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Okay very belated update.  It is hard to get time on the computer here as I share the computer with 6 other people who thoroughly enjoy spending their time on the internet.  It's hard to squeeze enough time in to sit down and write.  I have some time now waiting for David to cook up the supper tonight (or 'tea'). 

After our lovely time in Esperance we made a looong 8 hour drive to Rockingham (or Perth).  We stopped halfway in a place called Hyden where there is the famous "Wave Rock" a cool thing to see.  We surfed for about 7 minutes and then continued on the journey.  We were about half an hour from our final destination when told that the place we were planning to stay at was not willing to stay open for us.  When we got to Rockingham there was nothing, it was rainy, accommodation that was there was full and it was dark.  After an hour, I remembered the FREE wifi at McDonald's, so we headed there for a late dinner and looked for a place to stay.  Oh, I forgot to mention, my phone died just as we entered Rockingham.  Apparently when roaming in and out it wastes the battery so my almost full battery was dead.  We found a 24 hour hostel in Perth and drove another hour to our final destination where we had a very good night sleep. 

The next morning we met up with Juli and Stephanie went on a major
shopping spree through Perth. It rained so it was a perfect thing to do.  We spent the night at Juli's cafe drinking coffee and eating free cakes.  It is very rare to find a cafe that is open after 7 pm anywhere in the big cities around here.  It was nice to do a past time that I enjoyed doing back home that I have not gotten to do yet here in Australia.  The boys joined us on Friday night where we had an interesting night in the YHA Perth Hostel.

Rottnest was awesome!! We lucked out yet again and had beautiful weather.  We spent the first day setting up tent and relaxing at the beach with a little dip in the ocean.  Very chilly!!  During supper we were surrounded by quokkas (massive rats/tiny kangaroos) only found on Rottnest Island.  They are very cute animals but by people feeding them they have become very tame and dumb....climbing up on our legs and getting in scraps at our feet, not cool.  During the night, when we were playing cards in the boys' tent we heard lots of rummaging around in the tent next to us.  It was very repetative and we soon assumed that it was not the lot of guys staying next to us but a quokka in their tent.  When we went over to investigate we found that not only was there ONE quokka in the tent but FOUR.  Dumb animals, it took us a bit of time to convince them to exit the door rather than trying to jump out from the walls of the tents.


The next day we hired bikes and biked around the whole island stopping here and there at beaches for a quick snorkel....there were little white jellyfish everywhere that I got stung by twice so everytime we saw them that was the end of our snorkelling adventures at that beach. One beach we stopped at we were attacked by cute, hungry, scrounging quokkas.  They were worse than seagulls.  They would try to enter one of our bags, get picked up and nicely thrown a little bit away and they would come straight back...never catching on. It was a good day, I did much better than last time...no walking my bike up the hills this time (probably because I was finally taught how to use gears on a mountain bike properly) and no one got sunburnt, not even Stephanie. 

We spent our last night on the island enjoying the sunset and then eating out for some yummy catch of the day fish and chips.  The next morning we headed back to Fremantle and showed Stephanie all the yummy places to eat.  Fremantle is a nice historic town with lots of neat buildings.  It was a good way to end her trip to the east coast.  Dropping her off at the airport was sad.  But it was nice to have spent a lovely 3 weeks with her again, travelling around Australia. 

I am now back at the farm harvesting away at the olives.  We are finally almost done Spanish Queens and will then move onto Manzinellos.  There is another Canadian girl here as well, she is from Halifax, it is cool to have someone to share a love for Canada with..haha.  We also have two Dutch girls here as well as a girl from Switzerland and a girl from Germany.  AH! and how can I forget, last week I was finally approved to teach in WA and I have work next Monday and Thursday in Lancelin...Yay!!! The teacher who called me today was very excited to see that I am able to teach for them for the next few months...finally!!!! It was an exciting day.

Esperance, we will miss you.

Two blogs in one day! Look out....haha we have to take advantage of the internet while we still have it.

Today was our last day in Esperance and we tried to spend it wisely....at the beach.  The forecasted thunderstorm never happened and we had a lovely 31 degrees, which again is not normal but we will enjoy it anyways.  We walked across the street and spent the morning and early afternoon at the beach..reading, watching the massive waves crashing, and cooling off in the crystal blue water.

