Perth, Lane Poole, Dunsborough

Julia and old Miel. Julia took a haircut to raise funds for cancer, and became the ambassador for the Pink Campaign. People came up and told her how proud they were of her and how "brave she was". She then had to say, erm, I actually don't have it, I'm just the face of it.

Her mum also got the clip to support the cause. Peter got to to do the bug cut. It was something of a turn for him, as usually she's clipping his. This happened a couple of weeks before we got there, so they're still quite close cropped.

Left: not sure what happened here!

Sunday - the Book of Mormon - hilarious but over the top blasphemous.

Monday - schoolwork, then shopped up at Clarkson Target and Kmart, an easy walk.

Tuesday 5th Nov night back at Anne Sophie's - we cooked burritos, got a kilo of kanga mince from local butcher - eco friendly, delicious. The boys were pretty excited and surprised to get another go at hanging together around again.

Weds got to Lane Poole reserve.

Thursday - tree tops adventure. The boys insisted we go on the black level run. Started with a wobbly ladder, then an uphill zip line. My legs were nearly cramping on the uneven hanging logs. 

For the final jump off, the coiled belt dropped you down so fast that my hands were shaking from adrenaline. The blue level zip line stage was much more fun. We started on a red run. My shoulder is killing me after this, as it got strained some time.

Above: the fort right near  our tent. George and Yannick built this. Our boys put some more stuff on it as well. Good times.

Right: the camp spot, Lane Poole reserve, complete with picnic table, toilets nearby, plus even a camp kitchen. There is a great little river for swimming. We walked to the tree top zip line adventure.

Left: on the way to Dunsborough.

Friday lunch stop at historical Bunbury. Stayed in Dunsborough with Maryanne, Pete, Joe, Julia. We had a great relaxing stay in a terrace type house, all in the one place. Drank lots of coffee, tea, sat up and chatted. We were also there for the choral festival which Joe was singing in.

Saturday - saw Joe sing, v good.

Right: choir who met a Swedish choir, who taught them a "traditional Swedish tune" - "Dancing Queen, young and sweet only 43........53!"

Left: Eneksis. You can just see Joe in the crowd. They were amazing, clearly professionally and highly trained, all hitting different chords.

Played Zombicide board game - the boys LOVE this game.

Sunday - lunch at the lavender place, boys really enjoyed the Yallingup maze, visit the Choc factory again, Fishbones wine tasting - bought 2 bottles, Prevelly Caravan park on the afternoon of the 10th November (now I'm up to date with the blog!).

It's not a bad little caravan park; close to the beach (we have no desire to swim though, it's freezing cold at the moment), just near the Greek Orthodox church that a WW2 soldier built in remembrance of the people of Cyprus who helped and saved him.

Fremantle Cat Cafe and Escape Rooms

Fri 1st Nov - the cat cafe. It was the BEST PLACE EVER!!! We had lunch, then went into the glassed in room with about 8 cats. 

You can pat them, hold some, or just relax there,BUT it costs money($$$). They are all rescue cats who are used to people.

Saturday, wandered around seafaring show. Saw shark display at the maritime museum. 

Sharks are vastly misunderstood. Every year 450 people die from falling out of bed in the USA alone. About 150 people die taking selfies. Only 4 people get taken by sharks per year. 

Did escape room outdoors.

The boys came in second place of those who finish.

Many don't finish the puzzles off in time.

George and Milo.

George and Ollie.

Yannick wants action on climate change. When do we want it? Now!

Mindarie, Perth and Freo

Touristy stuff - took the train into Perth, after school work for the morning.

Left: Perth has a lot of historic buildings in excellent condition. All they need to do is piss the cars off, widen the footpaths right out, maybe wang in a tram, and hey presto, this would be the most awesome city in the country.

The train is very modern feeling. I'm really impressed with the PT around here.

Day's summary - walked around and spent money. Credit card says we had lunch, got books at the scifi shop in town, a hat for me because the old one is crushed soiled and generally destroyed, a phone cover for Ollie, gelato, then a shop finally at Basil's Fine Foods Mindarie.

 Sat 26th Oct - Maryanne was working. We did mini golf; was actually a lot of fun in the end racing from hole to hole.

