Carry on camping

Reading one happy camper's comment of how great Contos campsite down in Margaret River is because she'd 'never felt closer to nature' raised two quite different 'oohs' at Number 123 last week. One 'ooh' was a positive yay! clapping hands, how exciting! kinda i'm watching fireworks type of 'ooooooh', whilst the other was more of a short, terse, frowning 'ooh'. I think you can match the person to the reaction here....

So, needless to say, i was feeling slightly apprehensive about a weekend with no showers or toilets (there was a very smelly long drop toilet) with the potential of being bitten by poisonous snakes or trampled to death in my sleep by an unsuspecting hopping kangaroo who thought our tent was just an odd looking hedge. BUT, you know me, i don't like to whinge, i'm a trouper so on with the show... or.... i do like to whinge so i spent a couple of days muttering and moaning about how it was all going to go wrong... (hmmm, i really must unearth my adventurous self, i think she's got a bit lost) before we set off down south.

In fact we had a lovely time camping and we saw a possum and mother and baby kangaroos a couple of metres from our tent one morning and no snakes or spiders! Hoorah! The campsite was very basic and each pitch was quite secluded so apart from a couple of torches and a very full moon, it was pretty dark and on the second night the wind picked up so it got quite chilly. At this point I wouldn't recommend thinking about the Blair Witch Project as the trees blowing about were making some crazy shadows on the tent and I was convinced that there were bad things going on outside our tent (one definitely looked like a deranged man with an axe)... anyway, i closed my eyes so i couldn't see the shadows and luckily we made it through to morning. phew! (And i wasn't the only one to be a complete fraidy cat because R's sister only managed to get to sleep that night by holding onto an aerosol deodorant.

And the best bit about camping in the bush for me was setting up the solar shower and having a shower amongst the trees... so much fun! Oh, and lazing in the hammock. Yay for camping... although i'd still prefer to do it in a campervan than in a tent.....

Adios Bob!

In january we took the painful (*sob*) decision to scrap Bob. Poor Bob was a reliable old motor until he went wrong and then that was it. After some radiator issues and a trip to Autobahn (note to anyone - DON'T take your car EVER to autobahn. They might fix the problem you went with but invariably something else will go wrong after - from our experience anyway)... we decided that no more money could be spent on Bob and it would be better for him to go off and live out his old age on a lovely farm in the country with plenty of space to run around (that's where all the old scrapped cars go, isn't it?). So a man from 'Bombs Away' came and picked him off (i admit i did nearly cry... because i'm a sentimental fool or because we lost $2000... who knows)... Anyways, out with the old, in with the new... (new to us anyway)... the popular Subaru Outback (i think i there were 4 on our block at last count) ... the car R has been dreaming about owning since he saw some hippies driving one in the Hay on Wye (but that's another story)... RIP Bob!

Road trip!

Yesterday Sarah, Emily and I drove to the Pinnacles on a mini road trip! The Pinnacles desert is in Nambung National Park about 250 km north of Perth, so it was a pretty hefty drive for a day's activity but the roads were empty, save for a couple of road trains, so it was too easy. The roads were of the straight variety; one lane either side that stretch out ahead of you forever so you feel like you're driving to the edge of the world, and it was pretty hard to stick to the speed limit on such empty roads (of course I did though). The drive up was pretty green and we were wondering how we were soon going to be in the desert, but in the desert we ended up... bright orange coloured sand, and not much else, aside from the thousands of limestone pillars that are scattered across the desert. There's a 1.2 km circular walk you can do (no climbing on the pinnacles tho) or a 4km loop drive. We did both. It was surprisingly not that hot as there was a lovely breeze cooling us down but plenty of flies about to bug us.

Pre Pinnacles we had a lil' stop at Cervantes where the sand was whiter than white and the ocean was crystal clear. Post Pinnacles, faced with a low tank of petrol and the knowledge that there were no services for 70 km and a gas station selling petrol for $1.50 p/l 15 km in the other direction we opted to risk the 70 km to Lancelin. This choice gave me 30 mins of mild panic as i kept one eye on the petrol gauge whilst listening to my passengers kindly relaying stories of previous running out of petrol incidents BUT did save us a whole 5 cents a litre (they don't call me 'Cheapskates Fletcher' for nothing, y'know) when we eventually made it to Lancelin (ha! and the red light didn't even come on - what were we worried about). In Lancelin we stopped for refreshments and watched the kite surfers. 2 emus (in a field) and a few kangeroos ('sleeping' by the side of the road) later, we were back in perth. Yay for road trips!

little fishes

before christmas (and it's now february - that's how far behind i am on my blog!), we went to the aquarium up at hillary's. Hillary's is a big marina with shops and restaurants and stuff for the kids, including a lil' safe beach and water area. A bit concrete and busy for my liking but we checked out the very expensive plush boats for sale and picked out which one we'd be buying if we won the lottery. It was a hot sunday and it was packed with people, but we escaped to the aquarium, where we sneaked dad in at senior citizen's price (i stood back for this one and let the boys do that). R was snap happy and took loads of pics as we wandered round on the underwater conveyor belt walkway tunnel. i liked the turtles best - so cute! We then had lunch (chicken and mayo sandwich) and i was violently ill for the next 4 days. In the last photo, you can see the smoke in the distance from a bushfire.