Dashing Through The Bush in a Rusty Holden Ute

Hey Blog Fans,

So Christmas time is upon us yet Again. We're sat in the lounge of Regans Ridge Farm, Back home. Does feel very strange though, no other people here, just us.

We left Exmouth on thursday mid morning and started the long 1200km drive here, man was that a long day. We got to Carnarvon where I forgot what it was like to be dry. We stopped at the shops and as I got back into the car my left thong entered a realm of intense water related vacuum and it started to float away. Luckily, we weren't there a few hours later when things started going underwater. The whole town is currently flooded badly.

The Band & Choir On Stage

So we had the carols in the park a few weeks back. Weeks of voice training and learning of songs, heaps of hard work put into productions scripts and countless hours spent worrying over small details, lead to  a seemingly seamless night. I think the night is indebted to a few people.
Holly and I were part of the choir on stage and Holly was the old lady opposite our good friend Wayne in a production called 'A Special Visit'. It was a great night, very festive and great to be with such beautiful people.

We tried to pack in as much to our last few days in Exmouth as possible, we took Sam on a snorkelling trip down to Oyster Stacks where we saw two Reef Sharks and heaps of interesting things including a turtle. We then headed up to Lakeside which wasn't as fruitful. I also did a fishing trip to Ned's Camp where Sam, Myself and our friend Louis dove and fished among the Bombies. I was keeping the small fish away from the other guys' hooks while they caught the biggies.

We also had a thanksgiving/leaving party meal at the Mercers. We were there with The Mercers and the Blennys and had a real American thanksgiving meal. We had sweet potato with marshmallow on top, amazing mashed potato, stuffing and a huuge turkey, among many other things.

David Being Baptized By Josh & Wayne

On the 12th of December we went down to the beach with our church family and David got baptized in the sea, we shared the morning with everybody and we all swam in the unnervingly warm ocean for hours.

We arrived at the farm at around midnight on Thursday and went straight to bed. We woke the next morning and saw Darryl which was really great, we ate that night at Darryl and Donna's house and were surprised to see our good friends Len & Judy who they'd invited over. It was a great night, we also got to spend some time with their new dog. a Japanese Spitz called Poh. Last night we went to Moora to see the Vanzetti clan to celebrate Donna's Dad's 70th, they didn't know we were coming. It was great to see all the family again, it was a fun night. We drove back this afternoon and have spent most of it on the couch, a well deserved break.

We don't have much planned for the next few days, we'll do some bottling of oil and spend some quality time with Darryl and Donna before we all head down to Margaret River for Chrissie. Good times guys, our last few weeks of our Australia adventure are being spent wisely.

Thanks for reading,

David & Holly

Karijini National Park Pt. 2



Sunset at Millstream-Chichester



Millstream National Park



If you Google Millstream Chichester National park, you will see where we headed to next. At the end of a very arid stretch of road we hit the Fortesque River which runs from the northern parts of WA down through Karijini National park, To give you an Idea of the scale of the river, WA’s water authority have substantial operations on this stretch and the whole area is lush green.



Kicking up dust





Red headed and fake tanned

We pulled in here not long before dark and wandered around the homestead and had a look at the parks highlights, but there were people here. We hadn’t seen people for a while, so we headed to the Chichester part of the park 30klm’s up the road. We camped the night here and drove on the next morning. We were finally back on real roads and racing enormous trains that do the Iron Ore runs to the Pilbara Mines, the are Huge. Everything in this area of the world just seems to be colossal. We drove all the way to Karratha. The first big town we’ve been in since Geraldton, back in July. We walked into the main shopping centre Holly was now a redhead from the dust and we both looked like we’d been fake tanning for decades and our clothes were a rusty colour. We felt gross compared to all these big town people, we bought some cheap, CLEAN t-shirts, changed into them and enjoyed the air conditioning for a while. I’m ashamed to say we did go to McDonalds. And headed to Dampier. Dampier is a big area for Gas, there’s a platform of the coast there, a refinery and a big port. The town feels a bit like Fremantle and any British seaside port town. Karratha is a huge place for industry, a big Iron Ore Mining hub, gas, oil and everything in between, even salt farming.  Dampier is just 20 minutes from Karratha and is where the Gas and salt are all farmed. Our to sea it looks like Paddocks, just white paddocks of salt, 60% of which is used by commercial industry. And only 2% is used for human consumption. Dampier is also home to the famous Red Dog, the Pilbara Wanderer, famous in these parts. The story is known by everybody.  It is currently being made into a movie, actually.



Dampier







After our Karratha /Dampier trip we headed back home to Exmouth, and long trip along probably the windiest road I think we’ve ever driven. It took around 7 hours to get back, $15 for 8 litres of fuel at Nanutarra Roadhouse and a dramatic sunset over Exmouth Cape. It was good to be home.



We pulled up outside the house cleared the car, had showers and collapsed on the couch.



Next big trip is Back to Perth for Christmas with Darryl Donna and the Vanzetti crew. Very Bittersweet.  Did we mention that we are majorly involved in the Christmas Carols in Exmouth.  Holly is playing the role of the mum in the play (which consists of Holly, Santa and a boy named Jesse, who is the narrator, and all the children silently going through the nativity scene. ).  We are both also singing in the choir, 5 men and 5 women.  How we get ourselves sucked into these things I don’t know.  Guess I  (Holly)  haven’t learned the art of saying no…even after being in Australia for two years. J  It will be good times.

Thanks For Reading,

Holly & David



The Patrol...in the middle of nowhere



Karijini National Park Pt. 1

Fortescue Falls



Ok Blog Fans, Google Karijini National Park. If you look at Dales Gorge that is where we spent two nights recently, we trekked down into Dales Gorge and swam in Fortesque Falls, then walked up to Circular pool. Now circular pool didn’t have a little guy swimming on it’s welcome sign, but we jumped in regardless. I’m glad we did.