Marie won both sets of putt putt, what a demon. Had dinner at the Saigon Palace Mindarie - very good.

 Sunday - visited Anne Sophie and David. Our kids met their second cousins George and Yannick for the first time. They had a great time together on lego, hotwheels, chatting and video games. The adults sat around and chatted for the morning.

In the arvo, went to see the Spooky Spectacular concert of the South Side Symphony Orchestra. Julia's housemate Joe was lead piano. Joe was dressed up as a zombie. He is an amazing concert pianist.

Left: Lou, Ollie, George, Yannick and David.

Joe the zombie at the piano. He is one of the most talented pianists I've ever seen.

At Kings Park.

 What might be the fossil fuel of the future? That's presuming the lizards and cockroaches evolve enough to take advantage of them, and have not learnt from mankinds wiping themselves out? A pretty funny question given that it will take hundreds of thousands of years to recover from our current fossil fuel binge.

Collections of lovely plants and flowers at Kings Park.

Tuesday dropped car off. Marie looked after the kids. I went to town, hired a bike and rode along the river to the stadium and East Perth, all amazing. Went to dinner with our accountant, who lives in Perth.

Weds picked up the car, went to Anne Sophie's in Fremantle aka Freo for three days.

Thurs had some sushi in Fremantle, bought bread on way home. It's the 31st, so Halloween tonight, ha ha ha ha ha!

Perth

Arrived Perth late afternoon, just when Pete was out. Maryanne came in at 7.20pm after work. Polly is their new dog - a chihuahua pug cross. Everyone's good. Little Pete, who's about 6'4 is at home now as the moment. Took the dog for a walk in the afternoon. Following day is more schoolwork then a walk around the marina, where there are crabs of different colours.

We experienced rain for the second time in the 6 months of travelling. Ollie went out to dance in it. We got it for an hour or so around Silverton and Broken Hill.

Left: Polly, Pookie, Pookington, Polly Waffle is a great dog - loyal, not yappy, cool, easy to walk, can run very fast. She is well trained, and always does her business outside. She got rewards every time at the start doing it. She is very very motivated by food.  She begs all the time for bread, bananas, carrot peel, you name it!

Maryanne had the day off Thursday. We went visiting the tourist spot to the Margaret River Chocolate factory that had free samples. The boys ate handfuls and handfuls - "that's exactly what they were for" says Louis. 

We calculated each little pyramid was worth about $11,000 at $14 per chocolate bar. 

Went to the Lavender place - Julia had a lavender ice cream, weird. Got some fruit direct from the farm.

At Maryanne's.

Pookies the Pookmeister of Pookington.

Lancelin and Gin Gin

Left: I walked out of the door of the room backwards, so as to lock the door. I heard a loud enough hissing noise. Only a metre or two away, this snake's head was up pointing towards me. I thought I was just about to get bitten, and maybe die, instinctively jumping away, heart thumping. He slithered on, tranquil.

On the 21st we were in Lancelin in the youth hostel, after arriving late from the Pinnacles last night.

 Day one we just went for a walk around town. Took it easy in the afternoon followed by a trip to the sand dunes at 4.30pm. Hired some sand boards, very similar to snow boards, from Timmy the sand board man.

Kids had awesome time.

Decided to do it all again in the morning, this time with Marie as well. She was going fine, but I made her crash and bruise her leg. Then she had a blow out sitting down, deciding she'd had enough sand in her underwear, hair etc. Me and Ollie kept on until about midday.

Lunch on the road. Saw sign to Gin Gin Gravity Centre, hauled on brakes to make the turn. Ollie absolutely refused to leave the car: why are we stopping here? Once out though, there was a fountain which balanced plastic balls in its water spout. Ollie and Louis were off on all the displays; larger foam balls also doing the Bernoulli dance but in a vertical fan air stream. A very long spring to show longitudinal and lateral waves, several black hole stands, a time line of the history of everything, galaxy videos. We dropped balloons from a 40m leaning tower to replicate the Galileo experiment. 

Both boys gave it the big thumbs up. The favourite was rolling marbles into the red black hole display.

Any kind of life beyond microbes is a recent thing. For about 80 percent of our history, nothing happened, then trilobytes and this kind of thing evolved in the oceans.