Birds of a feather

The other weekend we drove up to Caversham park, which is a huge park for picnicking, walking etc and there's also a wildlife park and a tractor park (i might have made that one up actually) and a birds of prey show. Now, we love birds of prey. I (oops, that's actually 'we') got a gift of a pair of binoculars from Tonica after their stay back in November and they've been put to good use spotting birds of prey, dolphins, dugongs(!). Anyways, i digress, so we decided to go up to Caversham park to check out the birds of prey. As i say, this is because we like birds of prey, but also because we had a 2-for-1 voucher from the entertainment book. So, it was a small affair, only about 8 people watching but we got to see the birds flying and landing and catching food and R even got to hold one. Now, clearly, if i hadn't just had a biopsy on my arm, i would have held one too, (yeah, right) but i couldn't because it had to be on your left arm. Aw shucks. The only one upsetting thing was that a very lovely and enthusiastic little girl in the audience, who had lots of questions, kept being told by her mother and grandmother to put her hand down and stop asking questions. Yeah, good one parents, how to discourage your kids from learning and having confidence.

Bol Reverse

On a trip to the Bottle-o (that's the offie to your english folk), Els spotted some Mauritian beer - Phoenix. Els lived in Mauritius for a couple of years and has fond memories so she was very excited. We decided that we would buy some Phoenix beer and she would cook up a mauritian feast. Et voila! Bol reverse. How cool is that. The dish is prepared upside down in the bowl and then put on the plate. If you twist the bowl a couple of times, when you lift it up, it stays like that. So, it's chicken, chilli, oyster sauce, mushrooms (tinned! because they don't have fresh mushrooms), carrots (which Els sliced very effectively and prettily into lil' flower shapes) rice and a fried egg. YUM! It was delicious. And, i think, pretty simple to make. I might even have a go myself. We do pretty well out of our houseguests, i must say. Our previous houseguest (R's sister) cooked us a three course meal from my new Jamie Oliver book which was pretty darn tasty (although, like most of the recipes in that 30 mins book, they take a lot longer than 30 mins!) Gosh, i love being cooked for.

No boys allowed

After our mammoth road trip, Els and I decide to take another lil' road trip, down south this time. R was due to to start his new job (deputy director dontcha know) and i think he's a bit 'girlied out' so we head off for a weekend of wineries and beaches. We arrive in Prevelly at dusk. Just as we get out the car to pitch the tent, it starts raining. We quickly get the tent up and try to inflate the air bed without getting it muddy. Camping's a wee bit more difficult in the rain. It's made better by our lovely camping neighbour who brings us over hot chapati cooked on the fire. Yum! We sit in the car and drink beer. We then get in the tent which seems to be leaking a little bit. Hmmm. I'm sure R would have something to say about our tent pitching abilities, but luckily he's not here! The rain is so loud throughout the night I keep imagining the tent is going to cave in. Needless to say i didn't sleep much. We spend the morning at the beach. Elinor's sunbaking attempts are thwarted by the clouds but she perseveres. In the afternoon we head to a couple of wineries.

Elinor tries a few wines and then a few more. I'm the skipper so I resist. We do however purchase a nice bottle of red which we drink with our supernoodles back at the camp. We're so classy.

The next day we visit more beaches and another winery. We sample a 'surfers pie' for breakfast - egg, bacon, onion and tomato - in pastry! Elinor has a successful sunbaking hour at Yallingup beach and then it's back to Perth.

Our trip to Ningaloo part 6

It's the last day of our trip. We pack up our tents (did i mention that not only can i inflate air mattresses, I can also deflate.... just one more of my many camping skills) and cook up some eggs and beans in the camp kitchen. It's about 8.45am and this time, we stand the pelicans up. We check out the coastal side of Kalbarri National Park and see pods of dolphins jumping in the waves.

We look out for kangaroos jumping over emus.

We make it home. It's dark. We're hungry. We order 2 pizzas. We go to pick them up via the cash machine, which doesn't like Elinor's UK bank card. I have no money in my account. I then forget where the pizza place is. My phone is dead so we have to drive back home to ask R where it is. I then have to drive back to get the pizza. On arrival, it's packed, everyone's had the same idea. The woman tells me she tried to call (my phone battery was dead) - they ran out of mushrooms, no mushrooms so no mushroom pizza. There's no point asking for them to make another pizza now, the queue's too big. We now only have one pizza to share between 3. I valiantly (it was my fault) sacrifice pizza and have something defrosted from the freezer. Not a happy ending to the camping trip. I'm such a dag.

Our trip to Ningaloo part 5

We leave Carnarvon sharpish in the morning. There's nothing to see. We're back on the road.

We visit Shell beach (no sand, just millions and millions of shells).

We have a picnic lunch in Denham and share an easter egg. We go shark spotting at Shark Bay. We don't see any sharks but with the binoculars we spot a dugong!

We drive carefully so as not to hit any big eared, long tailed animals that we don't know the name of.