Circular pool is in a corner of the gorge, surrounded by lush scrub and small canopy trees, essentially making it look like a small oasis, circled by big rocks and in one corner engulfed by water lillies that reach all the way to the bottom of the pool. On the back wall there are countless small waterfalls dribbling down and making a soothing sound as you cruise around the pool. The water is crystal clear with a green tinge. I think the word immaculate would describe it well.



This was just the first day. Tom Price, the nearest town to Karijini is a large mining town servicing the big BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto mines of the Pilbara region, mining Iron ore from the National Park. It is very strange to walking through an area of extreme beauty and it’s basically metal. The red rocks are scorching to the touch and when one rock hits another, it clangs, like metal hitting metal. Very odd.



We arrived in Tom Price at around 6 after travelling 7 Hours from Exmouth, passing WA’s very own Uluru. We filled up with Diesel (We had borrowed a Nissan Patrol 4x4 from Sam) shopped in Coles, our first big supermarket (country town big)  for about 5 months and headed into the wilderness with a dimming sun. We drove up tens of kilometers of dead straight roads heading across the plains of the national Park. Big mining industry to our right and stark Arid Beauty to our left.

Our second day we decided to head to Weano Gorge on the West side of the Park, Dale’s Gorge is on the East side of the park. We landed on Gravel Roads, which are very popular in this area of the country as it costs around $1million per Kilometer to make a real road. You can barely feel the corrugation in the road after 80km per hour, so we stayed at that. Thankfully past experience on similar terrain proved useful.

Handrail Pool



Weano Gorges



We stopped at a few gorges on the way over and viewed from the viewing platforms the enormity of natures effect on the landscape. If you Google Weano Gorge, you should find Kermits Pool, Handrail Pool and Junction Pool among the most popular. We went to handrail pool, but decided against the others as our legs were still recovering from Dales and some of them you needed abseiling equipment and special permission. We camped that night at the Karijini Eco Retreat, a small tent based resort in the middle of nowhere! How on earth does that place exist, unreal. It even had a restaurant. We paid our fee and camped in an area which definitely catered for a heap of tourists. But we only shared it with 4 or 5 vehicles. And get this, they had showers there! In the middle of the Pilbara you can have a warm shower.





This was probably our most interesting night, we think we shared our space with some big lizard and some dingoes. We woke up during the night to what sounded like an angry snake, I did the whole “Don‘t Move Holly… It sounds like it‘s In here” But thank God we couldn’t see anything, that was unbelievably scary though. (I might add (Holly) that I did not sleep well at all this night.  I kept waking up hearing dingos, lizards and snakes, asking David what each noise was.  The snake sound is what finally made him get up and look around a bit.  Blah!)



Hammersley Gorge



So the next day we headed back to Dale’s Gorge, camped another night then headed off to Hammersley Gorge. Google this place next. I know right…WoW!



Now between Hammersley Gorge and our next real destination was about 500 to 600 km’s. And it was all Dirt road. Picture Australia, Long straight red dirt roads, either side you have flat, Flat arid land with scrub, the odd Station Homestead and Nothing else. It was incredible. We drove for Hours and Hours along these roads kilometer long dustplooms behind us. We stopped a few times for a drink, pulled a cold bottle of water from our Waeco Fridge. My new Love in Life. And admired what we were doing.



Blogger upsets me sometimes as I still dont understand it.. I had it set up all nice and I decided to add one more photo and now it will not play nice...soo...there are two photos at the end here.  They are not together at all.. but they won't seperate or move.  The top one is from Weano Gorge and the bottom one is Circular pool.













Circular Pool



Turtles, Turtles Turtles

Turtles Eh?

So It's that time of year for the turtles. Time to get together and do the birds and the bees thing. The turtle Stalk.
I say it like it's something Blase but it's something incredible to experience. No not the Turtles in union but the aftermath. When the female comes ashore to lay her eggs.

We scoped it out after doing a little research and headed down to a place called Jurabi Beach, or Turtle Beach which is on the West side of the cape, about a 30-40 minute drive.
Holly said..."We have to go there, that's where the turtles go to lay their eggs", we later confirmed that they didn't just go to that one beach, they went to the whole coast. Wayne summed the comment up perfectly by saying "Is there a special beacon on that beach that makes them all come there?" hehe...Silly.

So we went down about an hour before dark and looked around, saw some turtle action going on and decided that that would be the place we would come back to. After dinner and just after dark we headed over and not a second after setting foot on the beach we had a girl rush up to us telling that they were watching a turtle, please be quiet she said in her German accent.
We headed over and though there were stars in the sky the moon wasn't, so all we could see was a dark shadow flicking sand out of its nest. How cool! It's surreal being that close to what is probably a myth to all of us who don't live near warm waters. Very cool indeed. We did take a sneaky photo with flash when the German's had gone to capture the moment, I think Mrs Turtle was a bit busy to care.

Here is the turtle, we didn't want to get too close, her head is facing us. We will be heading down for an early morning visit soon as they will soon be hatching. Very exciting :)

We're moving out of our house-sitting house tomorrow, Tuesday as the American family is coming back from their holiday. Our last move in Exmouth before we leave, and we're heading to Karijini on the 17th.

Other than this there is not a lot happening in our little world, we're just existing and looking forward to the next moves. Stephanie may possibly be making this blog a true "Holly and Steph" blog again as she might be joining us in Bali while we're there, From what we can see Bali looks amazing. Temples, Monkey forests, snorkelling etc...and cheap hotels! Good times.

I think that's all for now, we'll check back in when something interesting happens,
Ciao for now,

David & Holly (David Eating a Smore and Holly's thumbs up at finding a nesting turtle)

Shoplifter

Hello Blogfans,

It was last week, tuesday I think when I, David walked into work and was hussled into the office by my boss and his boss and asked to explain a piece of video footage that made it look like I was stealing something.
It looks really bad but I can explain was my response, though they didn't want to rewind the tape and see that the item I was 'shop lifting' was actually a Bakery bag with a creamy pastry in it given to me by a friend of mine on her way to a progressive dinner at church.

