honey year: We really like Austral-lia

What is Western Australia to us? It has all the amenities of home but waaay more sunshine. It is where our good friend Sarah and her beautiful son Jayden live. It is a place to get healthy, stay healthy and make sure we are healthy before heading on to Africa. It is also a place to spend a lot of money (it does not have the incredibly low cost of living we were used to in Asia), but a place to make some extra dough. Maybe we can even afford an African Safari if we get enough work!

We have a month of pictures to share. We better get cracking.

This is Sarah and I, the day after we arrive we do what Aussie's do best - BBQ! At this point my look is still hippy traveler (I bought jeans two days later). Australian parks have complementary BBQ units almost everywhere. So great.

Jayden, already grown up so much since he was our ring bearer in August!

Chris and Jay, chillin' in the park.

Sunset over Perth city.

Yep, that is the entire downtown.

Chris waxing up his surfboard. The board was one of his first purchases. Chris has been dying to surf this whole trip! Then he almost did when he landed head first into the sandbank :( But, don't worry, x-rays confirmed that he's A.Ok.

In the first week we went down south camping in Margaret River. Here is a tree.

Part of the trip down to Margaret River included a couple days of work for Sarah. Here she is talking up the Munda Biddi Trail (she works for a non-profit group that helps develop and maintain a mountain biking trail running hundreds of kms - with Sarah on board 100's of kms will turn into 1000's!).

The Margaret River Inn.

Sarah and I with wild hair!

Margaret River is known for its amazing wines. Here Sarah and I are at an organic wine shop.

Luckily, for the sake of the hangover, you can space the wineries out with cheese, chocolate and olive tastings!

Grape vines - soon to be booze.

One of the many beautiful back roads in the area.

Classic kangaroo. I had thought I'd never seen a kangaroo before but it turns out the wallabies I saw 2 years ago were actually kangaroos. We actually climbed a log over a fence to hang out in a field with the roos and get this shot!

Here's Sarah, trying to get just a little closer!

Me on the beach.

Sarah, being her adventurous self - climbing rocks at sundown.

Beachy love.

White sand is hard to beat. The Aussie beaches are spectacular.

One of the many sunsets we have enjoyed.

me and sunset.

Margaret River is actually pretty cold at night.

Our trio!

Cooking over a fire. It doesn't get much better!

One fun thing about camping was playing with Jay. Here is his little Starwars character hanging out in a tree.

Jay climbing to put him up there....

And the storm trooper on a rope - swung violently to knock the other guy down. (This was allllllll Chris)

Jay making faces in his tent. scary!!

Kookaburra - they are pretty fuzzy and cute. Oddly enough, they sound like a monkey laugh!

Jay got a little dirty - and maybe a little scared.

He had good reason as after dark we started throwing around the light.

I can spell my name!

Here's the real reason Jay was scared - we put him in the fire!!!

At least he wasn't alone.

ahhhhh!!!!!!!

Jay thought this one looked like an angel, which we thought was pretty sweet so we kept it.

And back to Perth (or at least Scarborough - the suburb which Sar lives in). Here is the family dog named Bear. He's pretty cute and likes to show his affection by licking you.

Sarah's roommate and good friend Paul is a welder who made this Day Bed for the daughter of his girlfriend Kim.

This bracelet I got in a buddist temple in Thailand at the beginning of the trip finally came off. Chris still has his on. I wonder if it means I don't have good luck anymore?!?!

Sunny Perth days - about to head to the beach.

In Fremantle (or most often refered to as Freo in Aussie), there are many buskers, pubs, restaurants, markets and general entertainment. Its a bit like a giant version of Granville Island!!! Here are some top notch acrobatic buskers.

Jay bought a magic rock at the markets with his own money!

Son and Mom - in Freo.

self explanitory - just read right to left instead.

Turns out the name "Burger King" was already taken in Australia so the company decided to open anyway under another name..... for real.

Fremantle as the sun goes down.

And then... Noel arrives! Yes, we are a house of Canadians. Sometimes I'm even still shocked by the Australian accent since we live and breath Canada here. Reminds me of Christmas in India! Noel doesn't normally look quite so cool but here he is sporting a pair of lego glasses he made for Jay (Jay is ADDICTED to lego).

Looks like they fit!

Sarah's front patio area.

Before arriving in Australia - on average, it was between 3-5 dollars to eat a main meal out. Now you can't really get an entree for under $20. Chris and I have influenced all parties into eating at home as much as possible. I think we get a few points for creativity.

Pizza night with Jay!

Sushi night - Chris is our head chef.

Also turns out Chris makes some wicked hummus and even sells it at the finest markets. Is that really what you're going to look like when you get old Chris??? Thems a spicy meatballs

My husband is picture crazy. Get that camera out of my face!

Sarah's cat Zoe - by night.

a cool plant Sarah has on her table outside.

Jay sporting the t-shirt we brought back for his from the orangutan place in in Borneo, Malaysia.

One of the coolest things about being here right now is Jay is learning to read. Seriously, it is amazing to watch. Helping Jay read is pretty hard though - turns out explaining the English language and its rules plus exceptions isn't the easiest job in the world! Reading is hard!