We make it to Kalbarri for our last camping night before heading back to Perth. It's Anzac Day eve and Kalbarri is rammed. We head out for some food and are unsuccessful. It's 8pm and the restaurants have closed their kitchens (yup, it might be Easter weekend but things still shut early). We manage to buy a bottle of wine and head back to the campsite where we cook up a feast of supernoodles.

Our trip to Ningaloo part 4

After a few days up at Ningaloo, it's time to make the journey back towards home. We stop in Exmouth for petrol (and probably a pie of some description, i can't remember) and head away from the idyllic, quiet Cape Range. We drive, and drive a bit more, and a bit more and then we have a pit stop at Coral Bay. Now, Coral Bay was beautiful. Again, crystal clear water but busy.

It's Easter Sunday (or Monday, irrelevant) and it's heaving. Elinor sunbakes. R and I go snorkelling. I'm very much a snorkelling beginner. I find it quite odd to be able to have my face in the water and be able to breathe... oh, and i'm a pretty big fraidy cat when it comes to anything pretty much. Anyways, i'm getting better and i like it even if it is a bit scary.

After our brief interlude at Coral Bay we're back on the road. We pass over the Tropic of Capricorn.

We spend the night in Carnarvon where we enjoy having a proper shower for the first time in 3 days and scoff at the huge motorhomes with satellite dishes. Pah, this isn't camping. We know what real camping is. Our neighbour has wifi. He's staying for another 2 months.

Our trip to Ningaloo part 3

In the light of day we get to appreciate what an amazing camping spot we have. 80 metres from our tent is the beach and the crystal clear waters of the Indian Ocean.

We explore the beaches, there's some snorkelling action, Elinor is perfecting the art of sunbaking, R does a spot of fishing, I collect some shells (I didn't take them away with me though because that's illegal, kids)

and I laugh at the funny crabs. Seriously, how cool are crabs. They run sideways and these ones were kinda square with eyes on top of their heads.

We check out some sunsets...

Our trip to Ningaloo part 2

After a quick stop in Kalbarri National Park, we hit the open road and drive... and drive... and drive... yup, still driving. We stop at the Overlander roadhouse for sausage rolls and coffee and then it's back on the road. Like i said, it's a long way and not a whole lot to see.

We arrive in the Cape Range National Park after dark. It's pitch black (we are totally in the middle of nowhere - the last town Exmouth is about 70 km back).

We realise our campsite is not marked on the map. We're driving about 30 km/h because there are sooooo many kangaroos. I see a snake in the road. Did i mention how dark it was? We eventually reach our campsite. I have to psych myself up to get out the car. It's pitch black and I'm imagining all kinds of animals, reptiles, bugs etc that are waiting to get me. Once again i'm on inflatable mattress duty (if there was a girl guide badge for blowing up mattresses, i would have aced that one). Tents up, we cook up fajitas (yum!) on our gas stove and marvel over the stars in the sky (I've never seen anything like it. absolutely amazing) and then we see a light on the horizon around 9.30pm in land which gets brighter and it's the moon rising! I didn't even try to take photos but so cool, and i've totally forgotten about the bugs and snakes and killer roos.

Our trip to Ningaloo part 1

A few weeks ago, we took a road trip many, many, many kilometres north to Ningaloo. My friend, Elinor was visiting from the UK so the three of us piled into the trusty Subaru (see photo above) and headed North. After our first stop at the Pinnacles (yeah, you've heard it all before) we stopped for the night in Kalbarri. We arrived after dark so after pitching the tents (R and E) and blowing up the inflatable mattresses (me), we headed out to experience the night life of Kalbarrie. We had mammoth portions of fish and chips (and steak for the man) and enjoyed the dulcet tones of the locals in the weekly karaoke night. In the morning we waited 1/2 hour for the pelicans to show up for feeding time but we were stood up....

In stitches

This is a picture of my arm. A couple of weeks ago I had to have a biopsy on a growth type thing on my arm. Now, i've never really been to hospital. I've never broken anything or had stitches or anything like that, so this kinda freaked me out. I was fine at the clinic (I just didn't look) and then i had the dressing on (also fine because i couldn't see anything)... but then, when i had to take the dressing off... ick ick ick. Having a stitch in my arm made me feel really funny! I don't know what i expected but i think i thought the stitches would be see-through. i certainly wasn't expecting dark blue thread. Anyway i was a bit of a wuss for a whole week and made R put new band aids on so i didn't have to look at it. And then i was really dreading having the stitches out. Again, i don't know what i expected but the nurse took about 2 seconds and then it was done. In Australia the statistics for skin cancer are like 1 in 2 people will get it at some point in their lives so it's pretty run of the mill to have a dodgy mole or something, which meant i got no sympathy or even any interest (although i did manage to milk it a lil' bit at home). Poor me *sob*. Luckily however the results came back clear and it was actually a benign Lichenoid Keratosis. And now i think the scar from the biopsy is actually going to be bigger than the darn thing in the first place. And i'm about $200 poorer. But hey, as my dad says, 'your health is your wealth'.