What a day that was! We went above the Boss and got in touch with the shop owners and got them to make him review the tape, and so I got a call a few hours later with my job back and an apology. 

This really got us thinking and I think made us appreciate what we had here and what we needed to do before we left, consequently we are going to Karijini National Park on the 17th of this month for 5 days, returning to Exmouth for a few weeks and then heading down to Perth to see our Australian surrogate family for christmas.

We had a very busy few weeks between moving out from our friends' Catherine and Waynes house, we moved into a small house near our work and spent pretty much every day and night doing something.
We then moved to the house we're currently in to house-sit for and seemed to stop. I think it was so nice for us to be able to stretch out and relax without causing any inconvenience to anyone. It's been great.


I think we're ready for the next and pre-final part of our Australian trip, Karijini - Perth/Farm and then on the 3rd of January will be flying to Denpasar in Bali and spending 10 days there having a look around, seeing some rice paddy fields and some lush tropical scenery. After that we head to Jakarta for the night on the 13th then make the trip to Manchester, UK via Doha in the UAE, How wonderfully exciting and very very sad :(
We've both warmed very much to Australia but it will be good to have a change of scenery maybe.

One surely cannot live in a perfect 36 degree climate for ever...Wait..Maybe one could. 'Holly....Can we cancell our flights and stay...' You've seen how much fun we've had the past two years, but we'd make fun wherever we go. It's not where you are, it's who your with and what you're doing.

Untill Next time,

David & Holly

Different Language

Well we said that we would give you a blog overload and we have definitely failed.  This is probably the busiest we have been since we started travelling around Australia.  It's like being back at home.  Yikes.  The weather has been hot here, 30s every day.  Some days I feel like the air conditioner in the house is broken.  It probably just cannot compete with the heat.  

Let's tell you about some of the interesting things.  The other day, Sam took David spearfishing with his new spearfishing gun.  The guys around here are huge into it.  Some of them can hold their breath underwater for like 8 minutes.  I would see a big fish, panic and that would be the rest of my breath gone.  When you spearfish you free dive (so without any apparatus) and sometimes you will see sharks and snakes....Or if you catch something you have to be able to bring it back up to shore as well.  Definitely the non-lazy way of fishing.

As always, immigration/government has decided to be annoying.  The school here had asked me to teach here with a contract for a bit until the end of term.  This meant having to get my visa extended (long story, boring to tell).  Immigration said they would get back to me in 5 business days and it has now been like two weeks.  I have been calling them heaps, getting a new person every time.  I finally gave up.  So my last day of teaching was on Tuesday.  I will be going back to working full time hours at the IGA.   I will miss teaching.  I loved every minute of it.  The last class I was teaching in was a Pre-Primary class (that is kindergarten back home). I was teaching them how to say the letter 'o' and when I came to orange, I said it different from the kids.  One of the boys piped up and said, "that's because you speak a different language!" talking about my accent.  I thought it was pretty cute.

Halloween is celebrated here in the town of Exmouth because without the American influence there would be no town of Exmouth.  Saying that, I did not get candy (or as they say here 'lollies') ready for the kiddies.  We only ended up getting 3 kids anyways.  Sounds like all the kids were out and about getting their lollies though.

I think we will stick around here for a few more weeks and then it will be time to say our goodbyes and travel a bit more, see Australian family for Christmas and then head on our merry way back to the freezing...

That is all for now.  Check back again in the next few days as we will try to have a blog here every day until we leave the house we are housesitting at.  Hopefully get caught up on the well overdue photos as well.

Holly and David

Look out for the humpy!!

Whale Watching

Okay, SUPER delayed blog!
We have been super busy, well as busy as you can be while living in a small town like Exmouth.  David and I have managed to find work to keep us busy. At the moment I am sitting next to two little joeys sitting in little home made pouches popping in and out as they hear different noises.  The American family that we have befriended here get to take care of them as a lady goes to work certain days and needs someone to babysit them. 

Since we last blogged we have moved around quite a bit.  After our week at Cathryn's we stayed in a caravan park for a couples days (where kangaroos, in the night stole shoes and wrecked the left over ones).  A lady named Deb (the American mom) messaged us asking us if we would like to stay with her and her family while her husband was away in America for the week.  So we moved in with them and became a part of their family.  Her eldest daughter was so excited as I was also going to be teaching her classroom a couple days that week so not only did she get taught by "Miss Holly" she also got to live with "Miss Holly."  The youngest is almost four and he cannot contain his excitement everytime Mr. Dave and Miss Holly come over to play with him.  They have given David and better and more positive view of Americans.  They get cheap shipping over here so they have tons of yummy American things that we can only get back home....reece's peanut butter cups, marshmallows, pop tarts, gushers....the list goes on.

After living with them, and almost becoming homesick as I was reminded of all the things I am missing out on back home, Cathryn asked us if we would like to come and stay with them again for 2 weeks as the all decided they wanted to have us back.  We obviously accepted and enjoyed another two weeks with them.  David and I also took turns with them cooking dinner.  I have been giving the opportunity to help Cathryn out with a girls group that she does every second Friday.  It has been fun doing that kind of stuff again and David enjoys his Star Wars lessons and movie watching men's night with Wayne and Zac.  We have had many tea times with Cathryn trying out her many different kinds of tea. 

The other day Wayne offered to take us out on the boat to go whale watching.  It was awesome!!! There were so many humpback whales everywhere and they would come so close to the boat.  It is amazing how massive they are.  We ran into a group of 7 or 8 whales chasing around each other and playing...imagine 8 1 tonne whales at pretty fast speeds jumping on each other and playing around...its cool and scary, we kept our distance.  My pictures do not do justice at all.  When we were not chasing the whales we were sitting in the boat listening to them talk to each other under the water and hearing their blowholes pufff out of the water, so loud!  We cannot wait to go out there again.  AND apparently there are still whale sharks hanging around in the golf.  I so hope we see one again!  

