again also. It is too hot now for running. We are in a heat wave and the news says this is the hottest summer in 30 years. We can sure find the extremes in this country. I prefer to be too hot like this than to be cool.

Max Maxwell drove out here for a visit from his time in Tassy and Adelaide. It was great to have him here. A face from home is a breath of fresh air. Nathan was excited to have someone new to hang out with too. He raced Max at everything, to get ready, to get down the stairs, to get in the truck etc.  He even got Max colouring. We toured around the area a bit more with him for a couple of weeks, shared many great meals and drank a few beers along the way.

We headed down to the south coast for a few days. First night we stayed in Pemberton and ate at the Pemberton Hotel! Not the same as our Pemberton hotel, but similar. This is an old logging town with big Karri trees. They are a eucalypt tree and really beautiful. We stayed at a great place with cabins on a farm. Nathan got to feed the animals in the morning with the owner and the sheep and goats were right out front of our place. We headed down to Denmark to the Valley of the Giants and went on a beautiful tree top walk. An actual walkway in trees, I think it was 100+’. These trees are also a eucalypt but are called Tingle trees. There was a lot of beautiful coastline, bays and rocks and such along to Denmark and Albany. We were gone for 4 days with that loop and are now enjoying the last few days in Yallingup.

We are starting to pack up or bring all our stuff together anyways as we are leaving in a few days. No not home to the snow yet. We have booked an excursion to Bali for a quick trip. I am excited to get a taste of Asia and see a new area that we weren’t planning on. I am looking forward to Bali being so different, but sad to say goodbye to Yallingup. I am starting to get homesick now and miss our friends more all the time. And Sushi Sen!

Cheers,

Lana



The missing link...

This is a fill in from the 18^th of  January to my last post when we arrived in Yallingup. We spent a few weeks traveling Adelaide to Melbourne, reconnecting with old friends and seeing fantastic places.



We headed out early for the airport, again forgetting that a 1 hour drive up the coast is a different time zone. At least it meant we were early and not late! Queensland doesn’t partake in daylight savings, and I think this got us every time we went there. Next trip we will get it. We were hoping to meet up with the McPherson’s who we had just exchanged with and all their connections worked out so we had a ½ hour or so to chat at the airport after they arrived and get a feel how they liked BC and to tell them of our time at their home.



Picking up Nathan from his day at the zoo with Bill and Gina



We made it to Adelaide and were greeted by my friend Gina. How fantastic to catch up with her. I met her in  88 working in Banff, and then later stayed with her in Adelaide in 89 when I was there. We lost touch at least 15 years ago, but it really felt like it was nothing to just pick it up again. We had been to some amazing places in Australia already, but there is something so different about those you really connect with. We got to meet her 2 sons, see her cousin and parents that I had met 21 years ago. We got to know a little of her area and took Woody the dog to the ‘billibong’ for a walk. Really they call it a billabong! It is a small river flowing through Adelaide that they have made park all along it. Adelaide has interesting old houses too, character houses. Stone homes, and 16’ ceilings. I remember being so interested in that last time I was there. Gina and her Dad, the zoo ambassador, took Nathan to the zoo one day and gave Tom and I a chance to explore downtown on our own. When we met them after, Nathan and Bill were chattering on about all the animals they saw. Excited!

2 of the apostles

We spent the next few days driving along the

Great Ocean Road

. This is one place I wished I had seen last time I was here and I have been reminded of this every time Bonnie comes home with 1,000s of pictures of this stretch of road. I can see why, I probably took 600. The limestone pillars and arches that have formed along this coast are incredible. We would pull into one lookout and go see, then 200 meters down the road was another pullout that was completely different. The 12 apostles are the most famous and deserving, but all of it is fantastic.



