A perfect final day

After saying our goodbye to Norah and Norman, Cath, John, Ruby and Louie in Perth, we flew early the next morning to Sydney.

We were exhausted by the5 hour flight and the accumulated fatigue of the trip. And a little anxious about the 14-hour flight to California we would be taking the next day. But we still wanted to see our friends Elaine, Wil, Lauren and Sophie Wilhelm in Sydney, if possible. So we rallied when the Wilhelms invited us to spend the afternoon together.

In between our first stop in Sydney and our last, the Wilhelms had acquired a sturdy fishing trawler named "Happy Daze." Swimming, boating and being on the water is something that their daughters Sophie and Lauren thoroughly groove on. Happy Daze may not be the swiftest boat in Sydney harbor but it is very comfortable and absolutely perfect for family fun. Wil had mastered the boat in just a week as its owner and proved to be an able and entertaining skipper.

The Wilhelms, including their dog Wags, picked us up right in front of the Sydney Opera House and took us out for an afternoon on the water. We were pleased to be joined by Elaine's parents, David and Sue Riggs, who were visiting from Palo Alto and have known Clint since he was a high school classmate of Elaine.

Wil dropped anchor in a calm cove with a superb view of the Opera House and Harbor Bridge. Lauren then introduced us to the thrills of the boat -- including jumping off the roof (about 4 meters high -- 12 feet)

and swinging on the stabilizers.

We swam all afternoon, enjoyed dinner on the stern deck, and watched the sun set over the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

It was a perfect day and a perfect ending to an awesome trip.

Nannup -- Our last stop in WA

For our last stop in Western Australia, we returned to the country vacation home of our friend Sally Rossen's parents, Tony and Sue Fields.

They have a lovely home -- called "the Barracks" because the main building is a restored army barrack featuring lovely native jarrah wood and a most inviting long verandah. Their property is on the Blackwood River about 15 minutes outside the town of Nannup. We had visited Tony and Sue at the Barracks during our last trip to Australia 5 years ago, so it was fun to return. It is as beautiful and peaceful as we remembered. The Rossen family and Tony and Sue joined us at the Barracks.

The kids scampered down to the river to swim -- despite the 2-3 inch leaches and continued their game of Scorpion Island (ask Daley and Sode). Clint T got to drive the tractor with Tony assisting. The mums got in a quick kayak tour.

Following local tradition for summer evenings, the kids slept out on the verandah, protected by mosquito nets. The final morning the kids performed "rock and roll logs," a bush inspired musical ensemble. They each created an instrument with found items on the property and performed under the direction of Lucy, the eldest Rossen child. They performed in a "cubby" made of fallen branches, much like an aboriginal hut.



Tony and Sue were such gracious hosts -- they treated us like family, showered our kids with attention, and even raised the American flag above the Barracks in our honor.

Saying good-bye to Sally, Paul, Peter, Lucy and Mollie was sad. But we are working hard to convince them to visit us for a ski vacation next summer/winter.

Cape Naturaliste

The area around Margaret River, including Cape Naturaliste, provides an incredible variety of scenery, beaches and excursions.

Our time there was limited, as our time in WA was winding down. But we enjoyed going to (another) Shelly Beach (that makes our third on this trip).

We also took a dip at Meelup Beach. The Indian Ocean water was crystal clear and calm as far as the eye could see. We had to pry Daley out of the water.


The southwest region is full of caves. We stopped at Ngilgi Cave, a large limestone cave just south of the town of Dunsborough. Sode was especially fascinated by the stalactite (hanging from the ceiling) and stalagmite (forming on the floor) formations in the cave. These are her photos.



The cave was so deep that you could feel the lack of oxygen. They don't let the tour guides stay in the cave for more than 2 hours at a shot.


When we go back to Australia (note the "when" not the "if") we'll spend more time here.

Chrissy at the Surf Shack

Clint planned our Christmas accommodations in secret -- the rest of us had only a vague idea of the direction we were going. We ended up at the Injidup Surf Shack (http://www.stayz.com.au/12494).

The view was fabulous. We were in bushland above the Indian Ocean. And we were completely isolated. The Shack was located on the ridge above an undeveloped bay along the south western coast, thirty minutes from the more developed Margaret River area.

The Shack was an artists' vacation home -- so it had lots of funky touches: hand-plastered walls with embedded shells and driftwood, a completely open floor plan, a bed that could easily sleep 6 (though there were other beds too) and an awesome outdoor shower.

As is the Aussie tradition on Chrissy, after opening our presents, we went to the beach for a morning dip. The waves at nearby Smith's Beach were perfect.

After Christmas dinner,

we went back down the hill to Injidup beach -- the water was a little rougher there, but the sand dunes were magical. We felt like we were skiing down them.

The only bummer was the fact that Clint threw out his back moments before our long car drive to the shack. If he looks a little drugged out in this picture -- that's because he is. We were sorry he couldn't join us on the dunes or in the waves, but he was a good sport. And he remains very grateful to the Aussie chemist who dispensed the strong stuff on Christmas Eve without a doctor's signature.

Mt. Barker, Western Australia

A week before Christmas, we headed down south to the Mount Barker region of Western Australia. Mt. Barker is a less well known wine region in WA (Margaret River being the more famous).

