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