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| Sean & Sherry Down Under |
| Perth 2 |
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| (tiny black beside boat is Perth?) |
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March 10 -
Ok, enough of the main land, time for the Island. Our next vacation included an over-nighter on Rottnest Island (Rottnest is Norweign for "Rat Nest"). I know what your thinking perfect place for a vacation, us too!
It is a small island (11km at longest point) just off the coast of Perth/Fremantle. We took a ferry (25min & $50) over and some of the landlords family took their boat. We stayed at the old army barracks, perfect for our stay.
| Rottnest Island from Light house |
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This island is perfect for boating, surfing, hiking, biking and the best (almost only) place in Perth for snorkeling. We were lucky that we were invited to stay with our landlords, the entire island was sold out.
We went to the beach, Sean went snorkeling and was attacked by small (dollar size) jelly fish (some may say he swam into the school). They felt much like horsefly bites - all over the place. Then we went on a tour of the island which worked out to be the best thing as it showed us the cool spots to go. They have underwater trails for snorkelers and sunken ships. We did not have time for the ships but the reef and all its wonders were amazing.  There was so many different types of fish, small normal tropical fish that you find in your tanks to one that was close to 2 feet long. He stayed just far enough away, the others came up so close. The most freaky part has to be the shallow areas. You cannot (not supposed to) touch the reef in order to preserve it. As you swim along, you try to pick the best places to cross but all you think of is - it scraping your belly and then you can't kick or swim. The weeds are touching you and you know there is something down there!!!
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| Here is the Quokka |
Oh yah back to the rats, they are not actually rats but rather small marsupials. They are indiginous to this area only. Now that they are not attached to the main land (thousands of years), it is important that they be kept safe. They have the run of the island, you can't feed them but that doesn't stop them from coming up to try and at least lick the salt off your hand. I gues they are the Aussie squirrels.
It has been a long time since we updated, it is like we are living these moments vicariously as well.
We have enjoyed our time here checking out the restaurants in the different areas/suburbs. we went to a funny live theatre show "Puppetry of the Penis" Sherry wanted to include some pictures but Sean put his foot down, Ouch!! We are trying to see alot of the beaches, Cottlesloe - our first pick seems to be our favourite. Sean has been trying to get good at the boogie board "trying".
We spent some time at the nice beaches no problems, so we thought we would go to Perths "Surfers Paradise" and catch some bigger breaks. Hmmm Bad descision!! Sean swam around for two hours, could only swim past the break point three times of which he only caught two waves back??? Most of the time he was a bobber in the Indian Ocean letting the waves crash him into the sand. The rest of the time he was a sinker as the wave held him under water until it was willing to spit him out onto the beach. If it wasn't for the nice calm - 1 km walk along the beach to get back to where Sherry was sitting it probably would be considered a bad day!
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We know we were supposed to update the website for everyone but we have been sooooo busy here that we needed a vacation so on Easter weekend we travelled south down the coast to the Margaret River wine region. We stayed at a cute bed and breakfast on a farm and woke up each morning to the call of the Roosters and the Peacocks checking us out through the windows. We spoiled our selves and spent Easter Sunday at the Chocolate factory(Yumm) for Sherry and then went to the Beer factory for Sean.
We toured the caves - which was quite tiring but a natural wonder. The one in pictures was about 300 steps down and worth every breathless step.
We also took a full day wine tour - we sampled cheese, chocolate, venison, candy, beer, milkshakes and yogurt (all free).
Best of all we sampled over 60 wines !! They had spitoons(we think)but you know, we never actually got around to using them. That was for the best as we find spitting so offensive "Yah that's it". We actually loved so many of them that we ended up bringing a case of mix and match home with us. Now when we get ready to the restaurant we go to our case reach in and there you have a good wine. It is just like a case of "Pop Shop Pop" at Christmas time. We actually only bought early in the day because near 2pm all of the wine tasted really good and it was very difficult to to be a serious wine "conneiseour".
Our tour was tons of fun with a great Aussie lunch and tons of laughs. This is definitely an area that we could live in and every weekend we could just drive around and get free samples - how much better could life get? Plus gorgeous beaches, surf and sunsets.
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| Our Drunk Wine Tour Mates |
| Lake Cave |
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| Busselton Jetty |
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On the way home from Margaret River we stopped in Busselton at the longest jetty (dock) in the Southern Hemisphere. It is about 2 km long - we walked to the end and looked in all of the buckets of the fishermen - the most interesting ocean life we saw was a 1 kg squid/calamari - yuck - they shoot ink as a defense mechanism and after that we noticed it was all over the jetty. These fishermen just pull them in on a line??
| Lunch with the Brown's |
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| Long way to go to picnic with us |
We were very lucky to have guests from Canada to visit our area. Ian and Morag Brown (Kevin Brown's parents) were passing through and took us up on our tour services. We really enjoyed touring around with them and showing off that we can drive on the wrong side of the road and we really know our way around. We had some great meals and beautiful weather. It seems like Perth always has blue skies and warm temperatures.