Lee, Maddie and David with Tom and Nathan



We drove on to Melbourne to stay with Leslie Anderson, now Lee Nelson, and her family for a few nights. She was my closest friend for many years in elementary school. Again it was so incredible to have this history with someone and pick it up. She had moved back here right after grad and has such an Aussie accent now, that it is fun to learn the new words and figure it out. Getting to meet her kids, Maddie and David, after all these years was great, not just pictures on facebook. The kids were so excited to have a young guy around and really kept him so entertained. Lee took us on a tour around down town one day and we got a good feel for the city. It feels very Canadian for some reason. These two stays were where Tom picked up his new favorite food, cheese and fruit platters for dessert every night. He has been making them at our new place quite a bit since Max has been visiting.

 Next we drove down to Phillip Island south of Melbourne. This is the place everyone I met from Melbourne told me to go see and we had the luck to have Bonnie’s great friend’s Wendy and Debbie there to host us. How would they know the enthusiastic ‘come and stay with us if you come our way’ 10ish years ago would still be remembered! They are really great ambassadors for their island and it is a real gem.  We went the first night to see the little penguins making their way up the beach to their nests. It is all a protected area and it is a well run tourist attraction style place that is a really great way for the masses to see the penguins without disturbing them very much. They have lights, but apparently they are low enough or the right spectrum that won’t bother them. It was so great to see them coming up the beach and following 

A parent and a chick in a nest

trail to their nests. Above the beach is a boardwalk area that allows the penguins to go where they need and us to watch. There are no camera’s allowed and everyone seemed to stay with it. The next day Wendy and Debbie took us to a different nesting area where we could see some chicks. Fantastic! We saw a lot of nests and took picture of some great chicks up close. We toured around the area and saw pelican and sting ray feeding, a great bird watching site, a surprise wallaby up close and fantastic different coastlines. Again another great dog, Daisy, stole our hearts. I could have packed Woody or Daisy up and taken them home.

We then flew out to the much anticipated Western Australia! It is the only place that has been sunny the whole time we have been in Australia. The weather was cool in Adelaide and Melbourne while we were there and we felt the weather was following us. We knew it was when Perth and the southern coast were predicted to get a cyclone right after we arrived. That luckily turned to a day of thunderstorms followed by a couple of days of cloud. We really have been in great weather ever since.

In Perth we stayed at Cottesloe beach in Perth with a lovely couple that we met through home exchange. They turned out to be very interesting. She is a home ware designer named Anna Chandler and she has some fun and crazy stuff in her home and in her store. We have seen it in stores all around now that we know it. They live in a great area, just a quick walk to the beach and a short drive to everything else. We did a bit of touring around the general area and had a chance to go to an out door movie theater one evening. It is more of a social event than a normal movie. They make wood oven pizza’s there and serve drinks or you can bring your own food. People come to have a social dinner together and then watch the movie. The last day there we went for lunch with my friend Jane, another landscaper from Vancouver, that I know through Capilano College and beyond. She was on her 5^th trip here and was just heading home, so I got a few good bits of Western Australia plant info from her.

Well there it is long and caught up.

Take care,

Lana, Tom and Nathan

Western Australia

Ahhh….Yes a big ahhhh. 

Nathan at Smith's beach



 We have been at our second home exchange in Yallingup, Western Australia for a week now. I realize now there was much anticipation in arriving here. Ever since we arrived in Australia, Western Australia was the only place with great weather every day. Just like Huatulco, MX the weather is boring, 35C and clear everyday, as we like it. Then we were anticipating it a lot more as we moved around every 2 days for 3+ weeks, just to stay put and unpack. We really enjoyed touring around and seeing so many people and places, but it was time to settle in. This left southern WA with some big shoes to fill  and our expectations have been met! The weather tried to follow across the country at first and when we stayed in Perth we heard the same thing ‘the weather is never this poor here’. There was even a cyclone predicted. Well that dwindled and we ended up with a thunder storm and a few days to adjust to the heat and here we are at Boring! Yayyy.

I wish I could say that for the rest of the country. With more natural disasters everyday it seems. A huge cyclone in northern Queensland, dangerous high temps in Sydney and now I heard flash flooding in Melbourne yesterday. We have seen too many news conferences addressing the nation since we have been here!