We also had the fun opportunity of spending easter with Sar and Jay. here are some of the clues for the hunt...

Here are some Easter bunny helpers, working away in the night.

Easter morning...

What is it?? How did the bunny get in his room without waking him up?!?!

Ooooh, a gold and tasty bunny. mmmmmmm. Hyper times to come!

Here's Jay with homemade hat and a "light red" bunny he won at school now named Fuzz-Boy.

Jay and Kim's daughter, Bella, having special kid drinks at the Easter party.

The adults had some of their own special drinks too.

We had the evening Easter Party at Kim's house. You can see the ocean from her front yard!

There was a full spread of food including Sarah's amazing potato salad and some pretty wicked lentil burger that Kim cooked up.

I'm posin' and Sarah's tastin'

What are the first rules of yoga?? Yoga is NOT a party trick. After Kim and I taught the kids 'wheel', my back hasn't quite been the same. Bharath would NOT be impressed.

Did I tell you I got a job? I'm working at Sarah's old stomping grounds - Soda. Its a really cool restaurant on the ocean. It's a fine dining sort of place by night and a breakfast joint in the morning. They also do a ton of take-away coffee. I have never seen a busier espresso bar then between the hours of 8am - 12am on a Sunday morning. I'm not even fast enough to work "coffee" during that time. Still have some practice to go.

My attempts at "silky milk" for a flat white (something like a latte in Canada).

Sunset by bus window.

These birds just hang outside Sarah's house in a fig tree. Told ya Australia was pretty cool!

A little wild, a little beachy.

Sunset time again!

Sarah - swimming by sunset. Chris, Noel and I just watched. We'd already been swimming once today but Sass just couldn't resist!!

Jay pretending to be Sarah at her office downtown. She's a good multi-tasker - calculator and National Geographic in hand!

Chris, Jay and I went to Sci-tech (a little like Science World in Vancouver). They even have a few of the same toys!

Jay pushing Chris on a hovercraft chair.

A spinning machine that Jay couldn't get enough of. We were a little worried he might eventually throw up. Get him off of there!!

Even Jay had to go through the x-ray machine - which also didn't help with the throw-up potential.

I'm attempting to give a geography lesson.

Another day while Sarah was at work, the rest of us took a trip to Yanchep! Jay is on school holidays for two weeks so there is a lot of opportunity to get out and play.

Yanchep has a Koala sanctuary (even though they are not native to the area). Mostly Koala's tend to be a little boring as they sleep in the trees all day.

However, this one decided to wake up and eat some eucalytus leaves. He was pretty darn fuzzy and cute.

In the park there was a lake called Loch McNess - really.

Some sort of long necked turtle in the lake...chris thinks it's the Loch McNess Monster.

Picnic time!

Jay checking out the forest with his walking stick when we trekked around the lake.

Along most of the path were recently burned trees from a forest fire. Luckily there are many resilient plants in Australia that even flurish after fires. You can already see the re-growth.

A pretty cool looking spiderweb over the lake.

Noel and Jay walking through the burned forest.

A Yanchep tree (well, its in the park anyway).

This is a very very old tree refered to in the most un-PC way as a "Black Boy." It is now offically known as a grass tree. They are pretty cool as they grow really slowly and do well with forest fires. If you see one 6 meters tall it's probably around 400 years old! This one was just a bit under so maybe even 300 years!

The park was flooded at sundown with hundreds of kangaroos! It was pretty cool to watch them hop around and they were used to humans way more then the ones we chased down in Margaret River, so we could get really close for a shot.

Next day, Sar, Noel, Chris and I went to a music festival. I worked the morning. luckily everyone waited for me to get off before heading into Freo.

It wasn't too sunny but it was still really hot! Here's the four of us!

Inside one of the tents, a rocking blues artist called Seasick Steve had everyone dancing early in the day. You could have easily seen him head lining a concert or busking in the streets. His baggy overalls, american accent and trashy home-made guitars really made it!

Sar and Noel in front of main stage.

I'm takin a bit of a "kip" as they say here (Australian for nap).

Chris in the crowd.

Fish head.

The sun came out for the sunset. Perfect!

The stage in the tent - dark all times of day but great sound.

Here are the Easy Star All-Stars. They do dub covers of classics from the Beatles and Pink Floyd. Here I'm partying for our friend Matt in Vancouver who likes them....

And now here's Chris dancing it up for Matt!

A close up on a few of the band members. They were pretty happy and at the end took pictures of the crowd.

I'm the angry hulk, with some help from stage lighting. Watch out!!

We thought this shot looked a little too "Dawson's Creek" innocent. Chris' baby face peakin' over Noel's knee is the kicker.

This guy, Tony Joe White was pretty awesome and although he stuck true to the blues he also had a synth keyboard to kick things up a notch in the background. I sware at one point he called it "the weirdness." Muscially, this guy was pretty awesome and I can almost say that I'm liking the blues thanks to him.

This was a fun, dancy band called KORA from New Zealand. Probably more of a rap or hip hop influence than anything blues related.

Sar and I sitting on one of the grassy hills.

Neville Staple - Lead Singer from the legendary 70's ska band 'The Specials.' The Specials have teamed up with another 70's ska band "The English Beat" to form "The Special Beat"