Thursday, March 25, 2010

Three little mermaids sitting on a rock!! The girls are shivering, the water is very cold. But it was too beautiful not to go for a swim!
Obviously not the Nullarbor anymore!! We are now at Esperance. This is Twilight Beach. The beaches here have been voted the best in Australia! Beautiful white sands and gorgeous clear water. After been on the move for a long time we will stop and catch our breath here (good choice hey?)
This is still on the Nullarbor at Cocklebiddy Caves. The caves had officially been closed to the public but the guy at the fuel station said we could go in. They had taken the ladders away, so the kids couldn't climb in. So Chris, Tim and I went down. As you can see we found water down there and had a swim. It was amazing and so refreshing. I'm in my running clothes as Al and I had been running the Nullarbor each morning. We'd get up and start and the rest of the family would pack up and drive to meet us on the road. The last day we got 7.5kms before they came! Good fun!!
Here are both families going over the SA/WA border. It was like going through customs. We had to pull up and turn our engines off and then they went right through the ute and caravan, opening up all the cupboards and checking we weren't carrying any fruit, vegetables etc. We passed and were off and ready for our WA experience!!!
Yay!!! We made it to the border. SA had been good, but we had been there a long time and were very excited to be heading into WA. And any chance to get out of the car for a run around was good too!
Rain has gone today and it's a lovely sunny day. In the background are the Bunda Cliffs. These amazed us. They were stunning. The sheer drop off the cliff and the different colours in the rock and water. We were able to camp just back from here. Needless to say the girls weren't allowed to go anywhere without holding an adults hands. There were no fences just straight off the cliff!!!
One of the classic Nullarbor road signs. This is just down from the Nullarbor Roadhouse. We are wet here for two reasons...1. It was drizzling and wet and 2. We had just had a shower at the Roadhouse. We were very excited to find $1 hot showers so jumped at the chance to get nice and clean!!! Aahh... the little things excite us!
Chris and Bridget at Head of Bight. As you can see from the jumper, it was cold. Again not what we expected! We seemed to have all 4 seasons in the days we crossed. This was such a beautiful and rugged coastline. Unfortunately we were a few months early for the whales. Hundreds gather here to have their babies from May-October.
Here we are at the start of the Nullarbor. It was such a surprise to us and so different from how we would have imagined it. We thought we would have to grit and bear the long, boring days, but it wasn't like that at all!! It was a great adventure and we enjoyed every moment.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Bridget and Claire riding their scooters at Port Lincoln. We grab any chance we can to get out and stretch our legs. Beautiful spot, beautiful day.
This is as far as Chris got with his beard growing!!! He could stand it no longer (and neither could I) . He is now back to being cleanly shaven.

Chris doing some base jumping....oops forgot the parachute!!!

Having fun sliding down the huge sand dunes. We couldn't get great speed, but had fun anyway. Needless to say there was sand in absolutely everything after this!!!!! Looks like Lucy's mouth would be full of it. They ended up just sliding down on their tummies.
It was really special being this close to a Sea Lion. We enjoyed it a lot more than he did though. He wasn't too impressed that we disturbed his morning sunbake!!

Bridget-getting up close and personal with a Sea Lion. Port Gibbon on the Eyre Peninsula.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

We are now on our way down the Eyre Peninsula heading towards Port Lincoln. It's meant to be a beautiful coastline so we may take a week or so to do it. Hopefully the wind will stop so we could enjoy it even more.

The gorge through here was the most spectacular-Brachina gorge. We even spotted some yellow footed rock wallabies

Anywhere you find water the kids are happy skimming stones and so on.
The scenery really was spectacular! Such an awesome part of God's creation! Unfortunately the photos don't capture just how magnificant it was.
The driving in the Flinders Ranges was awesome. In this picture we are setting out for a day of 4WDing

In the Flinders Ranges. We went for an evening walk up this big hill. Our caravan is down the bottom somewhere.
I had the best day in the Barossa! We visited a few wineries. Obviously there are so many so we decided we would visit some big name ones and see what we liked (knowing we could find them in shops easily). We visited Maggie Beer's Farm shop. We got to see a cooking demonstration which was in the set of 'The cook and the Chef'. Very exciting!! Bridget and I tasted all the yummy samples in the shop and Chris and I enjoyed a delicious coffee. Great day!!
This is under the tree at Pages Flat. The girls spent every spare minute in, under and around this tree. They made cubbies, rope swings, pulleys, fairy gardens etc etc. We wished we could take it with us!!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Chris and Tim will finish their work here on Friday. From here we head up to the Finders Ranges to have a look around, then back down to Port Lincoln and then prepare to head across the Nullarbor. It's time to move on, do a bit of travelling and get across to WA !!
We all got to pat the baby penguin. Awww so cute!
There was a pool out the back of the centre where they cared for sick and injured penguins. We stayed out there for ages while the lady came and fed them and told us all about them. The girls thought they were just sooooo cute!! Especially their little waddle.
We went back to Victor Harbour and walked across to granite Island again today!! It was time to see the Fairy Penguins (Can we have 2 excursions in 2 days???) They even had dress up clothes which the girls jumped right into!!! What cute little penguins they make!
Claire and Amy hard at work too. Amy's in Kinder and Claire is in year 1. It's been great having this space indoors to set up a 'classroom' and escape the wide array of weather we've had here.
After the excursion, it was straight back into it! Bridget and Jake are hard at work. I even made them do a recount on their trip to the dairy. They didn't seem to mind though and entertained everyone at lunch when they read them out.
We all had a go of milking by hand. It was fun! The milk squirted out everywhere.
The kids (and adults) had an excursion to the Dairy. It was great and we learnt heaps. Pretty stinky though!!