February 17th - February 23rd, 2011: Vanaema and Peter's Visit!

Playing backyard cricket with Peter

 On Thursday evening, February
17th, our first family visitors
from Canada arrived - Vanaema
(Tiiu) and Peter. We were so
excited for their arrival. We are
settling in well in Perth but it was
so nice to see some familiar faces
in the flesh! They flew the same
flight we did from Christchurch,
New Zealand (the second
devastating earthquake hit 4 days
later), and they were feeling pretty
jet-lagged. That didn't seem to stop
Peter from playing a bit of

Us with Vanaema and Peter at our rented house in Dunsborough

backyard cricket with Tom and
the kids. We kept them up as late
as we could that night otherwise they
were going to be up at three in the
morning - they made it until 10 p.m.
The next morning, Tiiu and I walked
the kids to the walking school bus
drop-off (kids meet up at one of the
parent's houses and a couple of
parents walk the kids to school
from there) and then I drove Tiiu
and Peter to Freemantle where I
take my Friday morning art class.
They toured around while I painted

Back at Injidup Beach again...

- it was another stinking hot day.
                 They looked a bit wilted when
                         I met them in front of the gift shop. We headed back to
downtown Perth where we
picked up the rental van for our weekend trip to Dunsborough
and Margaret River. We walked
to the school to pick up the kids
and then waited for Tom - waited
and waited....He got held up by
having to fill out police and insur-
ance reports for a student's iPhone
that was stolen by another student
while under Tom's care. Needless
to say, we were cursing that kid

Tom with ema (mom)

while we sat in traffic for an hour and a half while trying to "get outta Dodge". We finally got past the 

crawl, stopped for a quick bite and arrived at our rented house for the weekend at around 9:30 p.m. We were all in bed not long after that.

We woke up Saturday morning feeling fairly refreshed. I went for a run along the coastal walkway and onto the Cape to Cape trail. Rein and I then walked to town to get some breakfast goodies and the paper. We enjoyed some chocolate croissants and began to pack for our visit to Injidup beach. When we arrived the scene that greeted us as we got out of the van took Tiiu and Peter's breath away (like it did our

first time there). We headed down to the beach and set up a picnic spot between

A stop at the Wind Dance Winery

some of the monolithic rocks that lined the beach as far as you could see. We all got our bathing suits on, slathered the
sunscreen on and headed for the surf. After getting
bandied about by the waves for a bit we enjoyed a picnic lunch in the little bit of shade we could find. After a beach walk (I took a nap), we headed

Peter and Silka - Surfer's Point

back to Dunsborough. We stopped at a couple
of wineries on our way back - Swings &

Roundabouts and Wind Dance Winery - for
a couple of tastings. We ended up buying a
couple bottles of wine between us which we
enjoyed with our steak and prawn dinner that
night - delicious!

Surfing Tribal Law

Sunday we went and checked out the town of  Margaret River and ate a late lunch at the Duckstein Brewery. When we arrived at Margaret River, we walked around and perused many of the shops. We then drove out to Prevelly Park and Surfer's Point - one of the most popular destinations for surfing in South Western Australia. They hold a big surfing competition there in April every year. We were starting to feel pretty peckish so we headed

Duckstein Brewery

off to the Duckstein brewery. It was quite a place and we had a pretty good meal there. I ate the 

Rein putting his feet up at the
Duckstein Brewery

vegetable stack, Tiiu
               had their chicken ceasar salad, Peter had their steak sandwich and Tom had their grill plate. It was a substantial sampling of all things German - sausage, sauerkraut, and a smoked porkchop. The kids weren't so adventurous - sausage and chicken nuggets. On the way back to Dunsborough we kept our eye out for Kangaroos because Peter hadn't seen any yet. No luck. We stopped at Simmo's Creamery for an ice cream. Tom and the kids went and said hello to their ice-cream eating Emu - they managed to hold onto their ice cream although there were a couple of close calls. 

Eating a late lunch at the Duckstein Brewery

Kangaroo Paw at Duckstein Brewery

A stop for ice cream at Simmo's Creamery

Entering Mammoth Caves

When we got back, I napped (yes, again) while the rest of the gang went swimming. We enjoyed a few nibblies for dinner - we were still pretty full from our late lunch.