The weather has been super hot here with a record day of 42 degrees Celsius.  Apparently most of the summer here is 40s and 50s, I am glad we will be leaving here by then.  It sounds like the opposite of our extreme winters.  I do not know which would be worse.

At the moment it is school holidays.  I like how the school terms run here, much better than back home I think.  They have four terms that each last about 10 weeks with two week breaks inbetween minus the summer holidays which is more like 5 weeks long.  Much nicer on the teachers and students.  After the break I have to cut down my shifts at the IGA because I will be getting heaps of teaching work with the school.  I had lots before the holidays as well due to a flu going around the town, I have been lucky and have still not caught it.  I am also doing night fill at my IGA on Wednesdays and Saturdays.  It's my fitness for the week. haha.

Sorry there are no photos up yet.  We are currently living in a place that does not have internet.  As soon as I have more time at a house with internet there will be an overload.  We are house sitting at a house this weekend and in a couple weeks time Deb and her family are going for a 3 week trip back to America, at this time we will be house sitting for them with plenty of time for writing blogs and putting up photos. 

Well that should be a big enough update for now, hopefully the next one will not be so far off in the future.  It is feeding and toilet time for the joeys.  So I am off.

Holly & David

Squid Rings

I am currently sitting under a fan trying to cool off.  The days here seem to be getting hotter and hotter and apparently it only gets worse.  Not sure if I want to experience the heat they get, although we will experience Darwin heat, which is worse than here.  Blah.  Since I have updated you last we have had a few interesting experiences. 

The "freak" weather keeps following us around Australia.  First we have the freezing temperatures in Perth and then we have cold and rain in Exmouth. We have been told by all of the locals here, especially the older ones, that it has not been this cold and rainy in Exmouth in all the years they have been here.  So after a few days of rain and being tired of it the only indoor place to go was Grace's Tavern (secret planning on my part as I was meeting some ladies for dinner there later on.).  Sam's brother and sister-in-law, the Irish couple, Pete and I all headed there. (David and Sam showed up later after work)  After a few games of pool a man, whom we have seen around the town a fair bit carrying his backpack and is not the cleanest looking person ever (if you catch my drift), asked us if we wanted to play a game of pool with him.  After playing a few games with him we really started to enjoy his company.  He broke the ice by telling us a poem that he wrote about the game of 8 ball.  We later found out that he is a Travelling Poet and has been travelling around Australia for 27 years, hitchhiking. He was carrying his life on his back.  Stories after stories, jokes after jokes... He had us wrapped around his finger.  In the end we all ended up buying his little book of poems from him.  After the night there we took him to a beach by where we were staying where he ended up staying the night and hitchhiking back into town.  His plan was to stay in the town until Sunday, go to church, and then head off. 

We decided that we didn't want to stay in the caravan parks and that we were going to try and do some free camping (as the ranger is away for a few days).  Sam, David and I headed to a beach just out of town one evening and made it our home for the night.  We also did a little 4x4ing in the sand dunes before watching some Mighty Boosh in our little outdoor cinema.  We had a pretty cool set up.  After a wonderful sleep on the beach we woke up to a local man on his horse yelling at us that the ranger was going to catch us and we would have to pay a 500 dollar fine.  Little did he know we have talked to many locals in the town about where to go, what the ranger considers "free camping", etc.....  After our rude awakening we decided it was time to get some breakfast and have showers.  The boys were pretty keen on getting showers at the caravan park that we have had so much hassle with.  I felt a little uncomfortable, especially in the place we parked but I followed.  As soon as I got out of the shower a man came up to me asking if I was staying at the caravan park.  I told him that I wasn't at the moment, that I had been and that I was planning on checking in that afternoon.  He didn't take any of that well.  So, apparently he had a spy that saw David and I go in (but not Sam) and we got fined 10 dollars each.  I guess our WHITE van was a bit more noticeable than the boys thought.  I paid the fine while he waited for David to get out of the shower.  A tad embarassing and a bit on the wild side for me.  I'm such a rebel...lol. 

After the stressful morning (for me anyways) I decided that I would rather just play in safe.  A couple nights before one of the guys we met offered to let us stay on his driveway for 10 dollars a night.  So we thought we better take him up on the offer.  But that night I went to a "Cook Off"  where a bunch of ladies and I cooked up a bunch of meals to freeze and hand out to people in the community when they are needed.  At the end of the night Cathryn, a lady I have gotten to know over the past few days, asked us where we were staying and offered to let us stay at her house for the evening.  So, we took up her offer and the next morning she told us that she would like us to be a part of her family for the rest of the week.  She has been amazing and so helpful.  Her children are wonderful. We have been trying to help out as much as we can. 

When David is working and Sam is not, I am usually hanging out with Sam and when they are both off we are all together, and of course when Sam is working I am with David.  So, to the people we have met that do not know us too well, it has caused a bit of confusion, so we have had a few laughs over the past few days.  David was working the other night and we went for a bbq on the beach with some friends.  When we pulled up some of the people were referring to me as Sam's girlfriend and what not.  Then at church the next day a girl who I spent the afternoon with last week thought Sam was my boyfriend.  We realized we have probably confused them all because I am either with both of them or one of the other. 

Yesterday, I went to church and sure enough our friend from the Tavern was already there so I sat with him.  When it was communion, as we were told to drink he cheers'ed my glass.  I uncomfortably giggled and kept on with what I was doing and then he started to hiccup and pretend to be drunk.  Obviously, communion is supposed to be serious and he was not being.  It is definitely not something you really ever experience.  He sounds like he is disrespectful but he actually has a strong faith in Jesus.  I liked that he came just as he was a dirty travelling poet, smelly, not perfect by any means, you could imagine the judging that could have gone on.  But he did not care.  He came to worship God with everyone else and that was all that mattered.

