.....those are nasty flies the troops are swatting away. swat swat!The second and last month in Perth was packed full of adventure. We actually leave tonight to put another continent on the map. Africa. But before we start sending you juicy African blogs we must do our usual picture re-cap of the last month here.
First and foremost... my parents came to visit. It was a spontaneous decision to get on a plane and see us. We are soooo glad they did.
Upon arrival they brought Jay Vancouver Olympic slippers and although he liked them he might have liked the tissue paper they were wrapped in even more! Check out the high fashion matching capes held together with clothes pegs.
Business class is a beautiful thing. Instead of jet leg, Mom and Dad were well rested and rearing to go. The day after their arrival they wanted to do a walking tour of Perth.Statue or performer? Here is a street performer we saw in Perth and Fremantle.
Perth Salvation Army.
Even has the bell....
Dad, getting a bit crazy with the roo's.
Perth Architecture
Where's waldo??
Mom and Chris along the riverfront with the Bell Tower in the background.
We ended the walk at a rotating restaurant where we met up with Sar, Jay and Noel. During the day Jayden had acquired a pink panther dressed as a ninja turtle. If that wasn't cool enough it also had a suction cup which meant it attempted to take off on us as we spun around.
Perth may be a lot smaller then Vancouver but it has one thing in common... CRANES!
No rest for the weary... the next day we took a serious car trip up to the famous pinnacles. On our way up we stopped at a seaside pub where lunch took about 2 hours to come out. Luckily the rainbows kept us entertained.
More spectacular scenery from the pub in Lancelin.
Although Dad was pretty sure these were called torch flowers it turns out they are Banksia.
Green power!
Wild Emu on the side of the road.
And luckily, before dark, we arrived at the Pinnacles. This mermaid shot was taken before we read the pamphlet about NOT climbing on them!
Awww... what a pretty couple!
Although this was Chris' third time here and although he mostly thought the Pinnacles are just "a bunch of rocks that cars can drive through" the rest of us thought they were pretty spectacular. Just look at them!
He may not have liked the cars driving through the park but he likes me in the park so we all had fun.
The NEXT day, Sarah was off work so we all went on an adventure to Swan Valley.
Old city trolley now used on joy rides around the park.
old car museum in the park.
Who is Chris' distant relative.... Rolls or Royce? hmmmmm.... Whats your guess?
The Transportation Museum had cars, trucks and trains for the kids to play in.
Park BBQ! Yep, Mom and Dad got the authentic "shrimp on the barbie" experience!
And then we got to taste some of Swan Valley's finest. First at Oakover....
And then at John Kosovich .
We took a detour back to the park for sundown. Mom and Dad were on a mission to find Wild Kangaroos. Here is their first spotting! There were many more to come.
We took it down a notch or two the next day with a late start into Cottesloe. There is and Indian Tea House there with old architecture. Turns out it was built in the "Raj style" in 1999. Sooo old.
Chris's alma mater when he was here for his exchange back in 2000-2001. UWA!
If you can believe it, this auditorium is where he used to take his tests!
A new giant painting in the auditorium painted by 12 different local artists.
And then Mom and Dad got a tour of the suburb of Subiaco....
....followed by dinner at Mom and Dad's beach place!
The next morning was a very very early start. We went to the Dawn Service for Anzac Day to commemorate fallen Australian Soldiers. The ceremony starts well before dawn and the one we attended was in Kings Park overlooking downtown Perth. The long entrance roadway into the park is all lined by planted trees to commemorate individual soldiers who died in battle.
Kings Park's War Memorial for the laying of the wreaths...
Looking at the city by night.... well, morning.
Below the epitaphs are listed all the sames of those Western Australians who died in battle.
There was even a Goodchild on the list.
The sun rises.
And as the service ends people gather around the epitaph to look at the wreaths.
Here is the Jewish memorial.
And here we all are.... Dad, Mom, Me, Chris, Sarah and Noel.
The rest of Anzac day was spent recovering from the early morning. I had a short shift at work and then the next day we toured the historical city of Fremantle with the parents.Here is Mom at the round house.
Unfortunately it was closed so we just stood outside. :P
Chris relaxin' in Freo
Mom bought these Onya shopping bags for us from Granville Island back home. Here is the wife side of the husband/wife creator team. We love their white mesh veggie bags to avoid using clear plastic bags at home. We even pressured Sarah into getting a set!
And then... because we miss India we checked out a Sitar and Tabla show later that night. With Chris' experience with tabla it was amazing to see what is possible on the drums! The performer played pink panther on just the tabla at one of the breaks just by tapping the drum in a few different places to create the melody. Pretty cool!
And then we were off.... second trip for Chris and I down to Margaret River. We weren't complaining. Chris went out for a surf the very first night. Mom almost died we she saw the waves he was going to go out to.
Luckily he survived (he's a very smart surfer) and we managed to cook up some dinner. We stayed in an amazing place at a great price thanks to some of Sarah's connections. There was a giant kitchen, high ceiling living room and a dining room table that could almost fit the entire Sproule family (ok, ok, maybe not THAT big). We used a corner of the table to learn Bridge. Man, that is one complicated game! I'm not sure if I'll ever get the "code" But it was a lot of fun. ;)
Every day in Margaret River we went on an adventure. This is when we went down to the Southern Cape.
We also made a stop at Hammond Bay. It was an incredible beach with giant sting rays!
Here's a stingray combing the shoreline for food.
Then we took a trip to a place that Sarah said was one of her favourite places in the entire world.... The Karri Forest. It was beautiful.
We have done a fair amount of star gazing lately. Can you pick out Orion? In the Southern Hemisphere he's drunk and a little upside down.
