Thar' she blows!

We have been enjoying our time with my parents and have been visiting many local sights all over again.  As a special treat, Jay took off work on Friday.  We ate lunch at Murray's Brewery, which was really yummy and then headed out on a whale watching cruise.

This was our second time on the MoonShadow cruise.  While we didn't have any jumping whales this time, we had some great sightings.

My parents enjoyed their first whale cruise, though they had to bundle up a bit from the cold.

The water was rolling quite a bit, though we didn't have a lot of white caps.  It made spotting the whales a lot easier.

We even got to see a little flipper action.  The whales were being quite playful, but they just didn't feel like coming out of the water. 

We had one whale surface right next to the boat.  It then dove and swam under the boat from the middle starboard side and resurfaced on the front port side.  I grabbed a few good pictures before it went down on a deeper sounding dive. 

This picture is not only my favorite from the day, it is probably the best picture from the day.  It almost looks fake, but it's real. 

On the way back to the dock, we got to visit with some harbor seals. There are two in this picture.  Can you find them?

We also got to see some dolphins up close.  We had a few that chose to ride in the bow wave of the boat.

They swam right along with us and seemed to enjoy the attention from all the passengers.  All the boys loved seeing the dolphins up close. 

Our vacation, part 2

On our first full day in Perth, day 6, we decided to do something just plain fun and for the kids.  We ponied up the money for Adventure World.  Adventure World is mostly a water park with several kid friendly rides and some adult only rides.  I decided not to take the camera as it would have been one more thing to carry.  We arrived shortly after opening time and rode all the "dry" rides we could.  We had to skip a few as Jay and I were the only ones tall enough.  Sam was not tall enough to ride one of the rides, but it worked out as it was next to a ride that he was the only one small enough to ride.  I rode very few rides.  Not because I don't like to ride, but because it makes me really ill to ride anything other than a roller coaster.  One of the rides that I rode made me quite a bit green and it was a family friendly ride.  Moving quickly in circles just makes me ill.  We had our usual picnic lunch and then changed into out swimmers.  We then spent the next 3 1/2 hours playing in the water.  It was a very hot and sunny day so all went pretty well.  Unfortunately, Sam was only tall enough to ride one of the tall waterslides, and then only with an adult.  He went on it twice with Jay. We stayed until the park closed at 5 and then headed back to the 2 bedroom villa and made dinner.  We ate picnic lunches and made dinner at the villa or cottage almost every night in order to keep down our costs.  Over the entire vacation, we only ate lunch out twice and dinner out once. 

On day 7, we headed to Fremantle.  Fremantle is the major port in Perth and is supposed to be a "must see" attraction.  I'm sure that it is nice; however, it's not very kid friendly. 
We did go to the Western Australia Maritime Museum and the Shipwreck Gallery Museum.  I thought they were both really well done museums.

Confiscated Indonesian fishing boat.  Taken because it was fishing in Australian waters without permission.



Tom, attempting the rowing machine



On the rowing machine and laughing at Jay

We also visited the Roundhouse, which is Western Australia's oldest public building.  It was intended and used as a prison.
On day 8, we drove up to Yanchep National Park.  It was supposed to be a day filled with walking, hiking, etc.  We were expecting a much nicer park.  I think that the park has seen nicer days.  I forgot my camera on this day.  The park is supposed to have a large lake that you can boat on, but the lake is dried up.  There is a cave at the park and we visited it, but it was a shallow, small cave and not much to it.  The day was  sorta disappointing.
Day 9 was spent doing a kid activity again.  We visited the Maze.  The Maze has a large timber maze, two pine tree mazes, a right turn only maze, a left turn only maze, garden chess, disc golf, mini golf, emus, kangaroos, and birds.  We had an enjoyable day.  There was a large bird that had learned to talk, named Henry.  Sam says that Henry was the best part of vacation. 

On day 9, we drove up to the Pinnacles.  The Pinnacles are large columns of limestone that rise out of the desert.  No one is quite sure how the Pinnacles have formed, but they are there.  It is also a little strange as the desert is very near or touching the beach.  The beach has very white sand and the desert is very tan. 