We stayed on a small farm with goats, sheep, alpacas, cows and chickens. There were four things that stand out from our stay in Mt. Barker:

1. Our chalet had a hot tub out on the verandah. Ahhhhhh.

2. We finally saw wild kangaroos! Throughout our trip we had been searching, searching for roos in the wild -- to no avail. We saw lots of tracks and other evidence of roos and we got to pet kangaroos at the zoo, but no sightings of the real, live, wild thing. In Mt. Barker, as dusk settled on the rolling hills, the roos came out. Every night we'd watch them hop across the horizon. Perhaps our favorite sighting (at least for Clint and Boo) was the one from the hot tub.

3. Every morning the kids helped the owners of the farm feed the animals. The kids made friends with Elmo the alpaca, Bacon the pig (yikes) and Meg and Molly, the horses. The kids tramped off alone to the morning animal feeding, allowing their grateful parents some quality time with their coffee mugs on the verandah.


4. Mt. Barker also provides access to two lovely national parks. We enjoyed a great hike up to Castle Rock in Porongurup National Park. The hike, though only 3 km long, was very challenging. The final 200 meters involved rock climbing, straddling a crevasse and scaling a chain ladder. The view from the top, forty km straight south to the dark blue Southern Ocean, was stunning. And the kids got enormous satisfaction from making it to the top!

Back in Cottesloe

After our big adventure up north in Shark Bay, we returned to Perth and rented an apartment at the end of our old street. This allowed us to be close to our former neighbors, Sally, Paul, Pete, Lucy and Mollie Rossen and to hang out at the great local beach. Clint N. also was able to sneak off to play tennis with our friends Derek and Helen Walker at the Cottesloe tennis club.

We arrived just before the last day of the school year. Since it is summer in Australia, December, not June, is the end of the school year. On the last day of school, Daley, Sode and Clint T. dressed up in North Cottesloe school uniforms (so they weren't in "mufti") and went to school with our old neighbors, Lucy (10) and Mollie (8). The kids basically played games all morning.

We also had a perfect beach day. Warm, no wind and perfect waves . We met up with our Brisbane friends, Cath, John, Ruby and Louie, who were visiting Perth for the holidays, for a morning at the beach. The kids couldn't get enough of boggie boarding or the water. Daley and Ruby decided to see how long they could tread water -- 17 minutes. . . It was an absolutely perfect day. Nothing could have been better.



We also enjoyed a little holiday cheer -- with "caroling by candlelight" in the local park. The kids -- as you can see in the picture-- readily joined in the fun. They especially loved belting out the Australian rendition of Jingle Bells:

Dashing through the bush
In a rusty Holden Ute
Kicking up the dust
Esky in the boot
Kelpie by my side
Singing Christmas songs
It's summer time and I am in
My singlet, shorts & thongs

CHORUS:
OH, JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS
JINGLE ALL THE WAY
CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRALIA
ON A SCORCHING SUMMER'S DAY
JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS
CHRISTMAS TIME IS BEAUT
OH WHAT FUN IT IS TO RIDE
IN A RUSTY HOLDEN UTE

Hide and Seek at the Pinnacles

Some of our roadtrips were long. The kids were mostly well-behaved. But on one especially long drive from Monkey Mia back to Perth we were itching for a stop. The Pinnacles Desert -- about three hours north of Perth --proved to be one of our funnest stops.



The Pinnacles are strange limestone formations scattered across sand dunes. The Pinnacles make for an excellent game of hide and seek.


Truly magical.

Shark Bay and Monkey Mia

Our first big excursion in Western Australia was to Shark Bay about 8 hour drive north of Perth. Shark Bay is difficult to describe. It is stunningly beautiful but also stunningly stark. More than once we felt like we were alone on the edge of the earth. Shark Bay is protected by offshore islands and a peninsula, resulting in great expanses of warm, calm, shallow water (captured so well in Daley's photo).


Shark Bay is a "world heritage site" because of its natural beauty and environmental uniqueness -- it hosts the largest remaining population of dugongs, the world's richest beds of seagrass, and stromatolites.



But the main reason we went to Shark Bay was for the dolphins at Monkey Mia. Every morning for the last 40 years, dolphins having been showing up for brekky on the shores of Monkey Mia. Tourists like us come from around the world to watch the dolphins up close and to feed them. Both Daley and Sode got to hand-feed fish to the dolphins.


In addition to the dolphins, we saw several dugongs (salt-water cousins of the manatee) including a mama dugong and her nursing pup. We also saw eagle rays soaring out of the water, turtles, sharks (small, thankfully), sea snake (the most poisonous animal on earth), and emus.


Emus definitely take the cake as one of the funniest looking creatures -- but they have a certain charm. We saw a large emu with 6 youngsters when we entered Monkey Mia. We mistakenly called the adult a her -- not knowing that once the female emu has laid her eggs she is gone. The male emu incubates the eggs and then cares for the young for up to 2 years.



We also stopped at Hamelin Pools to see the world famous stromatolites (more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolites). These are some of the only remaining stromatolites in the world. Scientists are fascinated by these formations for what they can tell us about the origin of life on earth. Stromatolites are formed by cyanobacteria, a bacteria that dominated the earth for more than 2 billion years and is responsible for putting enough oxygen in the air to enable new life forms to develop. Must admit that they looked a lot like rocks to me, but. . .



Monkey Mia also was where we celebrated Clint's 4th birthday. He was delighted to have pancakes with Nutella for breakfast, followed by cake and ice cream poolside in the afternoon. We played with his new cricket set on the beach after a pizza dinner.