You know when you are on vacation you are supposed to eat lots, drink a ton and spend all of your money - exactly? Except we don't know when that is appropriate - because we are travelling for a year or so - if we lived like that we would be fat, drunks, and broke ! The big problem is that we feel like we are on vacation everyday - it is a perplexing problem - see what we have to deal with in our everyday lives - rough isn't it? A couple of rolls of film later and we are back. We have been swept into the biggest craze of the Australian Winters - "Aussie Rules Football". Sherry is in a pool (tipping contest) at work (1st for two weeks) and has a commanding 2nd place after 6 weeks?? We have gone to two home games (one each of the Western Australia Teams) Fremantle Dockers and West Coast Eagles. It is a mix of soccer and football (minus the equipment) and rugby.
It is is funny how this game has taken control of the nation. Everyone knows what happens on the weekend games. One of our games we sat beside a 60plus woman who had season tickets and earphones to listen to the other games on the radio. There are only three channels on TV here and no one complains that from Thursday until Sunday night all you get is some form of "Footy". Picture this - the only show to watch in the winter months being John Madden!! But when you are on vacation what is there better to do then spending an afternoon at the football game drinking beer!! (P.S. - Sherry wrote that)
"Anzac Day" it is a national holiday commemorating the loss of life during the war. Australia still respects their veterans (Tsk Tsk Canada) and it shows on this day, Hats Off to Them!
But being Canadians we thought this day would be best spent on another Wine tasting Tour!! Good Time! Is it just us or are the good times we are having centered around one theme so far??? If Gramma and Grampa Taillefer are listenning the answer to that is definately NO!
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| Sean giving a Didgeridoo lesson |
Since it was a national holiday none of the wineries opened until 12:00, our bus picked us up at 9:00, Hmmm? We decided to do all non-alchohol related events first. Chocolate factory for "morning tea" and next on to the abboriginal art thingy. We tried out the Boomerangs, Sherry shot hers side arm, straight up into the air and then raging straight back at the instructor, the instructor had to run for her life each time sherry took a shot. It was used as a weapon you know! We also got lessons from the Aboriginals on the Dig-gery-doo. Sounds came out (Honk - Stop - Breath - Honk ...) circle breathing is not so easily addapted. Sean will however play the "Abo hitch-hiker" for you when he gets home. Next the Olive farm, cool stop, we were taught the difference between real "Extra Virgin" Olive oils and the rest of the "crap" we normally use. Tasting/drinking olive oils in the early morning, Hmmm well you take a guess. Yuk! But we definately could taste the many differences. These differences are far more distinctive then wine taste characteristics (expecially after 4hrs of testing). Then before the tour really began we nailed the cheese factory for some food. Along the tour we bought everything we needed to make supper that night.
To go with the wine we started with fresh gourmet olives, Cashew Chilli Pesto and cheese. For the main course Sherry made pasta with a Riccotta and olive oil sauce (thanx Melinda) and for desert Chocolate Covered Almond Nuget. Yummmm!
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| Lunch at Sittella Winery |
Our first stop included the tasting and then lunch, being veterans at this we quickly convinced the others that our luch table needed a couple of bottles of wine. And away we were!! Now you may think doing the other parts of the tour to pass the morning time was a good idea but you fail to consider that these stops are normally used to break up the day of drinking. From noon on we did nothing but drink and in attempts to apologize for the delay in the morning our tour host allowed us to bring a couple of roadies along for the rides between wineries. Now we are confident that if it wasn't for the last stop all of us would have faired out quite well during the day, BUT!!
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| Free Pour in the Swan Valley |
Being a national holiday and since Swan Valley is 15mins from Perth alot of people had the same idea as us and the crowds were building all day. When on a tour you are treated better because the tour pays money to the wineries for their service where all other is probono. Our last stop was one of the largest and well known wineries in the valley (Caversham/Sandalford) and it was packed. So we were escorted out to a table in a side room, the hostess introduced the 8 different wines and said "Help your self" ??? After a short pause to consider if this was really happening we all dove in - head first! We were too loud to stay in our first room so they moved us all out to the side court yard and ... could you blame us? 5:00 pm rolled around (it felt more like 5:00 am) and we were dropped off at home. What a wonderfull Rememberance day.