I had a dentist appointment at 3:15 (Catherine's, the owner of the farm I am working at, brother) so Stephanie dropped me off and headed to the cafe (and then they jetty).  What was supposed to be a quick 45 minute start of a root canal ended up being 2 hours.  For all you dentist people out there, it wasn't because he sucked.  He was actually brilliant and is worried for my tooth when I have to get the rest of it done in Canada.  What happened is apparently people are normally only supposed to have one canal and I ended up having 5.  In all of his 25 years of experience he has only seen this one other time, he was amazed.  So it took a lot longer than he had planned but he did not rush.  The were pretty proud of my patience with my mouth hanging open for so long.  A poor boy had to sit in the waiting room forever waiting for me.  One of my favourite appointments ever, and I am not that much of a fan of going to the dentist...usually.

By the time my appointment was done my freezing was pretty much out with not too much pain! Stephanie and I headed back out to the jetty and watched the beautiful sunset.  It was clouded over and the colours were amazing.  Sammy the seal was also at the jetty showing off and catching treats.  He is the celebrity of the town.  It cooled off quickly so we headed for supper in a little cafe next to the ocean and are now sat watching Top Gear ( a brilliant British car program that Canada should have) and drinking tea.  There is also a beautiful lightning storm going on over the ocean.  I think we will head out to the verandah soon and watch it!

The owners of the bed and breakfast have been wonderful and we have enjoyed the time we have spent with all the other guests who have been here.  The have added to the wonderfulness of Esperance. 

We have a big trek tomorrow, Esperance to Perth.  It is about an 8 hour drive, which is nothing really but we have been lucky with our 1 hour jaunts for the past week.  So early night for us.

Holly & Stephanie

South West Coast Pt. 2

Our blog before the last one was written in about 10 minutes and we realized afterwards that we had missed out on so much that we have done on the trip so far. So we will go back and tell you about the few things that we have done on our trip. Our first stop after Perth was a city called Mandurah, it was also a good start to the trip, we got pretty lost…Luckily, we had a handy dandy map to help us out. In our search to find ourselves we spotted a street called Saskatchewan Way, that just so happened to be a street over from where we were… So obviously we had to drive to that street and take a photo. How Random. Stephanie got her shopping fix for the first part of the trip trying hard not to buy too much in fear that she may have to buy another suitcase (again, she had to last time she came to Australia as well.)

The next stop was the Busselton Jetty. Busselton is known for its mile long jetty, unfortunately the jetty is closed as they are doing a huge renovation on it. We got to see it and take our photos and then we headed off to Dunsborough for the night. It is a rather cute little city with some nice cafes. Stephanie had her first experience in a hostel. She was also very lucky because we stayed in a dorm room but we did not have to share it with anyone. It was still the last time she planned on staying in a hostel, not her choice of accommodation..haha. It was a YHA hostel and it was right next to the ocean. That night we headed over to Sugarloaf Rock (up by Cape Naturaliste) where we watched the moooost amazing sunset. It was a very cloudy day so we almost left before the sunset ended, luckily we didn’t because it ended up being spectacular! The next morning we checked out the beach next to the hostel and then headed for Cape Naturaliste, walked around and enjoyed the sites and the lighthouse. On the way back to the town we noticed something sitting in the middle of the road. As we got closer it looked like an owl but the animal didn’t move and Stephanie had to come a complete stop. It was an injured kookaburra and he was trying to hobble along the street. I was about to get out and check on him but then realized it probably wasn’t a good idea in the middle of the highway, we managed to drive around him and he hobbled to the side of the road. He was making noises but I am sure he wasn’t laughing. Our last stop in Dunsborough was to a proper UGG boot store (Not an American Brand UGG Boot) where Stephanie, lucky girl, bought a pair of UGGS.

Our next stop for the night was Margaret River, with a few things to see along the way. We drove past many beautiful wineries and olive groves. The road was also very windy and not so easy for a Saskatchewan girl like myself to drive. No worries though, I drove carefully, trying to see the sights as well..haha. If I were to write about the rest I guess I would be repeating what we touched on in the other blog…Margaret River, Pemberton, Valley of the Giants..

