Busselton and area (wine country)

 Here we are on December 24th the day before Christmas, oh and by the way Merry Christmas to everyone and hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year.   I'll back up a bit today and go back to the 20th when we drove down from Perth to Busselton in our new rental car!!  Yup same as the last one hopefully we won't have to leave it behind or Hertz will run out of cars for the holiday season.  So far so good.

 We got down to Busso around 1:30 PM and had no problems finding Glen and Nat's place.  The scenery south of Perth is dramatically different from the northern side.  Beautiful farmland and more rolling hills that stretch on and on.  The town of Busselton is right on the coast with beautiful beaches that boast white sand and summer fun all year long.  The town itself is about 15000 people and like most coastal tourist spots is becoming more and more popular as time goes on.  In fact as we discovered over the week the entire south west corner is filled with sun seekers and the area is truly a picture.  It's easy to see why people flock to the area in the summer.  Today it is 36c and a bit humid so the rain we have encountered earlier in our trip is becoming a distant memory.  Although for the Canucks from the north it is odd to be walking around in shorts and a T shirt doing Christmas shopping.  Christmas day it is suppose to be 38c!!  We are going to Nat's sisters where they have a pool so the day will be spent burning steaks swimming and drinking beer and wine.  Doesn't that just suck!!  Don't fret we will be thinking of everyone.......NOT.
 On Tuesday Nat was kind enough to take us on a tour of the area and we visited Cape Naturaliste  light house and went to a giant maze where Riley and Zali (Glen and Nat's) kids and us spent an hour testing our skills.  Great fun.  Kaelyn and Zali won the day beating the rest of us to our objectives 3 out of 4 times.
On Wednesday we struck out on our own and visited Smith beach where world class waves attract surfers from around the globe.  On this day though the waves weren't terribly large but the beach was pristine, and beaches like this are everywhere!
  We then went to Ngilgi (pronounced Nil Ge) caves along the coast and the four of us toured the cave for over an hour.  Anyone that comes to this area an absolute must see.  One of the most interesting caves I have ever seen and huge.  The pics don't do it justice.
 Thursday we drove inland a little bit and popped out along the southern coast to a town called Warpole where we went to the valley of the giants.  This is an area of old growth forest of Jarra and Tingle a type of Eucalyptus trees.  There we did a walk in the canopy about 130' off the ground  on a steel suspended walkway.  Very cool.  The area in some ways reminded me of driving in BC in the Provincial parks with the winding roads and huge trees.  Again the drive was filled with amazing scenery and rolling forests and farmland intermixed. 
That brings us to today where it is hot and the beer is cold.  This morning Kyle and Betty went back to the Ngilgi caves and did a 4 hour cave crawl to an ancient river bed, the crystal crawl.  Absolutely awesome!!  Kaelyn and I went shopping in Margaret River a small town south of Busselton which is Australia's version of Nelson instead here the hippies carry surf boards instead of back packs.  Very cool little town.  Oh and I should mention this area has more wineries then you can count.  Sue you would love it.  Enjoy the pics and Merry Christmas.  We will continue after the holidays.

Lots of Kangaroos here in Busso.  Like deer in BC they are considered a nuisance so they are dead on the side of the road all the time from being hit.  Kyle and I are still looking for our first Roo steak!  Yeah that's right I'm going to eat Kangaroo!!

This is the Jetty on the beach in Busselton.  2 KM long out into the water.  Currently it is under restoration so we can't walk out to the end.  Very cool gift shop in the blue buildings.

Cape Naturaliste light house the second most westerly point of Australia. 

The maze where we were schooled by Kaelyn and Zali.  Very cool.

Part of Ngilgi cave during the trail walk.  Too many pictures to put on the blog and to be honest the photos don't do the cave justice.  You can tell by the look on Kaelyn's face she is spell bound!









The cool kids just hangin in the trees in the valley of the giants.  Hot humid and flies,  always the flies............

Kyle in the cave crawl this morning.  Tight fit eh Harry!











So far an awesome trip with much to see and much to do and not enough time.  We are headed to the beach to swim eat fish and chips and basically get fat!!  More to come in the new year.

Payback!!!!

Okay so if you are all keeping up on my dads blog (this is kaelyn by the way) you might have noticed the horrible picture of me sleeping in the plane. they put that picture on against my will so here is a brutal pic of my mom. Haha take that, you guys better think twice before messing with me again. Oh and i hacked your account.
THE WAR IS ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Carnarvon (To hell and back again)

To all who have been following our blog I must apologize for the lack of postings the past several days.  There has been a very good reason for the gap between stories.  I will attempt to give all a clear picture of what has happened so bear with us.  Here goes....................

The day we left Monkey Mia was Dec 16th in the morning.  We drove back down the long lonely stretch of road towards the Northern Highway and it was an overcast day with a bit of drizzle but still warm.  On the way out we stopped at a couple of places prior to getting to the highway.  Once back on the highway we had about a 2 hour drive to Carnarvon which was to be a one night stop over on our way to Exmouth.  Or so we thought............