David and I went out to the beach with Wayne (Cathryn's husband) and the kids.  He took out his boat so we got to go for a ride.  The original plan was to go out and see whales but they were not wanting to play so we went squidding instead.  All this consists of is casting out and reeling in, hoping to catch something on the way in.  Wayne caught one within minutes.  They actually look really cool.  We decided to do a bit of trolling (slowly driving with the fishing line out) and I managed to catch one! As I was bringing it in he was telling me to bring it in but keep it down, I didn't know if he meant my rod or the squid so I kept looking at both.  All of a sudden he yelled as the Squid INKED! I now knew what he meant.  Luckily, he didn't get inked.  We headed back in and cleaned our catch with a couple other couples and then headed over to Deb and Pete's house to have a big squid feast.  I have never tasted squid so good.  I do not think I will be able to eat squid when I get back home.  I ate soooo much!

Today I had an interview with IGA (as I have not been hearing from the school as much as I want)  and it was about two minutes long and I was hired.  So this town is a town of 1,000 people or so.. and it has two IGAs kittie corner from each other.  David works at one and I will be working at the other.  I also am getting paid way less (as I found out when I got home from the interview).  Oh well.  So I start tomorrow at 630 as a checkout chick.  I am excited to spend some days working rather than reading and walking around all the time. 

No photos today.  We do have some though.  I will hopefully get around to putting some up on facebook in the next few days again. 

Holly

Phinally Photos.

David and his catch!

I have finally spent some time uploading photos onto facebook.  I have got Kalbarri - Shark Bay photos up.  So if you can remember back to those blogs you can put these photos in those memories.

West Coast Pt 1

Little update

David and I went fishing with Sam, his brother and wife and Laura, Damo and Peter (the Irish..) Damo, Peter, Sam and David were all lucky and caught some reef sharks..just little ones..but it fed us all very well that night.  David was also lucky enough to catch a seagull...Let's just say after that they left the bait alone in the water...stupid birds.  It has been cold and rainy here for the past few days.  Apparently it has not been this cold in 26 years (18 degrees Celsius) But today is finally sunny and clearing up! Back to happiness! haha.

Thats all for now.

Holly

Quick one...

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Echdina, we had stop for him to cross the road.

Friendly Emu checking out lunch

So we have decided to spend a little time in Exmouth as David has found a very well paid job, IGA (40,000 yearly salary...crazy!).  When I get relief teaching it is good money as well.  This will all help to have a wonderful finish to the end of our trip.  At the moment we are back living in the caravan park.  It is a pretty nice set up.  We hope to find something a bit cheaper, we also do not get the nicest customer service from this place.  Rather not deal with them on a daily basis. 

We have invested in a cheap allarounder fishing rod and have gone out a few times.  Still not as lucky as our first fish.  Sounds like we were pretty lucky catching that one.  David and I have gone to the National Park a few times but it is getting a bit hotter here.  David and Sam have gone surfing a few times (David body boarding) I am still working up the courage after seeing that guy.  Blah.  I hope to have tried it before we leave. 

Anyways, update to let you know we are still alive.  I must get off as my time has run out.

Holly

Whale Shark Photos

Whale Shark Crew

Whale Shark

The Whale Shark!

David snorkelling 

 

Well, it's a day off for me and I am just waiting for David to finish work.  It is nice to have a rest after teaching.  The kids are great but it is tiring getting back into the swing of things.  Darryl's friend Cos, (he is greek..haha) is up here for a "guys fishing trip" for 10 days and he has offered to let us come and stay with them rather than a caravan park.  I have been trying not to crash the party too much for them being a girl and all but they assure me that it is okay. 

Here are some of the whale shark photos.  I am sick of this internet place for the day though.  Their power has shut off 3 times since I have been here, so no photos on facebook yet, unfortunately.

Holly

Exmouth Pt. 2 - Whale Shark!!!

The sun came up as we drove over the crest, slowly climbing up on the corner of world lazily flooding the dim sky with a red and orange glow. The world woke up on our 10 minute drive coming into colour. Today was a day we would never repeat. Whale Shark Day.

It’s simple to say that we were a little excited about today. This was one of the things I have wanted to do since I came to Australia and we both decided we needed to do it regardless of anything. We actually got really lucky with the whole situation because the Whale Sharks aren’t normally around now, their season is March to July, but we still got to see them in early August. Lots of companies have stopped doing their tours but we liked the sound of ours and they gave us a good guarantee so we did it. And my my, are we glad we did!!

We took our little boat to the big boat, the Blue Marlin which would be our home for the day. We were introduced to the crew and given a briefing and then rocked off to the other side of the Reef. Just so you know the Ningaloo is the closest and most accessible Reef in the world, it is within viewing distance from land unlike the Great Barrier Reef which is a 2 hour journey away. The Ningaloo creates a lagoon effect on the ocean between it and the land taming the Indian Ocean. Its waves crash over the reef which is sometimes less than a meter from the surface and level out in the lagoon.
So we made our way  through the reef and spotted a HumpBack Whale Breaching not far from us, the crew said that it was very rare that they are on the land side of the reef and it must be lost, so we coaxed what turned out to be two whales out of the reef and away to safety. We headed out bounding over the swell and headed south  so we could have our first snorkel of the day. We left the boat near the reef and dove down to see what we could find. We saw lots of fish and a turtle drifting by. When we put our head under water we could hear whale songs, It was unreal.

After a false alarm of seeing a whale shark the crew decided it was time for another snorkel.  I wasn’t feeling well but Holly went.  They swam through huge reef and coral and had a run in with a Reef Shark taking it easy.  The coral was all a lot different to the stuff that we had seen in all of our previous snorkels.  The spotter plane flew over head as we had morning tea to find some Whale Sharks, after some sailing false alarms and lots of bouncing around on the boat the skipper put full speed on and raced off to the south. This was the big one.

