National Parks & guacamole

Good Evening Blog World,

So today was a tourist day and after a lazy morning of little productivity we jumped in our Ute and made the long trip (Long for David) and Headed to the beauty of Yanchep National Park just a little North of Perth. I'm not sure I was prepared for what was to come. Not in any bad sense only it doesn't resemble any national park area I've ever encountered before. This place had a hotel, a lake, Paddle Boats (awesome!!) and a host of cultural experiences to do with Aboriginal tribes.

We arrived at around 12:30 and headed straight to the Information area to book some tours get some postcards and have a look at some of the handycrafts that these places churn out. Some of the stuff was really good. After this we made the mistake of heading to their cafe area where they sold their own made chocolate. We made a hasty exit and didn't look back.

So we booked ourselves on the Crystal Caves tour and the Aboriginal Cultural exprience. We headed straight over to the caves and waited in the midday heat for our guide. Naomi came out and introduced herself and led us down to the cool humid cave below. This place was awesome, stalactites littered the ceiling of the first chamber and there was a cool damp in the air that condensated on your tongue. We headed through the caves stopping occasionally to look at the dwindling water table and so Naomi could show us some mineral formations. It was interesting to note that rather that just having pointy stalactites and mights, different water flows and surface tensions cause a huge variety of formations. Some look like Table cloth edges and some look like glaciers.

After our cave experience we headed over to the Aboriginal section to do our next tour. We were taken through a small garden and told the different uses for certain plants and seeds. We then headed back to a small amphitheatre to have a demonstration and a talk about Aboriginal tools, weapons and customs. The guy made some knives out of sticks of wood and some sharp rock. He glued them together with a mixture of Charcoal from the grass tree, Resing from the grass tree and Kangaroo poo. When he burnt it to soften the mixture it smelt like burning marshmallows and solidified into rock. Crazy stuff!! Of course we bought one from him.

After our cultural experience we headed to the Koala area for a chat about them. Not quite as detailed as the others but entertaining. Koala's aren't native to WA but their programme of breeding leads them to ship these Koala's to all areas of Australia and Japan. We saw some pictures of wet Koala's too, during the talk the lady touched on bush fires and extreme drought and brought out these photos. Cute and soo funny..hehe
We headed over to the BBQ area and cooked our chicken & vegetables sharing our meal with a parrot and a scavenging big black bird. Then headed onto a walk around the lake through burnt bushland. It was a beautiful afternoon. We stopped and watched Kanga's playing scratching and bouncing around untill it got cold.

After returning home we made guacamole and played around with the dog untill about an hour ago when the chocolate came out. Then it got serious...

Untill next time,

David & Holly