That's when  the proverbial shit hit the fan.  Little did we know there was a tropical storm out in the Indian Ocean for the last week and it decided to come to land and center itself over Carnarvon on the same day we arrived.  This storm dumped almost 400ml of rain on the area in 3 days which is more then double the area gets in a year on average.  All the roads were closed the next morning on the 17th and we could not leave town due to flooding of the coastal highway.  So we spent the next 3 days wondering if the highway was ever going to open.  It never did.  This then sent us into a phone calling frenzy to our travel agent, a travel agent here in Australia, the local airlines, and our insurance company for our trip coverage.  We also had a great deal of help from Glen and his wife who worked the phones here in Busselton trying to come up with options to get us out of the area.  Finally on Sunday afternoon we managed to get a flight by sheer luck with a local air line called Shine air an hour before the plane was scheduled to leave.  We had to dump our rental car at the motel and get a cab to the airport.  Even then as we pulled around the corner onto the road to the airport we were met with a 100m wide river of water across the road the only way to and from the airport.  Several other people were waiting as well to get last minute flights and all had to jump into trucks and Ute's as they are called over here to get across the water to the airport.  Needless to say it was one of the most tense frantic days of our lives.  Here are some pics to help tell the story.

The long lonely road coming down the peninnsula from Monkey Mia.  As you can see it had already started raining a bit.

I forgot to mention that although Australia is stunningly beautiful the flies are absolutely miserable.  They are relentless and the fly nets are a necessity unless you want to go absolutely mad from the constant bombardment.

This is getting close to Carnarvon and you can see the sky is getting more grey all the time.  We are still oblivious to what is in store for us.  Stupid pale people from Canada!!!!









Thursday night when we arrived in Carnarvon Betty and I went for a drive to check out a Mangrove but all we found was wind and torrential rain.  It only got worse from here..................

Downtown Carnarvon Friday the 17th.  We went to get groceries and there were countless areas like this that were covered in water.

Complete boredom in the motel room.  As you can see Kaelyn came prepared with a book. 

Saturday downtown and the water is still rising.  For the most part it stayed relatively the same in town but unknown to us still at this point was the fact that in the outlying areas around the town things were fast disappearing under water and it was all headed our way.  We are now starting to realize that we are not getting out of here anytime soon unless we create our own fate.

This is on a road near the airport which is just to the left.  Can't really tell from this shot but as far as you could see it was covered in water.  This was Sunday morning and the phone calls were fast and frantic by now trying to find a way out!!

This is the only road to the airport.  We were here an hour before this picture was taken and there was no water!!  Kyle and I are in the vehicle in the picture foreground and Betty took this picture from the vehicle she and Kaelyn were in.  Can you say goat rodeo!!







This was our plane out a Navajo Chieftain 8 seater. The other 2 in the picture are 2 other guys who were looking to get the hell out.  Kyle's thinking we are not going to fit in this tin can.  I think the other guys are thinking the same thing.

I'm not sure but I think Kaelyn was checking out the pattern on the ceiling of the plane, or she was thanking the powers that be.   Lots of stress and worry over the past couple of days, perhaps exhaustion.  She's gonna kill me when she sees this.  We were all feeling this way she just expresses it better.












Well we got out of Carnarvon and made it to Geraldton then caught another flight from there to Perth and got another rental car at the airport.  Funny the guy at the rental company never even batted an eye when I told him our first rental was under water!!  We made our way back to Natalie's parents house in Perth.  (Nat is Glen's wife).  Spent the night there and then drove down to Busselton the next day on Monday.  Since arriving in Busselton the news here has been all over the flooding in Carnarvon and the area has been deemed a natural disaster site.  It is the worst flood on record for the area.  Google it and you will see lots more about the area and the flooding.  Front page news down here.  Glad to be back to civilization so on with the holiday!!

Shark Bay World Heritage Site

We continued up the Northern Hwy passed the Billabong and Overlander Roadhouse on to Shark Bay Rd.  This took on a long desolate road up the pennisula to Monkey Mia.  We were struck by the red soil contrasting with the pearl white shell beaches, and the emerald sea.  Our first stop in the area was Shell Beach.  We brought our packed lunch and walked out onto this amazing beach litterly made up entirely of small white sea shells for as far as you could see.  It was also very windy, but hot and sunny.

We continued on up the road for another 1hr. and into Monkey Mia , a World Heritage Site, due to it's unusual coastline and work with the dolphins .  We had 2 ocean side villa's and took a dip in the Indian Ocean.  The water was cooler than I thought it would be.  Relaxed in the sun and enjoyed a nice dinner at the resort.

Next morning Betty got up to stroll the beach and the dolphins were in by the shore and several comical pelicans were a fixture on the beach.

Dinner the night before was good and the restaurant is pretty much open air.  The only distraction  or should I say  comic relief was the seagulls which took every opportunity to steal food from patrons plates if they left their food unattended.  Luckily there was a young family next to us with small kids who chased off the shit hawks as well as some customers.  For dessert we ordered a Chocolate Mars Bar Sundae with 4 spoons.  We all dove in with relish, but apparently all this chowing down seemed to offend our germaphobe son , who retorted "you people make me sick". 