When we arrived we as group one went first and left the boat, we followed the spotter who kept an eye on the beast so we knew where to go, went ahead and we followed. Its fair to say that the skipper didn’t know exactly where the Whale Shark was, he dropped us behind it and around 50 meters away, so we had a mad dash to get to it. But my word…..Out of the deep blue of the ocean appeared this gracious white freckled beauty. This thing was 5.5 meters long and swam lazily along with its entourage of smaller fish. We swam along side it, jumped on the boat and jumped off again right in front of it. We both got some incredible view of the creature. We swam with it for abound 50 minutes the only boat to do so that day. And way above the industry standard of 15 minutes.

After this we had lunch and made out way back to port on the way seeing numerous humpbacks breaching and crashing around as well as a baby one practising with its mother, what a perfect end to an amazing day!!

We made it back to our campsite the place still rocking. We had an early night and slept very well.

We have photos but they are on a cd, so when we get them onto the hard drive we will put them up.

We are off to relax on the beach for a bit today...Tomorrow....National Park!

David and Holly

Exmouth - Water Babies

Dinner!

David with his boo boo

Fishing with the turtle

We have fallen into like with Exmouth.  The weather is constantly sunny and beautiful.  The weather has been late 20s everyday.  The drive to Exmouth was very long and warm.  We stopped at Coral Bay along the way.  It had a beautiful clear blue beach with lots of young families.  At this time of year it is expensive and almost impossible to stay there so we just enjoyed the sights for a bit and then headed on to Exmouth.  When we arrived in Exmouth we learned that most of the caravan parks were full.  This was not good as it was coming close to dark.  Luckily, the lady at the caravan park that we pulled into was determined to call around until she could find a place for us to spend the night.  The caravan park is about 15 minutes out of the town and right next to the lighthouse, close to all the beaches as well.  The next morning Sam and David went out for a surf, David body boarding.  I was actually working up the courage to try and try out either surfing or body boarding.  After being tossed around by the waves David had enough and decided to come in, only to find out that he had a massive gash on his foot from something off the reef.  Right after seeing that a guy came walking towards us with a face and head full of blood.  His surfboard’s fin had hit him in the back of the head and he had a massive gash.  After the two incidents I was lightheaded and sick to my stomach.  My courage spell had completely left me. 

After the beach we headed into the city where the boys applied for jobs at IGA and I put my name on the relief teacher list at the local school.  We plan to stick around here for a few weeks to earn some more money and enjoy the area of course.  Next stop was our plan for our dinner…..catching a fish.  We spent all afternoon fishing (and watching a massive turtle just metres away from us playing in the waves) and after having enough we headed to another place and within 5 minutes of being there Sam caught a fish, spangled emperor.  It was huge, definitely not what I was expecting us to catching.  It was a beautiful looking fish as well.  Another couple was also fishing there so they came over and helped us bleed it and told us how to fillet it.    As we started chatting and they asked where I was from I found out that they had actually just come back from Saskatchewan.  They were in Canada for 27 days spending most of it in Ituna and Regina for the Royal Progress Show.  Usually people have never even heard of it so to run into some random people to have them just come back from Saskatchewan was pretty neat.  We went back to the caravan park and had a very yummy dinner. Yay spangled emperor.

Yesterday we went snorkelling at what we have heard is the best snorkelling place in the area.  The place is called Turquoise Bay.  There are two parts to it.  You can either do a drift snorkel or you can swim around in the bay.  Since we really enjoyed the Drift Snorkel at Gnaraloo we decided to do that one first.  The current was pretty strong so David and I ended up doing it twice.  We saw lots of really cool fish.  I cannot get over the shapes and colours of the different fish.  I saw a little brown sting ray with blue spots.  I thought   it was a cool looking skinny fish and when I got closer I saw the rest of the body.  Further on we also saw a squid.  Ugly thing.  It saw us coming and hid in a little hole where we could still see him.  We headed over to the bay where I was the only one wanting to snorkel so I hopped in hoping that this wouldn’t be the time where I run into a shark.  The coral was much more colourful this time.  Similar fish.  This time I saw a gross cuttlefish.  If you do not know what they look like google it.  They are also very ugly.  Just as I was about to call it a day for snorkelling I swam between some coral and came head on with a turtle.  For a moment I felt like I was in Finding Nemo.  I quickly got out of his way and turned around to watch him swim past me.  How cool!  I definitely had an exciting day of snorkelling.

Tomorrow we have decided that we are going to have a swim with the Whale Sharks.  I am pretty nervous.  I am sure it will be a blast though.  Google whale sharks to learn a bit about them. 

Tata for now,

Holly and David

P.S. Funny thing just happened.  I am sitting in the caravan park writing my blog and 3 emus just walked past my window.  They are all over this town, in the parks, in the car parks, in the caravan parks, etc.  It is so weird to see them everywhere.

The Blowholes

Blowholes at Sunset

Hello Blogreaders,

So we left Carnarvon but didn’t get to too far. About 30 k’s out of town there was a turnoff to a place called Quobba, where there is a place of interest called the blowholes, down here we travelled for an hour and finally arrived a shanty looking caravan spot. We went here because we’d heard it was a good place to see and cheap camp. So we ended up staying for around 4 days. We met up with someone we knew from working on the farm. Sam is from England and is travelling on his own up to Darwin.

We spent our nights around the camp fire talking and drinking tea. Our meals varied from curry to noodles and to fresh fish given to us by our friendly neighbour Mick. At least we think that was his name, he always responded to it. Mick introduced himself as soon as we arrived and proved a gracious host while we were there, he had us in to his caravan to see some photos of the area, rough seas fishing blowholes and lots of fish. Mick liked to fish, But he was such a nice guy, and we all got on really well with him.

We spent most of our days snorkelling in various places around the area seeing some incredible fish and coral. Our little beach looked like something out of Gilligans Island, wooden shelters with fishing net as a cover, but the water was as clear as spring water. We saw some great sunsets here, you cant see a bad sunset in WA I don’t think, and sunset was the best time for seeing whales. We saw a few some off in the distance and one came fairly close and blew it’s spout into the burning sky.

