Hot, hot hot in WA

We moved out of the flat as planned on Friday 26th. It wasn’t a good plan though as it was so hot we couldn’t believe it. I think we drank about 5 litres of water in the three hours it took to do it. Afterwards we went back to B, L & T’s and spent the rest of the day in the pool (only coming out to cook dinner for our Aussie Day celebrations After entrée and mains we walked up to Mt Lawley and watched Skyworks over the city and Swan River with about 400 other locals. It was pretty spectacular, but still hot (about 38c by then), so we came home, got in the pool and finally had our dessert watching the Skyworks replay at 11pm.

Saturday and Sunday hovered around the 40c mark again, Monday cooled to about 35 and today it is probably 40c again.

Todd Leah and Blair off to Their Party!


Saturday night everyone went out to a 40th birthday party so Chris and Carly had diner with us. Russ cooked quail and we polished off the leftover salads from Friday night then we had ice cream, fresh fruit and Leah’s homegrown passionfruit. We also did a lot of swimming. Sunday was again spent in the pool.

Monday we got the car, boat and van ready to travel (pretty much a full days job with all of them needing a good clean and tidy up and a few minor repairs to the water pump and tank of the van. I don’t think vans like just sitting around.

Today (Tuesday) we have driven to Nannup (about 60ks east of Busselton) to spend a few days at Leah’s parents holiday house there. It’s a beautiful spot, but it’s very hot and smoky today. Still it was a really nice drive and it feels so good to be back out in the country. We stopped in Harvey on the way for a counter lunch in a beautiful old pub (had Harvey Beef steak sandwiches) and passed lots of foodie places on the way we’ll pop back and visit in the next day or so. Tonight we’ll sit outside and BBQ some turkey sausages and have a salad-it’s too hot to think about much more than that.

3 more sleeps in the flat.....

Thursday was spent with Leah doing our laundry. It’s nice over there using the wireless Internet and watching Food TV on the big screen! After we’d washed and dried all our dirty stuff, we headed to Ganeesh, and Indian grocery store close by. We bought a heap of stuff for $14 (spices, curry mixes poppadums etc), it’s clean and orderly and cheap!

Friday we woke and sat watching TV wondering what to do for the day. An ad came on for Midland markets, so problem solved. It’s a fair drive out there, but it got us out seeing other suburbs and the fruit and veg we bought was probably the best we’ve got in the whole 3 months we have been here.

Friday night Leah cooked us a yummy dinner and we stayed over in the van. It’s silly to drive home after even a drink when we have a very comfy bed of our own sitting there! Saturday morning we got up and did a round of the Garage sales and a church fete, stocking up on books, magazines jam and pickles.

Sunday was a quiet day. Russ walked to Freo, but I stayed home as I wasn’t feeling too well. Sunday night we gave in and had a drink before dinner with landlord Ramesh and his Korean Harem. There’s not much choice when they are sitting right outside our front door.

Monday was the start of our last week in Perth, so we did a bit of running around (post office, hardware, battery world) then visited Leah and put a few things in the van. I wanted to try Nando’s chicken before we left so off to there for a late lunch. When we got home, the neighbour came over and made herself known to us. She had shot an arrow over the back fence and needed to retrieve it! We had to promise not to tell Ramesh she practices archery in the backyard aiming at the flat’s kitchen window. It’s the first time she’s missed. Anyhow, we ended up over there having a glass of wine before dinner with them and I’m sure she and I would have been good friends. It’s sad to meet her in our last week.

A busy week

Our look around Perth was good-we went to Harbour City (an outlet shopping centre) in West Perth and bought ourselves some new clothes and shoes which always entertains me! Dinner with Allan was good too-he brought me over some recent photos of Daniel when he visited him on Hamilton Island.

Now we see the end in sight, we are rushing to do a few things we had planned while here. Friday we went to the aquarium at Hilary’s Boat Harbour. It was expensive, very fishy smelling but still ok as we saw quite a few of the fish we’ve caught up north and been unable to identify.

Saturday we did a few garage sales and came away with 14 books, a fishing knife (Victrinox) for me, and a crab pot, so we were pretty pleased. The two of us a huge readers, so garage sales and op shops are an essential source of cheap books.

Saturday night we gave in and had a BBQ with our lunatic loser of a landlord. He really is a tosser. He is the biggest know it all, know nothing, I have ever met! And I’m serious about that.

On Sunday, we slept late, had brunch, and then went over to Blair, Leah and Todd’s for a day of swimming followed by a BBQ with them and Chris and Carly. What a difference it makes to spend the day with pleasant intelligent people (as opposed to our landlord!).

Monday we took our caravan for a service and a few minor repairs, Tuesday we picked it up and returned it to the kids place. Tuesday night the two of us went to Latasha’s Place in Leederville for an Indian meal. I’d give it high marks for value for money, but pretty low ones for service and somewhere in the middle for the food. In other words, it was OK!

Today (Wednesday, we have been over to Freo on the train for a day at the Maritime Museum there. It was fantastic-must have been, it took us 5 ½ hours to see all we did! Included in that was a 1 ¼ hour tour of the Submarine Ovens. It was great and made even better by a former crewman from QLD (who had served 7 years on it) taking the tour too. He was really entertaining and pointed out lots of things the guide didn’t. I especially loved seeing Australia II on display along with lots of memorabilia from it.

Tomorrow is laundry day, so we’ll spend it doing that and swimming.

Perth

Only 2 ½ weeks left here in the flat. My sister is always worrying we will fall in love with Perth and never leave, but you know what, I am looking forward to being back on the road, seeing new places and meeting new people. We have really enjoyed our time here (although I don’t much like our old woman of a landlord!) and I’ll always remember it as a wonderful time, but let’s get going!

The past couple of weeks have been really good fun. We’ve managed to take the boat out a couple more times on the Swan (not that there are any decent fish in it). The fun of it is more just fishing in the middle of the city and seeing all the different spots from the river.

On December 30th, we (about 40 of us) had a picnic/BBQ and cricket in the park to farewell Ange and Graham who are off to Sydney to live and work. They hired a spot in the park, so we had a playground for the kids, a key to the toilets, plenty of shade and space to play cricket and botche.

We had a great NYE over at Blair, Leah and Todd’s. About a dozen of us had a very relaxed dinner by the pool and it was possibly one of the nicest NYE’s I’ve put in. New Year’s Day, Leah Russ and I packed a picnic of leftovers and took it to the 20/20 match at the WACA. It’s the first major cricket match that Leah and I have ever been to, so we both really enjoyed it.

Saturday night we went over to Curt and Holly's for a BBQ. They bought a really nice unit in Yokine and it was the first time we had visited it. Tim (Russ's NZ nephew) came along and a cousin of Curt's who has just arrived from Warrnambool. There can't be many people left there now! Tim does a bit of work with Curt at the bookbinder's but it looks as though he has a job out in the mines now which is good.

Early this week we got new tyres for the Navarra which pleases me. I hate dodgy tyres on a car. The price didn’t please me, but these are guaranteed to last 60,000 ks (which should nearly see us home!). Next week, the van goes in for a service.

Leah is in between jobs at the moment, so she has cooked us a couple of lovely dinners over the last two weeks. She was a bit run down as she finished work, so it’s nice to see her enjoying her home, pool and garden for a change.

Today we are off by train for a look around West Perth, then tonight we have my ex husband coming over for dinner.