Perth to Cervantes

Day #142 February 2nd, 2009

We got up at 7:30 AM to beat everyone to the nice showers, and get packed up to be out of the park at 10 AM. We still haven’t found a home for everything in the van yet – so packing up takes us a bit of time. Hopefully, we will be quicker at it as time goes on. After we checked out of Karrinyup we headed to find some caravan stores to find out why our lights and water pump were only working sometimes. Today it is HOT out, doing errands is very difficult when all you’re doing is sweating buckets. We finally found a caravan place and figured out why we were having difficulties. Our problem was easily fixed with a battery charger; a charger that charges the auxillary battery while we are plugged into 240V at each camp site, rather then the alternator charging while we are only driving. After finding one, we headed to the Big W (like a crappy WalMart) for the rest of our odds & ends, and groceries at Woolworths. After all that was done, we drove to Subway and both ate a foot long sub! Yum! And enjoyed sitting in the air conditioned restaurant. With full bellies we started our drive to our first destination, Cervantes. The drive was ridiculously hot, and because we were driving in the middle of the afternoon we had the sun just beating down on us. Jenny burnt her left arm as we didn’t think that we had to keep reapplying sunscreen on in the van. We both drank about 3 litres of cordial and we were soaked from sweating so much. We have never been so hot in our entire lives. The drive was short only about 3 hours drive to Cervantes, a little town North of Perth, but it felt like a century. There was nothing to special about the town itself, the caravan park we stayed at was a thumbs down. When we got into the caravan park it was really windy and cold, we were disappointed after being so hot driving but we were determined to swim anyways. The temperature had fallen from about 40 degrees to no warmer then 20 degrees. After setting up the van in our spot, we headed down to the beach. On the path through the dunes we saw a black snake – scared us a bit but it was more scared of us. The water was warm, clear and shallow. We only had a short swim due to the cold wind but it felt good to swim. On our way of the water, Jenny saw a jelly fish and shortly after felt something bite her heal. She was ok, nothing big – just enough to scare us. The next day after checking out of the caravan park, everyone was surprised to hear that we saw a jelly fish, as they are not known to be in that area. We had a great sleep that night, nothing else too exciting, just researched what we were going to do the next day.

First camping experiences in the van

Day #141~February 1st, 2009

We slept in today at Karrinyup Waters Caravan Park. We spent two nights here, very nice park for our first park. We are getting used to the van and where everything is etc. The park itself was so nice, our site was in front of a pond with lots of ducks, swans and Australian bird life that we haven’t seen yet. We spent the entire day in the pool! It was such a nice and relaxing day. The pool was really nice, it had a walk in shallow end that you could gradually walk down the slope into the deep end, which was about 8 ft deep. There was also a hot pool that was also a good size being 5.5 ft deep in the middle. The park was clean, with lots of amenities everywhere, the camp kitchen and BBQ area, play area and jumping pillow for kids, and the pond as we mentioned before. The staff were very friendly and informative about travelling North. We gave this park a two thumbs up – we decided to take pictures in front of the park entry sign giving it a thumbs up or down whether we liked it or not. Also a good way for us to remember where we’ve stayed.

Our last days in Perth

Since Rottnest Island both of us have been busy working and trying to save as much money as possible. We took on as many shifts as we could and accepted overtime when the opportunity was there. Unfortunately this meant working different shifts from each other. We did all the local touristy things around Perth and spent as many days as we could at the beach on our days off together. Before we knew it our 3 months were over and we were packing up our room. With work complete we decided to have all of our friends and housemates that we met in Perth over for a BBQ. On Friday night we had a great time with our friends, lots of food and of course booze. Pretty much everyone is able to make it, Brigid and Mark (our housemates/Irish friends), Jonah and Louise (new housemates), Michelle and Adam (our new Canadian friends from Ottawa!), Zoe (no Ben) and Charmaine (friends we met through the hospital) and some of Brigid and Marks Irish friends too. We all ate well and had a great night. Saturday the 31st of January we woke up and cleaned up the house/back yard, packed up the van with all our clothes and food. It was a very hot day, and in retrospect we should have started to pack earlier. But nonetheless we had the van packed by late afternoon, said our good byes to Brigid and Mark and headed to Karrinyup Waters Caravan Park for the night. Karrinyup is a very nice caravan park in Perth, our site was right in front of a pond with lots of duck, swans etc. After a busy day of packing in the heat we were just happy to crash for the night.