The Pinnacles range in height from a few centimeters to several meters. 

Tom (blue shirt) and Sam (yellow shirt) walking on the Pinnacle Desert Trail

The much lighter sand in the background is the beach.  The fuzziness of the beachy area is due to the very strong winds that were blowing sand everywhere.

Jay and I both thought this formation was interesting because of its shape, its isolation and its little tree growing from the top.

Day 10 was spent doing a kid activity again.  We visited the Maze.  The Maze has a large timber maze, two pine tree mazes, a right turn only maze, a left turn only maze, garden chess, disc golf, mini golf, emus, kangaroos, and birds.  We had an enjoyable day.  There was a large bird that had learned to talk, named Henry.  Sam says that Henry was the best part of vacation.
Day 11 started out with a few loads of laundry, and then we decided to explore inner city Perth.  We had the plan to visit three places, but never made it past the first.  We spent the entire day at Scitech.  Scitech is a small science discovery centre and planetarium.  We paused at lunch time to eat a picnic in the car before heading back inside.  The kids really enjoyed it.  We missed going to Kings Park and the Perth Mint that day. 

Day 12 was Good Friday and our scheduled day to visit Rottnest Island.  It was a bad day to go because it was a busy day to go.  We were unable to rent bicycles (no cars on the island) because they were all rented out.  We rode the ferry over at 9:30 in the morning and stayed until 6 pm.  First we walked.

Rottnest Island was used as an Aboriginal penal colony and is an island about 18 km from Fremantle.   The island has many inland lakes and is home to the quokka. 
The quokka is a small marsupial that looks just like a large cat-sized rat.  It hops like a rabbit and is only found on Rottnest Island.  There are many, many quokkas on the island. 

 After walking about 7 km, we arrived at the top of Oliver Hill.  Oliver Hill is where Australia dug in and installed a 9.2 inch gun in the late 1930's.  It is the only gun from WW II that is still in place today.

We paid the $15 for the hour long guided tour that showed the gun and the tunnel system underneath.  Our volunteer guide was very informative.  The gun was placed on Rottnest to help protect the port of Fremantle.  It was very difficult to place the gun because all the hills are made of sand.  Tons and tons of concrete had to be poured into the hill after the sand was dug away.  The gun was never fired in anger, but it helped protect all the American submarines that used Fremantle as a base during WW II. 

After our tour, we managed to snag a free ride down the hill on the train.  We then walked to one of the beaches and swam for the next two hours, until it was time to head back.  We walked about 8 km throughout the day, and we didn't even see half of the island. 
Saturday was our final day/travel day.  After packing up and cleaning our villa, we drove through Kings Park.  We regret that we didn't get to see more of it.  We should have skipped Yanchep and done Kings instead.  We then quickly went to the Perth Mint.  There, we got to learn all about the Western Australia gold rush, got to see the world's second largest gold nugget, got to try to lift a gold bar, and we got to see a worker pour a gold bar.  We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the mint.  We wish the mint would have talked more about actually making coins and money in the mint, instead just the focus on gold, but still a really neat tour. 
We then boarded our flight and flew to Sydney and drove 3 hours home. 
It was a very enjoyable trip overall!

Our vacation, part 1

 So, we drove to Sydney on 10 April in order to spend the night at the Hyde Park Inn.  We had a 6 am flight the next day and didn't want to drive down the morning of the flight.  We settled into the inn, which looks out onto Hyde Park.  Since it was about sun down, we got to see bats, lots of them. 

Those shapes in the sky are not birds.  They are the flying foxes that are native to many parts of Australia, including where we live. 

On day 1, we got up early the next morning and flew to Perth.  Once we arrrived in Perth, we then drove 3 1/2 hours south of Perth to Margaret River. 
We rented a three bedroom cottage for our time in Margaret River.  While there were lots of nice things about the cottage, we didn't like the amount of critters in it.  There were loads of little wormy things and spiders and one giant cockroach.  We also only had two towels for our whole family for 5 days.  No other problems with the accomendations.
Margaret River is a very large wine growing region as well as a good base for visiting various parks around the area.
So, on day 2, we visited some local caves.