The next day Dolphins and more Dolphins!  An amazing place where the Dolphins come into shore every day in the morning since the early 60's.  Along with the Dolphins come the Pelicans looking for food.  They do a couple of feedings each day and this obviously attracts tons of people.  When we got to the resort there were a handful of people around but in the morning its like someone watered the sidewalks as people popped up out of no where.  When the feeding was done they would disappear.  All I can say is what a cool place but like any animal attraction the tourists seem to be everywhere and oblivious to the laws of nature.  The dolphins are wild but they now come there every day expecting food and there is no way now to change the human contact.  

The Pelicans are cool and will stare you down when you approach.  Enjoy the pics.

All the dolphins were named.  I'm not sure which one this was.  Lets call him Flipper to make it easy.

Kaelyn made a friend but wouldn't go any closer.  I was willing to risk a bite for the picture but she wasn't!  Chicken.

This is Eagle Bluff where you could look out on this bay and sure enough we saw a shark swimming near shore.  We tried to take photos of it but all it shows up as is a black blob.  

Kalbarri National Park

On the Monday we headed up the coast on the Great Northern Highway for a short 6 hour drive to the resort town of Kalbarri.  The town is settled on the coast and the entire area is surrounded by the National Park reserve.  On the way there we stopped in Geraldton also on the coast.  Really nice spot with a beautiful beach and restaurants along the water.  We passed through a few smaller places along the way and soon came to realize that the west coast is large and desolate in most areas.  Despite this the drive was spectacular and of course hot.  We stopped at an old convict settlement that only was in operation for about 4 years as it was too desolate and isolated even for the prisoners it housed in 1850.  We had a really nice villa in Kalbarri with 2 rooms and complete kitchen.  We stopped at several places along the coast to take pictures of the scenery and visited Hawks head and Ross Graham look outs in the National Park.  Although the day was sunny and warm it was in the morning as in the heat of the day it is not unusual to get heat up to 55C in this area so they recommend you go hiking in the morning.  Good thing as it was still plenty hot enough.  Here are some pics of the area.

Perth/ Freemantle

This city is awesome!!  Very clean and very well laid out.  We are staying at a house near the center in a suburb called Attadale.  The house is owned by Glen's in laws.  They live south of Perth but have kept the house for convenience.  All I can say is you need a lot of money to live in Perth.  Plain Jane house costs around 800 to 900 grand.  Anything decent 1.5 mil +.  Anything really nice 4 to 5 mil.  Over the top sky is the limit.  A local real estate office had an empty building lot for $900,000!! We're talking a city sized lot!!

We spent the first day catching up with sleep and news and went to a local shopping mall.   I think Australia didn't get the word that the rest of the world is in recession...  The place was packed and people were spending money like there was no limit.  Obviously the economy here is alive and well!!  Lots of rich people due to the mining in Western Australia.  In some ways it is very much like western Canada with the work force going north to the mines and living in the southern part of the state with all kinds of toys.  

On the Sunday we went to King's park which is on the west side of the city center.  Beautiful park and hot.  We spent the day there and took lots of pictures.  This odd looking tree is called a Boab tree.  It fills with water and the aborigines use it as kind of a well in the Outback.  Hard to tell from the picture but its huge.

 This is Glen and I at Freemantle at the waterfront.  Freemantle is south of Perth but is more or less attached.  A shipping port it has a large dock area and the restored waterfront houses lots of shops and restaurants.  We ate there and walked around after dinner.  The area reminds me alot of Granville Island area in Vancouver.  One thing I have discovered here is that eating at a restaurant is expensive.  We went for a beer at a local pub and it was around $20 for 2.  Once again people around here must be loaded because they were pouring beer like it was coming out of a garden hose!!  No worries mate!!

The Airport's

Kent: We drove down to Kelowna airport today. Kevin dropped us off at the doors and took off in my truck!! The weather is cloudy with a bit of sun, and mild around 2C. Our flight was delayed taking off, but only by about 45 min. If that's all that goes wrong in this trip we will be lucky. took forever to figure out the internet connection in the airport, but all is good because Kaelyn figured it out.

Arrival in LA was good and the connecting flight was easy to find.  The US is still way over the top when it comes to safety!!  We changed planes at the Bradley terminal.  What a dump!!  If you ever fly out of there remember to eat before you go air side because  there is nothing after you pass through security....

Took off around 10:30 PM for the flight across the pond on a 747 Jumbo.  No 380 as they are apparently still fixing them.  It was a good flight with good food and lots of choices on the in flight TV.  The time over the big pond was about 15 hours and we got to Sydney around 8:30 AM on the 10th.  It's weird to miss an entire day of your life and jump ahead a day but we'll make it up on the way back.  We got some food in Sydney and made our way to the departure gate for Perth.

The weather in Sydney was around 23c and over cast with light rain.  When we left for Perth we got on a 330 Airbus which was a really nice new plane with state of the art entertainment systems on it.  Got to Perth right on time around 12:25PM.  Glen and his family were there to meet us and I must say it was an emotional reunion having not seen each other for 30 years, but that seemed to melt away and we spent the next 2 days catching up on each others lives.  More to follow............