Back up and running!

Hey everyone, as many of you know our blog was postponed after our bad luck in Rockingham. With out our laptop it made updating the blog very difficult and expensive. So what we decided to do was wait until we could either buy another computer or had better access to internet. Well the latter has come true, as we are now staying with a family friend. In October of last year, Tennille stayed with my parents in Guelph for a week during her Rotary exchange. My parents really enjoyed hosting Tennille, and couldn’t say enough about her. They told us that we would have to meet her as we drove through Melbourne. Well as luck would have it, we weren’t able to find work in Adelaide so we continued on to Melbourne to better our chances. When we arrived into Melbourne, we decided it would be best to find work for 3 months or so. When we met Tennille, and her partner Jace and their 10 year old boy, Kobe, we were blown away that they wanted us to spend our 3 month stay with them. So with access to the internet, a warm place to stay and bed to sleep in, we’re extremely grateful of Tennille and Jace’s hospitality. We are now able to update the blog and bring all of you up to speed on our travels through out Oz. Unfortunately there won’t be any of our pictures from our travels North of Perth, but with the help of some of our friends we are able to show you, through their eyes what it looked like. From now on the entries will be directly from Jenny’s journal that she has used to remember our trip. We have been working on it together since we stopped updating the blog, in order to include both of our perspectives and share our experiences with you. Hope you enjoy!!

Hey everyone for now the blog is on hold because as most of you know, if not all of you, we no longer have a computer. We are in the process of researching our options, but for now internet is very scarce. We apologize to all of you who have enjoyed following us along and we will hopefully be up and running soon! Hope everyone is well and are warming up in the spring weather. We are doing well otherwise and are in the most beautiful place in the world, at least in our eyes.

Miss you all,

Jenny and Ross
xoxo

We're alive!

Hey guys, sorry it's been so long since our last entry. I'm sure you're getting frustrated checking the blog when there is not entry but don't fret because we are working on it. December and January in Perth were relatively boring, just working working and working. But now we are on the road and have more opportunity to update the blog. Blogger.com is giving some problems but we think we have them worked out. We are having an amazing time travelling up the West coast and have already seen so much! So stay tuned and check in in a few days and we promise you, you won't be dissapointed. Miss you all