On the Sunday we decided we needed some civilisation. The only toilets were long drops no showers and no houses for hundreds of kilometres so we went to church and enjoyed their hospitality which included tea and cakes

David, Sam & Pete the Pelican at Gnaraloo Bay

Possibly the highlight of our visit to Quobba was our last day when we all dived in Sam’s 4x4 and headed to a place called Red Bluff. This place is a great spot for surf and we watched Sam and many others tackle the waves and the heat for a few hours. We then headed off to a place called Gnaraloo Bay which was told to us to be the best Snorkelling spot in the world. Very intrigued. Across very rough roads we headed through a Station and arrived at just a stunning piece of coast. I don’t think we’ll ever see a more perfect beach as long as we live. We walked around the corner and to a point we were recommended to start from. We understood why when we got in, the current was so strong you couldn’t stand up and it took us on a nice lazy snorkelling tour of the Start of the Ningaloo Reef. If you wanted to see something in a little more detail on your moving tour was to stick out your arm or leg and it would turn you around so you could keep your eye on one thing. It was so much fun, we ended back at the beach we started from but far out from the shore. So we swam against the current and made out way back to the beach. On the way spotting a 5’ long Black Cod!!

We did love Quobba, simple living. Very cheap and heaps to do. Not even a stoned throw to the beach and some lovely people. Our last morning we said goodbye to our new surrogate father and headed off for a cheeky shower at the last camp site we stayed at. So Holly, Myself and Sam headed up the road to get some fuel, some chocolate Bananas and then headed on the drive to Exmouth.

That’s it for now, we need to have some more fun so we can write about it.
Love you all,

David & Holly

Blog Two - Carnarvon - Banana Central

We left Denham yesterday and headed towards Carnarvon. On the way we stopped off at a few interesting places. The first stop was Shell Beach, the way the bay is there are constantly little cockel shells washing up on the beach. They use these shells for making bricks and putting in chicken feed to harden their shells. The next stop was the Stromalites. Stromalites are the result of cynobacteria developing and forming rocks and/or cow pat shape sponges. This is a very rare phenomenon in the world, purely because the water is so salty. Salty water means no predators. Scientists use the stromalites to prove that the earth has held life for 4.5 billion years (the cynobacteria are responsible for generating enough oxygen in the atmosphere for sustainable life enable other oxygen producing plants to develop and make the atmosphere what it is today. In Bill Bryson’s book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, he discusses this exact location in great detail. David read this book last year so it was neat to get to see the stromalites in Shark Bay.


We went on a tour around where a telegraph station used to be. This station used to be in charge of broadcasting telecommunication signals from Perth to the mid and North-West. We stopped at a couple roadhouses along the way, for little breaks before arriving in Carnavon in late afternoon. We booked ourselves in the last free spot in a caravan park and settled in with wonderful neighbours. One of our neighbours, Gib came over to us and asked us if we would like a coffee so we said yes and that ended up with us chatting to him the whole night showing us some home brew beer and port that his friends have made. He is a love spoon maker, which is a welsh thing and his wife is from Assinaboia, Saskatchewan. I love when I meet Saskatchewan people over here. It is very rare.

This morning we went to the town to check out the touristy things to do. We walked out on the Mile Long Jetty and ran into our other neighbours from the caravan site. They were a couple from Tasmania and also very friendly. We chatted with them about travels and exchanged good places to head to and then they offered us a place to stay at their house with the opportunity for me to teach at the school that she works at (she is in charge of finding relief people at the school in their town).

Carnarvon is known for their mangoes and bananas. They have a lot of fresh fruit and veggies but mostly those. It is banana season right now so we see bananas all over the trees. Today we went to a couple plantations and spoiled ourselves with some fresh fruit and veggies to each over the next few days. Tomorrow we will head off to a little spot north of carnarvon where there is free camping and apparently a beautiful spot for snorkelling and spotting humpback whales.

Time to enjoy the rest of our beautiful day in the company of our “Grey Nomad” pals.

Holly and David.

Blog One - Monkey Mia

‘What an amazing first couple of days that we have had since we have moved on from the cattle station. For starters, it is not as cold in the evening.


Our first trip was to Shark Bay, where we arrived at a town called Denham. We found a Top Tourist Park and because Bernarbara was needing a break we decided to stop there for the night. The owner was sat outside the office on his bike selling fresh cooked crabs for 3 dollars. We snagged a couple from him for dinner in the evening. I think they made up our van site out of a random area of space that our van could fit and it happens to be right next to the Fish table. A couple men were there cleaning and gutting the fish that they had caught from the day. While we sat there awkwardly in our van in the middle of everything they called over to us offering us a fish from the batch that they had caught….Yes PLEASE! One of our neighbours saw this and giggled to herself. She came over to us and started to talk to us. She was an older lady, I soon realized that everyone was older. I believe we are the youngest people in the campground by quite a few years, actually. These older people are known as ‘Grey Nomads’ which is our version of the ‘Snow Birds’, or Britain’s version of “The Grey-haired Brigade”. They travel to the warmth in the winter. The high light of where we were sleeping was that Bernarbara was parked right next to the beach. This was the best place to crack open our crabs and watch the sunset. I do not think I have had a yummier crab in my life, so sweet and juicy. Later on we went to the kitchen and cooked up our fish with some yummy Regan’s Ridge oil. I have to say, we were quite spoiled for dinner that night.

This morning we headed off to the famous, Monkey Mia, home of the dolphins. Monkey Mia is a very popular place to visit because every morning they have wild dolphins come in for a little snack while tourists stand around and watch and take photos. We got to see the last feeding and the dolphin who came in was named Puck. She is 30 years old and has been coming to Monkey Mia since she was young. She has many of her own that are frequent to MM. Now, the exciting part! Usually they pick 5 people out of the crowd to feed a dolphin, knowing my luck I didn’t get my hopes up for feeding her. Well, not only did I get to feed her I was the first one asked to feed her. Unfortunately, David decided to play around with the beach bag before looking up to take a photo, so when he finally looked up I was already coming back….No Photo. L Still really cool though. We spent the rest of the day walking around the reserve. We did a little bush trail where we had a few run-ins with Emus. Usually on the farm we were used to them running off as soon as you got near them. Not these ones. We had to keep our distance. We would be walking and then all of a sudden right next to us we would see one eating, camouflaged in with the bush. We also saw a mum with 4 little ones. So cute, don’t worry, we definitely kept our distance with that one.