We were lucky to have perfect weather all the way until Albany even though the forecast was rain everyday. We went to a National Park by Albany to see some Natural Rock formations and see more of beautiful South Western Australia. Just as we made it out there it started to cloud over and spit. The scenery actually reminded us of the UK. It is hard to explain but if you see the photos you will know what we are talking about. It was rainy and gloomy and we had the green hills to our one side and rocks on the other. We now do not need to visit Ireland, we have seen it. Hahaha just kidding. We spent both nights in Albany in our handy dandy little tent. It was good times. It is definitely a nice change to be sleeping in a bed for the next few days though.

I think that about sums up the trip so far. A little bit scrambled but hopefully you understand the order

That’s all for now.

Holly and Steph

Esperance - One of Australia's best kept secrets!

I am currently sat outside on our verandah overlooking the Southern Ocean with the sunset. I must say of all of the beaches that I have been to in Australia this one tops them all. I am so glad Stephanie had the thought of staying in a bed and breakfast while staying in Esperance. This B&B has wonderful hosts and we have the most amazing views in the town. I could go on and on.

We got up early on Saturday morning for our longer jaunt to Esperance to make it in time for a dentist appointment (they called the day before and bumped it up 2 hours). We got out of the rainy Albany and started the rest of our rain-free holidays. The reason I went to the dentist in Esperance is because its Catherine’s brother. It actually turns out that the host we are staying with goes to him as well and she actually got called today for a reminder that she has a check up tomorrow (so her and I will both be visiting Dr. Sharpe tomorrow.). I found out during my visit to him that I either had to get my tooth pulled or the beginning of a root canal. So tomorrow I will start the process of the root canal. Apparently in Australia root canals cost over 3,000 dollars. I am glad that I will be going back to Canada to get the rest of it done.

Today was a beautiful, warm day with a high of 28 degrees which is good for this time of year (Perth is usually warmer than Esperance and it only had a high of 19). This morning we headed to town and walked around a jetty for a bit, had lunch and spent the rest of the day at Twilight Beach, it is voted the most popular beach in WA. We played around in the mini waves and the spent the rest of our time reading on the beach and being chased by horse flies. Neither of us got burnt as well. Stephanie has not gotten burnt yet on the trip. She is pretty excited about that. Tomorrow we plan to spend the morning and afternoon at the beach in front of the house, White Beach. It is easy for swimming and nice for sitting around and enjoy the scenery. I will also fit the dentist appointment in there somewhere as well.

Yesterday we went to Cape Le Grande National Park to walk up the top of Frenchman’s Peak and see the infamous Lucky Bay. It was a good day to do it. Unfortunately, we did not think that walking up the side of a little mountain would need shoes. We were wrong. It was a lot steeper and did not have the trails that we thought it would have. I ended up doing it barefoot (1 hour each way). It actually was not that hard. It felt nice on the feet. On the way up I also received a phone call from dad so we had a little pit stop with weird looks from passerbys warning us of the tough walk ahead. Haha. We made it to the top and had a nice little lunch and enjoyed the WONDERFUL views, beautiful blue water and white sand beaches. After walking up Frenchman’s Peak we headed to Lucky Bay, which ended up being pretty windy and not really a good place to sit and relax. Not to worry though, the good thing about Esperance is not matter what you will find a bay that will not be windy on any given day. So we toured around the different bays in the National Park to find one that wasn’t windy and then enjoyed the rest of the afternoon there.

The sun has set and it is getting dark. Time to go in for supper. Check back soon as I will blog about what we did on the rest of our trip (as our last blog was pretty rushed).

Holly & Stephanie (and David in spirit)

South West Coast Road Tripppppp!

