Tuesday, September 28, 2010

El Questro!

Friday was the last day of term 3 here in Western Australia, yahhh, that means two weeks of school holidays stretched out in front of us! So we packed up the car and joined Mr and Mrs F once again on an adventure. We went to El Questro, again! At 421,000 square kilometres, - that’s five times the size of Tasmania, 1.7 times the size of the United Kingdom and 10 times the size of Switzerland (according to their website), I think we can safely assume that we will see something different this trip!

We camped this time, in our own tent, cooked our dinner and breakfast on our little gas burner. The kids thought it was fantastic! After we had set up camp on the Saturday, we drove out to Branco’s Lookout. Cracked open a bottle of champers and had some nibbles and toasted that we had survived term 3 of the school year!

The next day we were up early and day went to El Questro Gorge. Here is Daz and Mr F just checking out the depth of the first water crossing. Yep, looks good, lets go boys!

It was a shaded walk. Clear pools and ferns growing up one side, very pretty.

We set up the self timer on the camera and managed to get a shot in what they call the half way pool. The trail here stopped being a blue easy trail and went up to a hard red from this point. With the girls in tow we didn't go any further. To get around this rock you had to climb up the waterfall on the right or the rock on the left, bit tricky!

That afternoon we went on a boat cruise up Chamberlain Gorge. It has towering 300 metre escarpments and no crowds as you can only get to it by boat. On the drive down to the jetty though you do catch a glance of the posh Homestead accommodation.

We stayed at what is called the Station. They had created a little swimming pool in the Pentecost River which we all loved dipping in. Milly practiced her floating. Little fish would nibble your ankles though which for me took a bit to get used to.

There were donkeys and some horses near the camp ground. They woke us every morning with their loud eorrrrr! One morning while I was trying to drink my coffee in peace I sent the girls up with the camera to take some shots and Grace came back with this one of Milly. I don't know who was more impressed with themselves, Milly for touching the donkey or Grace for taking a great photo.

Then as we left this morning,we turned the corner to find these brogla's calmly drinking in the river. Thanks for another great time El Questro, see you soon!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

The Stick Insect!

Another weekend, another Sunday day trip exploring before it gets too hot to move outside! We caught up with fellow explorers Mr and Mrs F who have lead us on many adventures and this time we were heading out of town "about 4okms towards the border, turn left down a track then a right and then left again". That was the rough directions!

Then we arrived at what we think is called Thompson's Pool. We think.... With directions so vague it could have been the place or we could have discovered somewhere new. The interesting thing about this one is that someone, once made a little wall to dam it up the top! It was all bricked in very neatly and if we walked up the top there was this little pool.

Which the girls enjoyed splashing in. You could sit on the wall, it was wide enough to walk on, the drop was about 5 meters. We wondered who had dammed it and when and why?

We were later just sitting around eating lunch and chatting when Grace spotted this stick insect in the water! She went in and rescued it to her delight. It was huge!!!!

The colours on it were amazing.

When Mr F wanted to take a photo, he was quite friendly working for the camera. Grace wanted to bring him home for news the next day. I said no!

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Parry's Lagoon.

A few weekends ago we took a day trip to a place 90kms away called Parry's Lagoon. It is a Nature Reserve of 36 000 (yes, thirty six thousand!) hectares and is listed by Wetland of International Importance, for the feeding and breeding grounds for many birds.

We stopped at Parry Creek Farm for some lunch and the girls had a swim in their pool. Daz and I sat poolside with our mango smoothie and just watched them splash and got to chat in peace for a few rare minutes. They have a tree top walkway around one of the lagoons which leads to private little cabins you can rent out. What a view from your window!

Massive boab tree's in their garden!

Then we drove down to Mambi Island, which isn't really an island. It is a notorious spot for saltwater crocodiles, I am yet to see one in the wild. Here are the girls, Milly: "Is that a croc Grace?"

Grace: "No Matilda, that is a bird!"

And a little muddy water crossing on the way home.

Getting the tyres wet just for fun! And that was a nice 4 hour day trip out of town for the day.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Boab Tree.

Took this shot yesterday. It's one of my favorite shots I have taken while up here, love it. It is bluer at the top cause it was taken out the window of the car. I have the last two Sunday day trips to blog about over the next few days but in the meantime you can just look at this shot. I have fiddled around with the blog settings so things look bigger and better.