Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Winter has arrived and it's colder than I thought it would be. Some mornings when I catch the bus into town I have to remind myself that I'm not in Adelaide even though I could be mistaken for thinking I was but after the rain the water just disappears, given the soil is so sandy here. That's about the biggest difference really.
We've found some fabulous devonshire tea establishments and Kimbo thinks we should keep trying to find more. Perhaps there's a book in that, the best devonshire tea establishments in Australia? Now there's a money making venture that will also increase our waistlines!
Saw the Black Sorrows @ The Perth Concert Hall we had fantastic box type seats on the top level on the edge over the stage absolutely loved them. Then Midnight Oil and Things of Stone & Wood at The Entertainment Centre. As always the Oils were fantastic and
Peter Garrett had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hands. We had great seats and I really enjoyed "Things of Stone & Wood" having never seen them before.
We've been thinking it's time to upgrade our car, as much as we love the moke it's really not practical and as much as Kimbo said we didn't need a 4WD he's been looking at Suzuki Sierras!
One night late in May I jumped into bed as you do, and something was in there, so I kicked whatever it was onto the floor and after scrambling around for the light switch I was shocked, stunned and surprised to find the Mickey Mouse watch I love and have been eyeing off for ages in the bed. It had just appeared! Thank you Kimbo you’re so lovely and always full of surprises.
On 30th May we caught the train to Fremantle to see the USS Independence. Awesome to see, it is bloody enormous. It carries 5,500 crew and too many planes and helicopters to count. After waiting in line for what seemed hours we were lucky enough to get to take a tour of this bloody enormous vessel. It's so big it's hard to explain. I felt so small and was constantly worried that I'd get lost. Still with the number of crew about can't imagine I would have been lost for long. Kimbo could have stayed on there for days he was mesmerised by what goes on and the size of everything.
4th June provided us with a lunar eclipse....no photos
As many weekends as we could we spent exploring and car hunting.
Whiteman Park is one of our favorites, just north of Perth they had a big exhibition day where there were Clydesdale horses, droving of stock, working farm dogs (heart melted), farm animals and whip cracking demonstrations etc. Sadly the Devonshire tea wasn't as good as last time we were there, maybe the amount of people that were here today had something to do with it. I patted a dingo for the first and possibly last time in my life, a beautiful animal.
John Forrest National Park was really interesting and not too far from home. We walked the old railway track down to the tunnel. It was a bloody big tunnel and I was feeling quite uneasy as we were about ½ way though and it was really dark and I couldn’t see a thing. As we got towards the other end I said to Kimbo “wouldn’t it be shocking if we couldn’t get out at the end and we had to walk all the way back again in the dark”? I couldn’t believe it, the exit was full of water, thankfully though there were enough rocks for us to climb over so that we could get out. We stopped at the falls on the back way and although there wasn’t too much water flowing they did look good. There had been a train crash in 1896 when 22 cars became unhitched and hurled back down the tracks and crashed doing 183km/hour – killed 8 horses and 1 man – truly terrible. Had a Devonshire tea at the tea rooms to continue the tradition. Although it was a bit chilly it was the perfect day for a brisk walk. Beautiful spot in the Darling Scarp and it was the first National Park in WA and the second in Australia.....nice bit of history.
On 24th June our dear Maggie was put down – Kimbo was devastated it was so sad, there was nothing I could do to help him but give him lots of hugs. Our thanks to Craig and Jules; and Stu for taking care of her.
Lesmurdie Falls, Mundaring Weir, Piesse Brook/Kalamunda National Park all beautiful weekend visits, we're so lucky to be close to all these wonderful little gems that are perfect winter visiting spots.
Finally a decision was made on a car. On10th July we paid a deposit on the Suzuki Sierra we'd (well I'd) been drooling over and we asked Chris (who was selling the car on behalf of the owner) for the owner’s name so that we could do a check. He said he thought that wouldn’t be necessary as the Jo he’d been talking about was in fact Jo Court, Richard Court (the Premier’s) wife so we knew the car had never been off the bitumen. We picked it up on Monday night and it was so exciting, I felt very posh.
On Sunday 18th July we spent a fabulous day steam train riding to Dwellingup a charming little town which is about 1 1/2 hours drive south of Perth, a bit longer by train. It was a very cold day 4 – 15....brrrr!!!! We left Perth mid morning with a diesel engine but that was changed to 2 steam engines at Pinjarra, a quaint little town about 100km south of Perth on the banks of the Murray River. The train seating was comfy but freezing as there was no heating, glad I packed a blanket.
After leaving Pinjarra it was a continuous climb to Dwellingup, stunning scenery, so green, little brooks and creeks, black boys, ferns and so many trees not surprising as we are in jarrah country. The town of Dwellingup is surrounded by the enchanting jarrah forest of the Darling escarpment situated at a height of some 260 metres above sea level and home to a diverse range of flora and fauna. Pies and sausage rolls were our lunch fare, set out in the park on the blanket that had kept me from freezing to death on the train and we had a picninc – it was lovely.
The walk around town didn’t take long, a quaint milling town that was first established in the late 19th century. At 2.30pm it was time to get back on board for the trip back to Perth. Only one loco required to take us down the hills to Pinjarra. Engines changed there again and we were back in Perth via diesel loco just after 5.30pm.
Fabulous day, love steam trains.
- comments