Yay! Internet finally!!! We have been traveling for 5 days now. The forecast everyday is supposed have rain but we have been lucky to have warm sunshiny days everyday! Today we went to the Valley of the Giants and the Tree Top Walk was amazing!! We did it twice! There were some massive trees that we could stand inside as well. Some of them could fit vans in the trunks.
Yesterday we stopped off in National Parks around Pemberton checking out Beedelup Falls, The Cascades and Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree...which Stephanie climbed with ease as an Audience below watched in awe. It was 75 metres tall. We then travelled to the famous "Gloucester Tree" which was super busy and not as tall as the other one. Stephanie was my hero for the day. I got up about 10 steps and had shaky knees (just proves that skydiving can be done even if you have a fear of heights).
The previous day we were in Margaret River, we liked it so much we decided to spend the night there. We camped out in the back of the ute under the stars...It was beautiful. We stopped off at a Chocolate Factory on the way to M.R. where we had YUMMMY 'REAL' hot chocolate and free handfuls of chocolate drops. On the way out of M.R. we stopped off at a coffee place called YAHAVA KOFFEE Works. Stephanie had a Brilliant coffee, Jamaican Blue Mountain.
Dunsborough was another amazing little town where we watched the most BEAUTIFUL sunset at Sugarloaf Rock. We also had to watch a hurt little kookaburra cross infront of our car. It was crying for help. Poor little guy.

We will write more later. We are out of time. We are off to our campspot for the next couple of nights in Albany.

Miss you all at home..

Holly and Stephanie. (And David in spirit...as he works hard at the farm and the roadhouse.)

AHHHH I ALMOST TOUCHED A SNAKE!!!!!!!!!!

Today was the last day of olive picking for me. Darryl let us finish early so we had the afternoon off to relax. I’ve had so much fun getting to know everyone here at the olive farm. Glad that I got to have this experience in Australia.

Holly, Sophia (German Woofer) and I (Stephanie) went to SoulHaven tonight which is a wildlife sanctuary/backpacker hostel. The owner is Dellis and she feeds wild kangaroos everyday. They come up to her house and she throws out seeds for the kangaroos. She has a pet one named Roxy but most of them are quite wild and don’t like to be touched. We got up close and personal with wild kangaroos. One did not like us and was constantly growling at us. It felt just like watching our cats eat at the farm as they all gather in a crowd around the seed and constantly growl while they’re eating if we get too close, plus they spook easily and all jump away if you make any movement towards them. After we fed the kangaroos, we visited with Dellis for awhile. She was very lovely. So friendly and welcoming. It’s fun meeting all these different people on our Australian adventure.

All in all it was a lovely day…and then my Australian adventure turned into my Australian nightmare. Holly and I went outside to gather our laundry from the line outside after visiting the wild kangaroos. It was dark out so we were just grabbing clothes hoping that it was our clothes. All of a sudden I noticed that the line in front of my hands was moving. It took a couple of seconds but it finally dawned on me that I was within a couple of inches of touching a carpet python!!!!!!! I hate snakes with every fibre of my being so I immediately freaked out and started screaming and ran into the house. Holly had no idea what was going on but she was running screaming in front of me. Everyone in the house came outside to see what the commotion was and sure enough there was a python on the wash line. We took lots of pictures and I grabbed a couple more pieces of laundry before I decided that I couldn’t take anymore and didn’t care if the laundry stayed out for the rest of the night. I still have the heebie jeebies and it’s been about a half hour since the incident. I think I may be scarred for life.

Well that is all the excitement that happened today. I hope that the excitement at the end of the night is not repeated in the rest of my time here. Haha

Steph, Holly and David

P.S.
Holly here, it has been fun having Stephanie at the farm for the past week. I have learned that Stephanie is also not quite the farm girl I thought she was. Haha. I guess I was the same way when I first came here in September. She doesn’t like the spiders in the house, she freaks at the occasional mouse and was grossed out by swimming in the dam today J. It has been very nice to show her why I love living here though; the people and the scenery. We have gotten to enjoy some mornings and afternoons just looking out across the bush and watching the sunset. She gets to see what we can only tell you about and show you in pictures.

David has been working for the past couple days at the Roadhouse making the big bucks for our next adventure. Tomorrow Stephanie and I are having our test drive with Darryl to Moora to see if we are allowed to drive his UTE (truck) down South for the next couple weeks. We are pretty nervous about it. I am sure it will be fine though.

Time to plan the easter egg hunt for the WOOFers tomorrow.

Happy Easter!