Some pics from Christmas Day.

Quick post today. We are heading out east today to New Norcia and will stay the night in a hotel somewhere – place to be determined.

Yesterday we went to Rottnest island (http://www.rottnestisland.com/en/default.htm). We cycled round the island an saw some Quokkas and amazing views of the ocean from the island’s western most point. We were also very stupid, and as a result of this are suffering from bad sunburn today though!

On talking with the barman whilst ordering our bottle of wine at the end of the day, we also found out that we missed what would have been a great sight. A whale had been washed up on one of the bays a week or two ago and they were cutting it up and removing it yesterday. They couldn’t leave it there to decompose naturally as it had attracted a number of great white sharks into the area and this was making it dangerous for the surfers. That would have made for a great photo opportunity. The fact Stuart was paddling in the sea at the other side of the very small island was a little worrying though! Still, he never got eaten.

There will be an image to go with this blog as soon as we can be bothered to post it. For now use your imagination..it involves stu mounting a tree (that overe here they refer to as a ‘Blackboy’……….)

Anyway, We were at Margaret River over the weekend. The cabin we had was amazing and right in the middle of nowhere. We spent every evening drinking beer while watching out for kangaroos then going back to our log BBQ in ‘the bush’. Did a wine tour on the Sunday which was great – wineries must love them as the more tasting we did the more everyone seemed to be buying. I think the most bizarre bit was sitting in a minibus in the blazing heat with Aussie Jingle Bells playing at top volume. Tour ended in the bootleg brewery where the host kept giving Lisa and I a small beer to share while the boys has a taster plate (of five beers) each – obvisouly beer is not a ladies drink in this part of the world!

Drove to lake cave too, was really impressive didn’t quite enjoy standing at the entrance to the cave looking up and seeing nothing but white all over the cave (‘that would be the spider webs’ *eek*) The cave itself was fantastic and I hopefully got a few good pics of the inside for you all to see.

Can’t remember what the last post was so this may be repeated but we went to Yanchep National Park on the Thursday. Saw tons of kangaroos, koalas and birds. We hired a rowing boat and proceeded to argue our way round ‘Lake McNess’ due to steering errors and panicking after we realised there were water snakes in the water. All in all it was very relaxing and romantic..!

Anyway, We are now off to see Perth at night so I can take some pics of Kings Park all lit up and then hunt down some food. By the way ‘the parents’ will be pleased to hear I have been more willing than normal with regards food – kangaroo, and venison to name a few, I drew the line at grub pate but you can guess who didn’t :-)

Stu and Lynne

Hi all again. It’s good to see that there is a bit of lively chatting going on amongst all our friends on this blog. It makes us feel all warm and tingly inside that people are actually reading this. Still need to work out how to reduce the size of photos before posting. Hopefully will get his sorted out soon. However, dont’ want to spend too much time sitting at the computer when there are much better things to be doing here.

We have now hired a car and have been doing mini road trips over the last few days. Driving here is not difficult at all since the roads are very quiet, even in the city (compared with the UK at least). Also, our car has cruise control so don’t have to do anything except make sure I don’t drive into the back of someone. Earlier today, we visited a wildlife park where we were able to feed and pet kangaroos and other wildlife. I had a run-in with a few rabid Night of the Living Dead chickens and had to throw some food at them in fright so that they didn’t peck my toes off. Emu’s are a good bit bigger than I thought and looked just a tiny bit like they might attack us so it was interesting getting past them and back to the car!

Going to the airport tonight to pick up Nick after an evening torchlit tour of the old Fremantle prison. It’ll be good to see him again. Also, we have booked a few nights away this weekend down in Margaret River for the four of us and a dog. We are staying at the following chalets - http://www.cavesroadchalets.com.au

Since we’ve been here for a few days, it’s time for another entry along. We have taken plenty of photos. Not sure how to resize them onthis Mac, so will post this blog entry with no photos and put photos up later when have worked out how to make the images smaller.

Unfortunately for us, Fremantle is not the best place for a holiday if you want to get out of the city and see some of Australia because it is such a cool place with lots of bars and cafes that we have not really left the town! Weather has been a bit colder than expected at night. Still hot enough to burn us though (particulary if when putting on sunscreen you miss a large area of your back…).

We did go to Perth Zoo today and had a look round the city. One of the highlights of the zoo trip was seeing the Orang-Utans. They were behaving a bit different to how Clyde did in the Clint Eastwood films…pictures will follow but basically Mr Orang-Utan kept grabbing Mrs Orang-Utan and shoving her hand up his bum (like, RIGHT up!), not content with this he then rugged it out and licked her fingers (hence the title of this blog!) :-) The most amusing part of this ’show’ was watching the parents look on horrified while the kids said ‘What are they doing Mummy………?’

After the fun of the zoo we just ambled round Perth drinking coffee and beer and generally soaking up the atmosphere.

Anyway, we are hoping to get a car hired tomorrow and head down to Margaret River for a few days at the weekend with Nick and Lisa. Maybe take in a wine tour, see the dolphins and go to some caves – we’ll keep you posted!

Stu & Lynne

So here we go. My first blog posting. Not long now until we are off to Australia. Flight leaves early Sunday morning. Am going to post blog entries as regularly as possible with the adventures that we will have in Australia. Until Then …