At the base of the doline, ready to enter the cave

 The first one we visited is the Lake Cave.  In order to get to the interior of the cave, you have to go down 300 steps through a doline.  A doline forms with the roof of the cave collaped.  This doline formed about 600 years ago. 

The caves in this area of Margaret River and much younger and more shallow than the caves that we visited in Jenolan. 

This picture shows a reflection in the lake inside the cave.  The lake has eaten away the bottom of the ground under two columns.  The columns are the only thing supporting the ground around them.  Pretty neat. 

Over the last 40 years, the water level has been decreasing a lot in the Lake Cave.  So much, that in the last 15 years, they've had to pump water into the cave, just to slow the rate enough for scientists to study the cave.  Incidentally, the region really took off as a wine growing centre about 35 years ago.

formations in the Lake Cave

  Our second cave tour of the day was to the Jewel Cave.

The Jewel Cave is also drying up.  It doesn't have the standing water like the Lake Cave, but many of it's formations are no longer active. 
We had some time to kill before our third and final cave of the day, so we drove over to the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse. 

This lighthouse is the tallest lighthouse on the mainland of Australia.  Cape Leeuwin is also the point at which the Indian Ocean and the Great Southern Ocean meet.  At this point, my camera battery was done, and I could take no more pictures on that day.  We walked around the lighthouse, but didn't pay for the tour to the inside. 
We also visited Mammoth Cave.  Mammoth Cave is a self guided tour and was named after the many animal bones found inside the cave.
On day 3, we drove again.  This time 3 hours to Walpole to visit the Tree Top Walk and the giant tingle trees. 

The Tree Top Walk is a bridge that slowly rises while you walk through the forest.  The bridge is designed to sway quite a bit (in order to make you feel one with nature) and takes you to a height of 40 meters (131 feet).  I really enjoyed this walk. 

After the Tree Top Walk, we walked a few trails in order to see some giant tingle trees.  Red tingle trees are only found in this area.  They are a large eucalptus and have the largest base of all eucalypts.  They are a buttressed tree and can be hollowed by fire or fungi and continue growing. 

They can grow to 75 metres in height and live for over 400 years.

The above tree is the Giant Tingle Tree and is one single tree.  It was massive.

  After the tingle trees, we visited Mount Frankland.  Mount Frankland is a very large hill, topped with a really large hunk of granite.  We climbed to the top of the granite, using very narrow steps. 

Great view!

The sky seems to stretch forever. 
On day 4, we didn't take many pictures.  We had a easy day around Margaret River.  We visited the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse, a brewery for lunch, a timber maze (very awesome!), a chocolate factory, a winery, and a fudge place.  It was a nice, relaxing day.

  The boys were excited because we actually paid to go into this lighthouse.  It is a much shorter lighthouse than the Cape Leeuwin because it is up on a hill.
Day 5 had us up early and headed out the door.  We said goodbye to Margaret River and started towards Perth.  We stopped in Busselton to take a Busselton Jetty tour.

Joe, looking at the Jetty

 The Busselton Jetty first went under construction in 1864.  The original jetty was 176 metres long.  Over the years, sand shifted around and made the jetty end less deep.  Ships also got larger.  The jetty was added onto over 10 times (up until 1960), making its final length 1836 metres.  A train was needed to run the cargo back to town and tracks were added to the jetty in 1909. 
The jetty and port closed for good in the early 1970's.  Cyclones and fires caused major damage to the jetty.  The government wanted to close and destroy the jetty, but locals wanted it saved.  They did manage to save it and have just finished another major renovation. 

We rode a train to the end of the jetty and visited the underwater observatory.  There are only a few like this in the world.  We walk down large steps and finally get all the way to the bottom of the ocean.  Through viewing windows, we could see all the sea life that lives around the jetty.  Corals and sponges growing on the jetty posts and loads of fish. 

And yes, you could see something similar at an aquarium, but this is the real thing!  They don't feed the fish or do anything to attract them.  The fish do what fish do.  Awesome!
We drove around and did a little looking around after the jetty tour.   We finished the day by arriving in Perth and checking into our villa for the duration.