I am now sat on a picnic table overlooking the beach at monkey mia waiting for the sun to set, hoping that I will get one last glimpse of dolphins coming up to the shore, playing around. I know I will sleep good tonight, my skin is also tired from the amount of sun it has had today, luckily we are not burnt lobsters.

Time for sunset photos,

Holly and David

P.S. I have photos to put up but the internet is not allowing me to.  Maybe another time.  Check back again.

Short Update

Well, after a good two weeks at Murchison House Station we are finally off again, getting to even warmer weather.  It has been high twenties/thirties during the day here.  Still a big drop in weather in the evenings though.  The trip around 1/3 of the station was AMAZING!!! He has about 70 km's of private beaches.  They are nice beaches as well.  The one we went to is a perfect beach for just spending the day at with a family or friends.  We took lots of pictures, unfortuately I left the camera in the van so no photos for this blog.

We spent the last couple of days at the farm making it look beautiful for tourists.  Yesterday, I also started building a massive shed with the girls.  After a full day of working hard on it though, we had Calum come over to us and tell us that we were doing it wrong.  Luckily, the "engineer" of the group took all the grief because she should know better. haha.   The last two weeks have been good hard work.  I have enjoyed it.  New muscles hurt everyday.  It makes up for all the biscuits I have eaten.  haha.

Today we are off to Shark Bay, where we will spend a few days in the towns of that area.  There is a place called Monkey Mia where you can feed the dolphins.  Or watch as a million other tourists watch as well.  We have no more wwoofing places set in stone yet.  At the moment, we will just go with the flow. There is our small update for you.  Not sure when we will have internet again.

Until next time,

Holly and David

Murchison House Station

Kalbarri National Park

Murchison House Station

We have settled for a couple weeks at Murchison House Station  just next to the town of Kalbarri.  It is 350,000 Acres…. It is 3500 sq. kilometres.  It is amazing!!! We have only seen a tiny bit of the station.  The owners, Belinda and Calum have been here for 13 years and Belinda says there are still places that she has not seen.  They are opening the station up to the public for 4-wheel drive tracks, so we have spent a couple days writing up the signs on old windmill (I cannot think of the word but the water pumping windmills).  On Saturday, Calum is going to take us along the coastal track of the station and put the signs up.  We are looking forward to it.  Each day we do different things, we work from 4-7 hours a day and we join Belinda and Calum for supper in the evenings.  There is a French guy, Austrian girl and a German girl also on the farm with us.  There are also campers that come and go that we get to meet and usually have chats with at the bonfire in the evening. A couple we met last night had a massive bus.  They had two young kids and they have been living out of their bus for a few years just travelling around Australia working as they need too.  Cool.

Every morning we are in charge of feeding all the animals.  We have a calf and two goats (who think they are all the same), lots of chickens, ducks and ducklings, two ponies and a pet kangaroo, Skippy.  Skippy is like a child, when we come to feed him in the morning he jumps up on us wanting food.  The station also has about 30 sheep, that we see every once in awhile, a couple hundred brahma cows, and a few thousand goats.  The first couple days at the farm we cleared a bunch of fence lines.  It was very tiring and hot.  It was all uphill but the top of the hill made the work all worth while with all of the beautiful views that we could see.  This area of the farm used to be a coral reef thousands of years ago.

Our second night at the farm they decided to give us a real Aussie experience, kangaroo hunting.  We went up to what felt like Scar’s stomping ground in The Lion King.  Calum’s 6 year old son, Aidan, was with us as well as his ex-butcher friend, Damien.  Aidan was super keen on the whole thing.  The first to run out the the kangaroo and right in there helping his dad.  It was a really fun experience but after awhile I started to feel bad for the poor kangaroos.  I couldn’t kill animals for a living that is for sure.  It was definitely a cool experience though.  We came back to the Homestead and hung up the kangaroo bottom halves to leave over night.  The next arvo we got to have a go on skinning the kangaroos and cutting them up.  The kangaroos we did were for the dogs, probably lucky as we all had our turn on butchering the meat.  The day after we watched the pros show us how it is done. 

 On the weekend we had a day off to go visit the rest of the National Park.  We went to The Loop and Z-Bend, it was beautiful! The Murchison River ran through these beautiful gorges.  There were some scary parts for me in the walk though.  We had to do some rock scrambling up high and go up and down ladders.  It took me awhile to work up the courage to do that.  Me talking about this does not do justice though.


Tuesday Morning we sadly had to say goodbye to Kendra, unfortunately her trip up North with us came up short as she was unable to find transportation from when she needed to leave us so the safest thing was to get the bus from Kalbarri back down to Perth where she will take the train to finish her travels. 

Calum and Belinda have a tour that they do three times a week at the farm that shows people the interesting history of the Station, we have been spending the last couple days driving up to where we were shooting kangaroos (which is about 30 minute return trip) collecting rocks bigger than my head and BIGGER.  After a few trips of hauling the rocks back to the homestead they now have beautiful walkways next to some of the sights on the farm.  I also feel like I am ripped in the arms, back and shoulder muscles. Haha.  Yesterday after we used our big muscles for carrying heavy rocks we decided to take a trip down the river in the kayaks.  It was beautiful and calm.  We didn’t make it to the ocean though, maybe next time.

We would love to stay here longer and help out but unfortunately we must get back on the road and seeing Australia again, so on Tuesday morning we are heading off from the station and heading up to Shark Bay to see what all of that area has to offer. 

Until next time,

Holly and David