Yallingup and Perth are so different from the other areas we have visited and the locals are proud to be so different. Much more quaint and quiet and it is much hotter and drier. There are fewer plants from home here. The temperate plants have disappeared and the mediterranean ones have appeared.

The town we are in is a small surf town kind of like the size and remoteness of Britannia Beach. There is a store/ post office/coffee house/gear rentals/etc, a restaurant, and a hotel. The area around here is the area for the Margaret River wine tours, so everywhere we go we pass a few wineries, a brewery and a few artisan shops. We have turned into a few and plan on many more!



Our view to Cape Naturalist



We have a big beautiful house on the hill overlooking the surf beach and Cape Naturalist National Park. The views are fantastic and everything is close. The area is really only 3 blocks of houses and quite a few are vacation homes for people in Perth. We are 7kms from a nice small town of Dunsborough. That is where the grocery store and all the amenities are. I also discovered a raw/whole foods restaurant. Yummy!



Nearr the top of Wardanup Mt



Nathan has been asking to go to daycare for weeks now. We had to wait until we were set up somewhere. So here we had him set up in a place in town for 2 days a week. We are all grateful for the break. He is very tired when we pick him up and Tom and I have a chance to get out and do a few things at regular speed. First day we went out and did a hike up the local ‘mountain’ behind our house. More hill like, it was just a 2 hour round trip.

The first morning here, we had parrots, a raven and a kookaburra show up on the deck looking for a treat. What a treat for us! They come back everyday and I think it is the same kookaburra that returns. It will eat out of our hand and poses for a good picture. They are carnivores and we save a bit of steak or hamburger to feed him. We haven’t heard any laughing around here, it must nest further away because we did hear them in one place we stayed and they go crazy in the morning and evening with their crazy laugh. And they are loud!  There are a lot of the grey and pink galahs around also, but they travel in big packs and we have been warned to not feed them or they will quickly multiply to 50 birds. A good warning.

Well that is where we are at now and I will catch you up on the previous few weeks of traveling next. I am not good with chronological.

Cheers,



Lana

The facebook picture link is below. Please put this in the address bar in explorer. Where in now says http://www.blogger.com/......... or click on the link below. Let me know if there are still problems.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=255092&id=554710811&l=b7cd9e8b6d

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=272021&id=554710811&l=cb0f3f94a2

Moving along

Today is our last full day on the east coast. The skies have parted for the past few days and the flooding is receding in the areas around us. We still have full access to the airport, so we are flying out tomorrow for Adelaide, Melbourne and area. I am ready to move on now and see a new area.

We have been trying to catch up on the ‘to do list around Alstonville. We have stayed close to home this past week. Nathan was in a full week of swimming lessons in the next town and we had a bit of pool weather. We went to Thursday plantation the tea tree oil producer and today we are going to rent some bikes to ride along the river in Ballina.

We really feel like we were the last tourists to see Brisbane. I am sure glad we went when we did. The flood is starting to recede now and the news is of the destruction left behind and the cleanup crews. When we went to Brisbane, we got a chance to go to the Australia Zoo. This was a really great zoo! We are not really zoo people, but I really wanted to go to this one because it is the zoo Steve Irwin grew up in and ran. There were great crocodiles and lots of animals we wouldn’t see in the wild and good information on all of them. I want to see some old Crocodile Hunter again.

