Weekend away - Saturday

We were all up by 7, woken by Nakita's squeaky bed !

We decided to go to Walpole and do the tree top walk. After driving for 1.5 hours it hit us that we hadn't seen any houses, petrol stations (road houses) or anything except trees.........trees as far as the eye could see in all directions with a straight road running for miles through the middle. All of a sudden we came upon Walpole, a buzzing little place, a small street with a few cafes and shops. Just outside we found the valley of the giants treetop walk. This is a part of the forest where narrow walkways have been built leading up to the top of the trees allowing you to have a 'birds eye' view. It was incredible and some found it scary ....Tallulah and Nakita ploughed on and loved every minute, no one scared of heights here !!

We then went on towards Denmark, calling into a toffee factory along the way. On entering Denmark I realised that, after travelling for miles through forests, the first thing you come to on arriving at civilisation is always a bottle shop, no matter what town it is, always a bottle shop ! We stopped in Denmark for a lovely lunch but everything else was shut for a Saturday afternoon (of course!) so headed back.

I saw a sign for 'Peaceful Bay' which sounded good so I made Paul stop and it was worth it, the scenery was lovely and the sand a wonderful white. Back at Walpole the place that on the way in was buzzing, was now dead !! It was like those country and western movies where you know a big fight is about to happen !

Along the way you come across a few roos in varying stages of decomposure (roadkill isn't removed) and Paul and I tried to convince the girls that the bones were those of naughty children who squabbled in cars and whose parents had thrown them out. The girls did bicker a bit during all the time spent in the car but in the UK they couldn't do a 20 minute journey without killing each other and here we are talking hours after hour travelling, so they were pretty good.

On the journey back to the resort  http://www.karrivalleyresort.com.au/index.html we decided to take a short cut across an unsealed road ie no tarmac. Nakita thought it was a wonderful massage and Paul thoroughly enjoyed bouncing the ute up and down, although, by the end, the black ute was completely red !

At the resort Nakita kept bugging us to take a walk up to the falls so off we set, a little late, which wasn't a good thing to do as it was getting dark by the time we reached them....and there were no falls as we hadn't had any rain ! Still it was good exercise, Nakita did struggle quite a bit and Tallulah kept reminding her that if she was on 'The Biggest Loser' it would be tougher than that !!! Nakita then got scared on the way back as it was dark and spooky and there were lots of strange noises but it was good fun, I'm glad we did it and we all were soundly asleep by 9pm once again

11:11 - Mon 31 March 2008 - comments {0}

Weekend away - Friday

After two long years without a family break we finally made it away down south for a weekend. This was my birthday present from Paul and a much needed family holiday !!

We made the big decision to let the girls have Friday off of school, we do know that the aussies take their kids out for anything (reasons used - kids tired, their birthday, they want to stay home, picking someone up from the airport, there was a 'y' in the day ) which does shock us and I certainly do not want to join that culture, but it meant that we got three full days in as we had to be back Sunday, so we wrote the note and set off at 9am !! Robyn very kindly had Mutley for us and Debs, on her last weekend in Oz, fed the cats.

Our first stop was in Donnybrook, which is the home of Granny Smiths apparently, and biy do you know about it. Unfortunately we had missed the apple festival but there was row upon row of orchards as you came into and went out of Donnybrook and, right outside the tourist information, there were some big apple structures. It was at this point that we decided a map may be useful so picked one up. What a revelation that was !! You could travel for over a hour but on the map you've barely moved 1cm, this is truly a massive country !

Next stop was Bridgetown. It resembled an old country and western town despite the fact that we found a Christmas shop, open all year around, which lit up my eyes !! We also found a lolly (sweet) shop which sold black jacks and fruit salads ... and this kind of set the theme for the weekend. The other thing that we noticed at this stop was the distinct lack of flies and the fact that there were absolutely no mossies whatsoever, Paul was a happy chappy. No wind though, which did make the temps higher and hotter.

We wandered around Bridgetown for a bit, popped into a gift shop which also included a pharmacy and Westpac (bank)  ! Pauls eyes were drawn to the real estate windows where he found a 1000sqm block of land for $45k. If only we hadn't built that pool !

Next stop was Manjimup which didn't impress us so we didn't stop long and finally Pemberton, which was cute but not a lot there.

Finally we made it to the Karri Valley Resort. All in all we had been travelling for 6 hours and were exhausted. The resort itself was fabulous, unfortunately the chalet needed a good clean (it was filthy and lots of lights weren't working) and the bathroom and kitchen needed ripping out and replacing. It was a shame really as everything else there was outstanding. Not sure I'd go back unless they refurbished. It was a lot of money for what it was. We ate that night in the restaurant and the food was absolutely gorgeous, a bit pricey, but worth it, the best meal we have had in Oz. That evening as we settled in for the night we had a visit from a kookaburra who sat on our balcony, he didn't say a word, just opened and closed his beak. He looked at us like we were stupid when we offered bits of bread and weetabix, we've since found out that they eat meat, duh ! We were also visited by wrens, green parrots and there were wild roos and emus around the resort.

Like true aussies, we were in bed by 9pm and slept soundly. Only I was woken at 2am by whatever it was scratching around on the roof !

04:17 - Mon 31 March 2008 - comments {0}