Well three months later and we finally have done the one thing we wanted to do most of all here - Swim with the Dolphins. Man what a wild time!! First off we have delayed this trip because you have to be up and on the train by 6:30am on a Saturday, and we are on holidays after all. When you read no refund and it all depends on luck of finding a pod to swim with well you are hesitant. But we were extremely lucky even though it is the end of the season.
| Fine Day For a Swim |
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It has been cooling off with cloud cover for the past couple of weeks but we had a bright clear and sunshine filled day. The ocean was very calm and it was 10 deg warmer than usual. We enjoyed our morning tea (Strawberry Milk and Chocolate Muffins!!) on the "Jetty" in Rockingham and watched the dolphins feed near the shore. The crew and passengers were all excited for a good day of swimming.
| Friends Following Close |
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Since the dolphins that were close to the jetty were feeding it would be unlikely they would swim and play with us, so we took off to find a pod that would. Within the first 20min we stopped and saw a small pod of dolphins swimming near a bridge. There were thirty people on board (6 groups of 5 each). We were included in the first three groups to swim. After about 10min of shivering in the water we had our first interaction with wild dolphins. Three dolphins swam up from deep below - straight at us. As they swam closer and closer you couldn't help but arch away from them as it felt so much like they were going to hit you. But, the winter storms have strired up the settlement and it was hard to see through the water so it was decided that we would try and find a better situation.
| Group Being pulled around by scuba scooters |
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(As we traveled on to the next spot these dolphins swam and jumped in the wake of our boat). On this tour, each group sat on the back of the boat untill the skipper aligned the boat right and then your group belt colour was called for you to swim in. Then on command you quickly(yet quietly) got into the water and grabbed the belt of the cat in front of you, whoever it was didn't matter! All you could think of was jump in and get your face in the water as fast as possible. The dolphins waited at the bottom of the ladders for you to come with them. If you didn't look quick they were off and playing.
Sometimes it took awhile for the boat and dolphins to be in the right position and everything happened way too quick! Once we jumped in and forgot to put in the snorkel, so next time we jumped in with the snorkel in but the mask was up "Aghh! this doesn't look right" and on our last swim two of our group were too slow and we scooted away without them! Suckers!!
| Dolphin Pod Swimming Alongside of the Boat |
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Being the first group in the water turned out to be a good thing since we travelled around the bay for about an hour (no stopping, no swimming) before we found any more dolphins. I am quite certain that the other fifteen people hated the smiles on our faces as the crew members covered their asses about how each day is different and sometimes it is just too bad! We followed flocks of birds to see if they were feeding on the left overs from dolphin feeding. Our trek brought us back to the Jetty we started at, but in the mean time three diferent pods had murged and the males were trying to get lucky! There were fifteen in total now!  When we arrived, even the crew members were excited about how many dolphins were in one pod! The tension was crazy, cameras flashing people sticking their heads out the windows for a better view and the crew getting ready to get us all in the water.
Next three groups were in and it was fun to watch but seriously we wanted our turn bad! The males were trying to mate, which forces the females on the move. They force the female to the surface and their buddies...... you know! So as the group was in the water the boat would wrangle in front of the pod and force them back to the groups. If they kept going we would pick up the groups and boat after them.  The next few spots we swam with the dolphins turned out to be better than we could have imagined. The pod swam into a grassy area close to shore where the water was no deeper than 10ft. About 15 dolphins swam by at once and you couldn't see anything but grey/blue.
Sean had the camera and it was non stop - Snap - wind wind - Snap! Snap! Snap! When the entire pod went by there was too many to take a picture, and you ended up just floating and marvelling at how close they were. You can tell how close they are since we used a low budget underwater camera (ie no zoom).
| Right Underneath Us |
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| Torpeedos |
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Dolphins Galore
| Here's Looking at You |
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| Neighbourhood Swim By |
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You know it is an amazing tour when the captain and crew are as excited over their swim as you are. They could not believe that the dolphins were so shallow and close. The captain went as far as directing them out into deeper water. This was the best $300 day yet!
Our last weekend in Perth and South Western Australia region - we drove to Albany along the Southern Coast and got to see the Southern Ocean. This ocean is very intense at this time of year - it was rough, wild and stormy. We saw some amazing natural wonders - hopefully pictures will follow soon! Albany is the areas oldest town and most recently it was a whaling station. We thought we might see a whale but it was too rough to see anything.
We drove along the southern western coast to Augusta - which is the southern most point of Australia and it is where the Indian and Southern Ocean meet. Cool....
We drove all day (in the RAIN) and saw tons of Roos and more rain - it actually reinforced our decision to follow the sun and head north......... |
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