Monday morning we got going fairly early, checked out of Halcyon Bay and headed to Margaret River for breakfast at the Margaret River Bakery. Again, we enjoyed fantastic and reasonably priced morning fare. We then headed south about twenty minutes to Mammoth Caves.
Vanaema had been looking forward to treating us
with this experience. The caves were located under a beautiful forest of Karri and Marri trees.

Stalactites

Stalagmites

The Karri tree grows to 90 metres, making it one of the tallest species in the world. It has white to cream bark that changes to brown as it matures and is shed. As the bark is shed the predominantly white trunk takes

Exiting the Caves

on a patina of colours from white to grey to deep brown. The botanical name “diversicolor” means “separate colours” and refers to the difference between the top of the leaf and its under-side while the common name is derived from the aboriginal name for the tree. The Marri tree grows to 30m in height with rough grey bark. It produces white to pink flowers from summer to autumn. A reddish brown gum can often be seen exuding from the trunk. Large fruit,

Stalactite and Stalagmite that have joined at end of the caves

commonly referred to as “honkey nuts” can be readily seen hanging from the tree. We decided to take the self-guided tour through the caves with headsets and recorded explanations of what we were seeing. This way we could accommodate the kids if they needed to go to the bathroom or saw something so exciting we had to deviate from course then we would have the freedom to do so without missing anything. Well, the caves were pretty spectacular. My pictures really don't do them any justice (check out the link above for better pictures) but we walked through them just filled with 

awe. You could strongly sense the age of the caves -

thousands of years that have dripped down and built up through stalactites and stalagmites. We saw many of them that have even connected. It would have been something else to have been the first one to hack through the bush and discovering them. When we started climbing the long, steep stairs out of the caves, we were concerned for an 

Tom and a Karri Tree

older women that was behind us. However, she did emerge still standing despite looking a bit dazed. The trek through is definitely not for the feint-hearted. We trekked through the Karri/Marri forest back to the entrance, handed in our headphone sets, and headed for the beach. This time we headed across the road and past Lake Caves to Contos Beach - another fantastic find. We would put it right up there with Injidup Beach. There was something there for everyone. Great waves for body-surfing, and these fantastic "wave pools" for Silka to play in and the adults to just float and cool off in. Occasionally, a big wave would come along and

A swim, after the caves, at Contos Beach

freshen up the water for us. It was HOT and sunny so we didn't stay too long and we had to head back to Perth. We will definitely be back!
We took a round about way back and stopped in Nannup for some lunch. We eventually arrived back at 36 Eton. We ordered Indian food that night and headed off to bed early. We were all knackered

Cooling off in the "wading pools" at Contos Beach

from travelling and the sun. The next morning it was back to the daily routine. I dropped the kids off, went grocery shopping and then took Tiiu and Peter on a tour of Perth. We dropped the rental van off and then headed to King's Park. I took them for walk through the botanical gardens - I had to show them the Boab tree that travelled 3000 km (see previous post). We ate some egg salad sand-
wiches as we looked out onto downtown Perth
and the Swan River. We then drove to Cottlesloe
and Swanborne Beach where they got to see
where we go for swimming and our beach barbecues. We then picked up the kids and
headed for Pinnaroo Valley Memorial Park (a cemetery). Our new friend, Stephen Satchell,

A barbecue dinner at Harvey and Kaye Tipping's place - fantastic!

introduced us to this special place. Peter had
never seen a kangaroo in the flesh and this was
the place to go. When we arrived, it wasn't long before we sighted our first 'mob' of Kangaroos.
Once again, the kids walked up to only a few
feet away from them. We drove to a second
spot where there was a mother with a joey in
her pouch. The joey did come out for a short
while. We then drove a little further and came
upon a group of people gathered around the
grounds keeper who was feeding some of the



kangaroos. He let the kids feed a few of them as well.... couldn't have been a better first experience with kangaroos for Peter. Thank you, Steven!
We headed home, picked up Tom and drove to Harvey and Kaye Tipping's place for a barbecue dinner. They were wonderful hosts - the dinner was delicious and we had a fantastic time. It was a great way to wrap up our visit with Tiiu and Peter.
It was a sad and quick good-bye the next morning as Steven pulled away with them in his cab. We had a wonderful time with you vanaema and Peter - Thank You! We miss you already!