The next day we stopped by Redgate beach... another beauty.
And Mammoth Cave. It really was.
Don't worry, we didn't miss the spectacular wineries. Here are some of the amazing flowers at Voyager Estates.
They even had a cool chandelier.
Even better, they had spectacular food and wine. Here are my Dad and me enjoying the good life.
Even the bees like the flowers at Voyager.
Voyager may have good food, wine, and flowers but they may be known best for their enormous Australian flag out front.
We couldn't miss out on the Margaret River Chocolate Factory. Here is white chocolate in action.
a very tiny lizard.
And there was surfing.... Chris surfed and we watched a lot of surf. The waves were huge. On the outer reefs the waves were too big to paddle into so this surfer was towed into the waves by a jetski.
Surfer out at Margaret River mainbreak air dropping on to the wave.
Danger anyone?
After watching a few big waves we all worked up our appetites and headed over to Olio Bello for olive oil tastings. YUM!
Western Australia is having an unseasonably dry year. This means there are tons of fires and fire sites. These were taken at the Northern Cape.
Without too much delay we head back to the wineries. I like it.
Me and my Momma in front of some grape vines at Evans and Tate.
Sarah had a short stint picking grapes at Brooklyn Valley in her youth. She recommended heading over there to take a look. It has got to be one of the top wineries in Margaret River for gorgeous scenery.
Paper-bark tree.
And then it was off to the first winery in Margaret River... Vasse Felix.
No day is complete without a last look at the surfers . Seriously though... those black specks are not ducks, actually surfers competing for waves on a good day out.
Margaret River was a highlight but we had friends to see and a plane for Mom and Dad to catch. We drove back up to Perth and had dinner out at Soda. Left to Right - Chris, Mom, Dad, Kim, Andrew, Sarah and Me!
Me with the almost birthday girl.
The next day was Sarah's birthday which she celebrated by going to a wedding of two of her good friend Holly and Mike.
Mom and I stayed home looking a little less glamorous. We decided to put the shorts and tank-top set that Lindsay sent for Christmas in water to watch them expand .
Here I am working the bar at Soda.
Don't worry Sar, just because you were at a wedding for you birthday doesn't mean you don't get a cake. My mom is an awesome organizer for these things and Jay told her what to write on the cake.
Sarah's fake birthday was the night Mom and Dad had to leave. It was a usual sad good-bye, but this time we know that we will see each other in 4 months. I'm sure the time will fly by and it was sooo good to see them. 8 months is a very very long time not to see your parents. Much too long in fact.Sar, Chris and I went to Fair Trade Day at City Farm. Here are a trio of Junk drummers keeping up the "Funk and Junk." Later Chris ended up jamming with a pretty serious Junk drummer in a trip we took to see Noel in Denmark. He had 3 different drum kits set up all made of junk. He even had a school bell he found for one of the kits.
Art work at the city farm
Although there were a ton of Fair Trade items given out, on display or for sale, I think drumming may have been the main theme. Here is a group of Sambanistas parading around.
After a weekend back from his Dad's, Jay is in fine form digging into his dress up clothes. ARGH!
Chris and I managed to fit in one more trip out of town. We took off 5 hours south to visit Noel in Denmark. He is WWOOFing (willing workers on organic farms) there and is staying at a Sustainable Development Centre. While we were down there, two girls named Sarah and Constanze were also working with him. They were from Germany and we had a blast with them.
The first night we all took a trip out to the wetlands by moonlight to see the paper trees. It was very spooky especially because of the motorbike frogs...seriously, that's what they're called cause they sound like motorbikes.
Next day we took a trek up to Monkey Rock. Here I am on a 10 minute section of the very long and very famous Bibbulum trail.
Monkey Rock was spectacular.
You might be able to tell we had a pretty fun time there.
Me, German Sarah and Constanze enjoying the view
me and my new toque
Noel and me getting some vert.
And then down to Lights Beach.
The girls were pretty tired of Noel and his antics by this point. What else can you do but put your head down and walk away. (joking joking, they all got along very well)
Chris showing Noel some potential surfing waves. This might be what you call the classic surfer point.
Chris and I went exploring on a tree top adventure in the valley of the giants.
on the tree top walk
the trees were over 40 meters high!!!
roots of the giant tingle tree.
And then Chris attempted to find a place to surf.
Check out the cross in the foreground. I can say I was more then a little relived when Chris came back in moments later when he realized the rip was taking him into the rocks you see above his head.
Luckily there is more to life then just surfing... swimming is pretty cool too. Noel and Chris jumped off some rocks in Green's pool.
And then we detoured to Elephant Rock.
aptly named because of this rock:
playing it cool
More of Denmark's spectacular coast line
Our trip to Denmark was amazing but we only had a few more days left with Sarah so we got back on the road and back to Perth again. Homemade Sushi became a real winner for dinner at the Holland household. Turns out sake makes it even better. Here is Sarah attempting to dig into Sashimi with Jay's chopsticks. The plastic round chopsticks are harder to use then they look!
Our last weekend in Perth could easily be summarized by this picture. We had a lot of fun. Paul, Sarah' roomate was back from Bali so we all managed to make one big party out of the weekend. Great way to go out!
Its sad to leave but we must be heading off.... there is so much of the world to see and only a few short months left!!!! We will miss Sar and Jay like crazy. However, she may appreciate getting her living room back. Thanks so much for having us Sarah!Tonight we're off to our next destination of Windhoek, Namibia. So look out for our next blog coming from Southern Africa.....assuming we don't get eaten by lions first.
Love,
Em & Chris
Em & Chris
