Kalbarri!

Given the success of our first trip to Rottnest Island last month, we decided to make plans to visit more of WA. Kalbarri was chosen thanks to a double page photo from 'Natures Window' in the 'Perth Insight City Guide' both Nic & I owned.

The long 6 hour drive up to Kalbarri well out of reach of most radio stations proved an opportune time to use the iPod wirelessly with the FM transceiver to deliver us with an eclectic mix of music for our enjoyment. A shame that the iPod battery of course doesn't last that long, so we had to resolve to old fashioned CDs for the last stretch of the journey there :)

Our accommodation moved up a notch from the luxuriously converted army barracks of Rottnest Island to camping in tents! Although warm on the first night due to the cloud cover (which soon turned to rain), the subsequent nights got colder and colder. My new sleeping bag and mat proved up to the task keeping me toasty warm and giving me a good sleep on all 3 nights. Many of the people at the caravan park appeared to be permanent residents, with some of the travellers towing their caravans from as far away as Victoria. We were, by quite a margin, amongst the youngest there.

With the rain brought about millions of newly hatched flies the next day, looking for anything with moisture to settle on and buzz about. Our time spent at the highly publicised 'Natures Window' in the Kalbarri National Park was marred by the ever present flies and unfortunately, the terribly over cast weather didn't help our photographic ambitions. Without sounding cruel and unusual, we couldn't decide between the 3 of us if the tour guides friend was male or female. With a name of 'Joe', he/she sounded male/female and looked like . . . fortunately after visiting the standard lookouts, our guide 'Davo' took us down into the Murchison Gorge to where we would be canoeing for the afternoon. Although it has been a dry winter, underground springs avoided us having to paddle through sand. We thought that canoeing in a canoe built for 3 would be quite a simple task, but somehow we just couldn't paddle straight. Swapping across to 2 man canoes proved much easier and more fun as we enjoyed the tranquil environment. Besides the guide and the German couple (and the flies!), there was nobody else about. We had the whole gorge (or at least this section of it) entirely to ourselves.

We had been discussing amongst ourselves what activity we should engage in the next day, and thought that abseiling down the gorge sounded like fun. However one of us (not me!) had never hung off the end of a rope before, and was quite reluctant at first to entertain the idea. Thankfully with some encouragement from our canoe guide and a photo of a 6 year old in action at the information centre, we were able to confirm our abseiling adventure for the following day . . .

. . . so the next morning we were transported back into the national park to carry out our abseil over a 25m ledge over looking the Murchison Gorge. A quick demonstration by our trusty abseiling instructors using a figure 8 descender (never used in SES) showed us how simple the abseil would be, and that we had nothing to be afraid of. It was fun, although I was hoping that we'd be able to abseil down other cliff faces as the morning progressed. This was not to be the case. For the others in the group, this was probably enough excitement for one day, our instructor demonstrated how we could abseil facing forward (ie looking down the cliff face) towards the ground. Very UniSol and a bit of a thrill, no actual technical value, but why not, just for the experience. Simply a case of mind over matter.

Kalbarri presented itself with many 'firsts' for some in our group, including seeing kangaroos, emus & an echidna along our travels. Mushrooms in sandwiches, canoeing, travelling at high speed, abseiling, discovering the 'petrol' light in the car and baileys at night :)

Although restricted to camping in the caravan park, we had uninhibited views of the glorious night sky. There were plenty of 'natural bridges' and other spectacular view of nature which we checked out along the coast before heading back to Perth. It was a spectacular 4 days at Kalbarri, and although our accomodation was fairly humble, the dinners we great, having crayfish for 2 of the 3 nights there. Kalbarri is a lovely place to visit, highly recommended!

foundation day

unlike the rest of Australia, WA doesn't celebrate the Queen's birthday in June, so instead we have 'foundation day' a week earlier. Any excuse for a long weekend, who really cares . . .

. . . my only plans for weekend was to finally get a sofa for the lounge. Contacting Kendrick to see if we might be able to borrow his parent's Forrester to transport the sofa home, I managed to score a last minute invite for lunch at his place for Jeremy's famous seafood paella! Along with some lovely brie cheese before the meal, it was a much heartier lunch than the instant noodles I had originally planned . . .

. . . this will now be the third time I have been back to Furniture Bazaar with the aim of buying the Craigie Clic Clac Sofa bed. Service at this less than fine establishment is hardly ideal, but having visited a few other furniture stores, this particular sofa bed seems to be the best value for money. Freedom has several sofa bed in it's catalogue, but none on display. In an embarrassing admission by one of their staff, they informed me that their sofa beds were not very comfortable, which is why none of them were on display! I hesitantly chose the colour 'aubergine' (purple to us guys) from the tiny 3x3 sample as the other options didn't seem that appealing. Thankfully, the finished product looks more maroon, what do you think? It was a very tight fit in the Forrester with both of us having to adjust our car seats to the front most position to fit it in with a rope holding the boot down. Mission accomplished :)

Went to Wesley College on Sunday for my weekly badminton fix, but before we could even start play, we were ushered out by the warden informing us there was an 'emergency' and that this was not a drill. Not that we could see any smoke or flames, we quietly exited the building. Upon enquiring what exactly was the emergency, we were told that there was a 'medical emergency'. Apparently one of the girls who had just finished her volleyball match had had a seizure, and an ambulance was on it's way. Without wanting to sound unkind, but we all wondered why we couldn't just continue on with our badminton. Something to do about liability. Ambulance finally arrived, so we eventually got to play our badminton.

Foundation Day - organised to go for a bush walk along the first section of the famous Bibbulmun Track. As the link will inform you, it starts at Kalamunda near Perth, and heads all the way down to Albany. With perfect weather, one of the locals (thanks Kendrick :) guiding us with a map, we figured we couldn't possibly get lost. Hehe. The sign posting along the track was somewhat lacking, with one of the signs missing at one of the critical turns offs, which caused us to trek along a fire trail beneath the oh-so-picturesque powerlines. Had lunch at a camel riding place we stumbled upon along the way before looping back on the track which we were meant to have arrived on!

It was a great day's hiking, a nice prelude to our trip up to Kalbarri in a fortnight's time. The end of my second long weekend here in Perth.