I prefer to see them in the wild and we have quite a list now. Lots of birds; laughing kookaburras, Lorikeets eating breakfast with us, rosela’s, wild turkeys, 3 colors of galahs, one that is more like a black parrot that is 4 feet long with the tail feathers, a frogsmouth, which looks like an owl, thousands of big fruit bats, blue headed wrens that like to tap on our window at 6 am, and magpies. We have been very lucky with the animals too. We have seen wallabies in our back yard, a wild boar, 2 emus, which I mentioned earlier, kangaroos, dolphins, dragon lizards, tree frogs and cane toads, around our pool that Nathan likes to ‘hunt for’ before bed. and now we saw 2 platapus. These we had been hunting for also. We have been going to Tucki Tucki creek in Platapus park. Sounds likely, but it is rare to see them at this time of year and with the high water it’s less likely. We made a last attempt last night and poof along came a platypus! There was a small group of ‘friends of the park’ gathering in the park and they told us it is ‘not a good time of year’ and the ‘high water’…. Then one of them spotted it. I was so excited. We would have thought it was a baby if the local experts weren’t there to tell us it was full size. It was fully only 1.5 feet long. Then along came another one before it got too dark. Wow 2 platapus!  This was our last attempt as they only live on the east coast. Next a koala. We have a heads up on where to see koala’s in the wild for today, so fingers crossed.

Then packing and cleaning. I am not sure all our stuff will now fit!

I hope this finds you all happy and healthy.

Love Lana

Floods

We have been 'wingeing’ about the rain here changing our holiday plans of beach and pool time, but I feel very fortunate at this point. We have seen so much devastation on the news in most of Queensland and western New South Wales. A week ago the flood was an area the size of BC. We have watched about devastation through locusts in Victoria and South Australia, and bush fires in Western Australia. There has been no reprieve for Australia. It has become so heartbreaking to watch the whole country suffer through this tragedy.

The floods started 19 days ago. It was a huge flood and whole cities, like Rockhampton were flooded and numerous small towns were completely ruined. Australia had a big telethon to raise money a couple of nights ago and were documenting the waters receding in many areas. Well the flood has gotten much worse since then. Areas that had not been hit in southern Queensland and northern NSW are now getting the worst of it. There was an inland tsunami west of Brisbane and the footage has been so outrageous. This was a 8 meter wall of water. I can not comprehend even with the tv footage. There is a place west of Brisbane that is expecting a 22 meter peak tonight. The rain has not abated and a scientist was on the news talking about when you have this much water and the summer heat it evaporates and rains even more. Great!

Down river from the flash flood is Brisbane. Brisbane is built all along a snaking river. They are evacuating many, many suburbs right now. The grocery stores are empty and the highways are plugged. This is a once in 100 years flood.

We were in Brisbane, for a few nights, just 3 days ago. We stayed with a friend of my Mom’s and went out with her son and his family. We had a lovely time and spent a day on the Brisbane River on the local transit ferry. The water was really high when we started but by the afternoon it had settled and our hosts didn’t seem to think there was going to be a problem there. Right now they predict the river and tides will meet to an extreme height tomorrow afternoon.

Our house is in the rolling hills and we will not get flooded, but we don’t know how the surrounding ‘shire’s’ will fair. The big rains are a bit inland of us, but the towns near us are low and on the river. There are rains predicted for the rest of our week. We feel extremely fortunate to not have gotten a home exchange in any of the flood area. We were trying for some of those towns that are now in trouble.

Well that is how it is here right now. We will hope to keep the power and see what is out there tomorrow when we head to Nathan’s swimming lesson. Indoor pool!

Hopefully, holiday style updates next time.

Lana

Happy New Year

I am a bit behind on the blog, but must tell you about recent rather than past days to begin with. We have had 2 great days here in Alstonville. There have been others also, but the past 2 were a welcome change.

Yesterday, Sunday was a drizzly morning and we went out to the markets around the area. The first was called a car boot market and ranges from someone’s garage sale junk to crafts, imported stuff and local foods. There were lots of interesting things to poke along at. We bought some 'maccas', macadamians, and Nathan and I had a nice gluten free lasagna. Made with sliced butternut squash, mmm, it was a treat.

After that we headed out to Byron Bay for their market and the beach. That was a big one. It is fairly hippy, but lots of good stuff to see. Great food there! There was a raw food booth and a great fresh smoothie place. Yummy! I am not really stocking up on ‘stuff’ so the food seems to be the highlight for me. Eating out has proved to be hard to stay within Nathan’s and my diet, but we try to keep it in perspective, but it is nice to have things that are specialty.

