Margaret River to Geraldton

Our next stop was Perth and we caught up with our friends, the Shearers once again.  We stayed longer in Perth than expected to have the car serviced and our awning fixed (it broke in the strong winds).  We had a bit of time looking around Fremantle and exploring the market.  The market was a little disappointing with fantastic fruit and vegetable stalls, but not many arty/ crafty/ hand made stuff and it seemed to have lots of imports from Bali.  Nick had a fun night out at freo with Ross and visited the Little Creatures Brewery.  Lets say that he had one too many beers and it was a terrible night, the two of them had to wait for a taxi in the pouring rain.  Neither of them could remember the name of the caravan park and they had to wait for a cab driver that knew which caravan park they were talking about by describing it!  Kristy and I on the other hand had a much less exciting, but very enjoyable night out to see a movie, Oranges and Sunshine.  Great movie, but very hard going!

We stayed long enough at the Perth caravan park for Nick to meet about 195 of the 200 permanent residents, enjoy the Saturday morning egg and bacon roll at the community hall, play bingo and win the meat tray for the week!!  I lost Nick and the boys for a few hours one day and found them having cups of tea with Jock and his wife in their little cabin at the caravan park.  Flynn and Aidan were being doted over by Jocks wife and Nick had his feet up on the front porch!!  Poor Aidan has been a bit unwell in Perth with high temperatures, and has been unsettled at night for about two weeks now.  We are looking forward to a good nights sleep.  We have had a lot of rain and windy weather in Perth and are looking forward to some better weather, unfortunately our next stop isn't much better.

 We stayed for two nights in Cervantes to explore the Pinnacles.  It rained, no, it poured!  And we wondered what we were going to do all day in a caravan with the boys, however we decided to go to the Pinnacles and see what we could from the car, which was a great idea.  There is a drive that you can take right through the pinnacles, and it was amazing to see the rain in the desert- the water was absolutely flowing and was very pretty.  The rain stopped for a while so we went for a 1.5km walk which was accessible to the pram, so Aidan would stay nice and dry with the rain cover, and we had our rain jackets.  It absolutely poured again during the walk for about 3 minutes, long enough for all our pants to soak through and Flynn to start sobbing, but when it stopped there were puddles to play in!  The walk was beautiful with a great big rainbow in the sky after the rain, a few wildflowers out, and the rock and sand sparkling after the rain.  There were also huge clumps of centipedes around which Flynn loved but the rest of us weren't so keen on.  Flynn loved playing hide and seek in the pinnacles, and there was a fantastic discovery centre with all sorts of stuffed furry animals and reptiles, which was really interesting.

We then travelled on past Jurien Bay to the Sandy Cape recreational park where we stayed for two nights.  It was a beautiful spot, right on the beach, and it was so nice listening to the waves as you go to sleep.  We had a big walk along the beach and found a huge sand dune to climb and roll down.  There was also a gorgeous little rocky arch on the beach and lots of different sorts of sea weed and sponges washed up to explore.

The next day we visited the Stockman's Yard Cave National Park.  It was our first taste of four wheel driving and we had to stop briefly to read the manual, and change to low range, but after this all was grand!  It was a fairly sandy, rocky track to get to the cave.  The cave is about 200m long and you walk along a small river bed and through the cave and out the other side.  It was a bit of a difficult walk with little kids along a steep sided creek and there are warnings about quick sand on the creek bed at the cave opening, and a local warned us to keep away from the side of the creek- so we did!!  Serious- quick sand!  You have to take a torch and walk through in bare feet as the creek flows through it.  It is large inside, with a sandy floor and very dark and quiet.  There are a few small stalactites (I think they are the ones hanging from the roof), and nothing else- no animals, no noise!  Flynn and Aidan weren't worried at all, Flynn loved shining the torch.  I have to admit that I was a bit jumpy and glad to get out the other side.  We then took the loop back to the car, I wasn't too keen on going back through.  

Thats about all for now- just a little something about our scrabble tournament.  I haven't played enough scrabble against Nick to realise how frustrating it is!  Nick is usually very competitive and strategic when playing games, and scrabble is no exception.  Nicks strategy is to score as many points as possible and aim for the extra points square regardless of whether he is putting a 3 letter word on the only part of the board with a possibility of being 'opened up'.  I however try to have a bit of a balance!  Isn't it nice that your only concern is having to get up before your partner to make breakfast because you lost scrabble the night before!