The clouds parted while we were there and we headed to the beach. We had a good hour or so there before the blue bottle jelly fish came around. Lots of people were getting stung and there was a steady stream of people at the life savers stand getting ice to lessen the sting. I don’t think it is too serious unless you are stung a lot, but I don’t want to find out. Nathan was interested in the sand more than the water anyway.

Today we changed it up and stayed home. We spent the day playing in the pool and around the house. We have not really used the pool yet. We were busy for the first few days and then the cool and heavy rains over Christmas flooded it and made it dirty. We got the pool cleaned up and checked by the pool people and then it got cool again. So today we took full advantage. I feel revived again, which is good, because there are rains forecast again.

We had rains start about the 23^rd and it was a rain we rarely see so long and hard for so many days even in Squamish. We wanted to travel north into Queensland while we were here, but so much of Queensland is in bad flood conditions for the past week or more. Apparently it is hitting the news at home and it is an area the size of BC that is flooded. We feel extremely lucky to not have had a home exchange up there. It would be so tough to know what to do at someone else’s house. On the 27^th we got cabin fever and packed for a few nights to head south. The weather looked marginally better that way, so we headed out. We really have lost the desire to drive anywhere. It would take us a month to get to Puerto Vallarta this year. We took 2 days to drive 41/2 hrs to Port Macquarie. We stayed in a nice town the first night called Woolgoolga. This place is a great beach, a colony of fruit bats and a busy local tavern that makes good food and is family friendly. It was still raining off and on so we headed further south. We found not only a dry place, but also a beautiful sunny day at the beach in ‘Port Mac’. It was worth it.

Along the drive we saw a wild boar and then 2 emu’s in the wild. I never dreamed I would see wild emu’s.  They were a ways away in a sugarcane field, so the pictures aren’t good, but you know it’s an emu.

We went to the local showgrounds here in Alstonville for NYE. It was a family event, no alcohol and fireworks at 9:30. Lots of kid stuff to do, rides, music, fairy floss(cotton candy) and bouncy castles. There were predicted to be 3000 there, it was crazy to be in shorts and tee shirts on NYE watching fireworks.

I hear that the subscribe thing isn’t as easy as I thought. Just check every week of so if it doesn’t work to follow or subscribe. Thank you for all your emails, we really like getting them!

For those of you not on facebook here is the link to a few pictures, but I am much further behind on those. I am learning new software and can’t seem to make the time to edit all those photos we have taken. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=255092&id=554710811&l=b7cd9e8b6d

Happy 2011 everyone. May your sadness be less, your happiness more and nothing but blessings to come through your door.

Love Lana, Tom and Nathan

Christmas Day

We had fun getting ready for Christmas this year. It was all last minute because we didn't want to carry any extra thing around with us untill we got to our house exchange. Nathan had fun going shopping with each of us separatly to buy a few things for the other. He wanted to buy tom some funny things. He wanted to buy him a skateboard and sunglasses! If you end up in the skateboard section then that's what happens. He had fun wrapping presents and getting them under the tree and we thought he was so excited that he was going to be up early.

The morning was really weird! Nathan slept in until 8:15 and then sat at the table and wanted toast. Ok…. we made toast and wished him a Merry Christmas. By the time he finished half of his toast we couldn’t handle it anymore and prompted him towards the tree. He was so excited and we had fun opening gifts. He was especially excited to give each of us our gifts.

He got some fun games and coloring to keep us all busy for the day and we had a strange smoked turkey breast for dinner. They tend to have more lamb and seafood for Christmas luch down here. We had a visit from a 5 year old up the street and his Dad in the early 'arvo' (afternoon) t invite us up for a drink. So we had a social outing as well. They knew we were coming because our hosts told them on Halloween and set it up. We were going to go up for a visit, but we wouldn't have gone over on 'Chrissy'( yes they really shorten Christmas to Chrissy).

So a nice Christmas here, although wet.

We wish you a merry one,

Love Lana, Tom and Nathan