JR

Rottnest Island

Pristine beaches, hundreds of bikes, quokkas, peacocks and a lifestyle that exudes relaxation. This is Rottnest Island, an island about a 40 minute ferry ride from Perth. Rottnest Island is a popular getaway destination for Perthites and residents of WA. There are no civilian vehicles on the island, so the first thing visitors do when they arrive is rent a bike. Jenny and I both had a few days off together and the weather looked great. Unfortunately it’s not cheap to get to Rotto, $72 per person one way, so we thought it would be best if we bought a package that includes one nights accommodation, bike hire and the ferry ride. This was the best option because of the size of the island, approximately 11km long and 3 km wide, there is just too much to see in one day.
When we decided to go to Rotto on Saturday afternoon we knew that our Sunday afternoon was going to be busy looking for snorkeling equipment. Jenny and I both wanted to purchase our own equipment instead of always renting it so we set a reasonable budget and went shopping. We found a local dive shop at the Hillary’s boat harbor, which is where we will be picking up the ferry the next morning. The dive shop had a great beginner’s package which included a mask, fins, snorkel and reef boots, so we got fitted and each bought one. We were so excited and surprised on the ease of finding equipment the first try that suits our budget and fits well. So with snorkeling equipment checked off the list all we had to do was buy our accommodation package. Our trip started early Monday morning when the rest of Perth was rushing to get to work, Jenny and I were getting excited to spend two days relaxing, sun tanning at the beach and of course try our new snorkeling equipment. We arrived at Hillary’s 30 minutes before departure which gave us time to pick our bikes at the harbor and put them on the ferry. Jenny and I were anxiously awaiting for the weather to improve so we could spend a day or two on Rottnest, and with the forecast calling for high 28 degrees on Monday and then 31 degrees on Tuesday withe sunny skies, we figured it was the perfect time to venture out to Rotto. So when we boarded the ferry at around 8 AM it was already about 20 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. It was really turning out to be an excellent two days, but as we pulled away from the jetty and hit the sea, I realized an old problem I have was rearing its ugly head. With the combination of the hot sun beating down on me and the motion of the rough swell I quickly remembered the torturous feeling of motion sickness. Rendered helpless, I told Jenny that I wasn’t feeling too well, so we moved out of the sun. I laid on her lap which is when the show began. For those of you that know me well, you know that in certain undesirable situations like being hung over or feeling motion sick my body feels that it’s necessary to sweat, A LOT! It’s an awkward and embarrassing symptom of a pissed off stomach but obviously helps to cool my body down. Poor Jenny was forced to hold me as I sweated all over her lap, but the feeling subsided slowly and before I knew it we were arriving to the main jetty on Rottnest Island.
Our first impression was, wow! We couldn’t believe that we were only a short boats ride to Perth, it felt like we were on a secluded tropical island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. As we left the ferry and stepped onto the jetty we were amazed by the number of bikes we saw. The primary way to get around the island is on bike, and everyone had one. Because we already booked our accommodation at the Lodge which is one of the islands hotels, we didn’t need to pick up our bags and bring them ourselves, as they had their own service that would do that for us. In retrospect we should have just picked up our back pack ourselves as we walked passed it on the Jetty. When we arrived to our hotel room we were told that it shouldn’t take long for our bags to arrive and that they will be brought directly to our room when they had them. Well we arrived to our room at around 9 and didn’t get our bags until after 11. We weren’t very impressed as the weather was gorgeous and the beaches were calling our names. Someone that we met who is actually from Ottawa told us to go to a little beach that’s in a bay and secluded from the breaking waves because there is excellent snorkeling there. After finding Little Salmon Bay on the map and grabbing our snorkeling gear and bikes we were off. The bike ride was harder than anticipated, rolling hill after rolling hill and over 5kms long, we were pleasantly surprised when we turned a corner to see a picturesque view of Little Salmon Bay. Turquoise water, a small private beach and the sound of crashing waves awaited us. We spent the whole day relaxing on the beach and trying out our snorkeling gear, but unfortunately the wind was blowing directly into us and the water was cool. We had a great day soaking up the rays and luckily we were smart enough to bring some food and drinks as the nearest store was 5km away. When we headed back to our room we were starving and craving some fish‘n chips so we headed to the Quokka Arms, the only pub on the island. What we thought would be a very ordinary meal turned out to be a very cool and new wild life experience for us. We ate with peacocks and quokkas and enjoyed a spectacular view of the ocean as the sun slowly set. At one point during dinner Jenny felt something furry on her foot and had a little freak out session. When she looked down to see what it was, she saw a little quokka minding its own business looking for food. Quokkas are the reason why Rottnest is the name of the island. The Dutch discovered the island and when they arrived they were greeted by hundreds of these cute little animals and actually thought they were rats, and subsequently named the island Ratsnest Island. Quokkas are nocturnal animals that are covered in a brown soft looking fur and have a thick rat like tail. The best time to see the famous quokka is at sunrise or sundown but more often than not you can see one or two hopping around without a care in the world.

The second day was much like the first, we found a beautiful beach which was apparently awarded the title of Australia’s best beach. The beach was appropriately called The Basin, an area on the island that has fine white beautiful sand, with an amazing never ending view of the ocean. The reason why it’s called The Basin is because of the large flat rocks under the surface of the water that create a shallow swimming area with large deep open areas perfect for swimming and snorkeling in and amongst them. It was another great day at the beach, and the nice thing about The Basin is that it’s only a 10 minute walk from the Lodge. We left the beach around 3 as we had to be at the ferry for 4:30, so we hiked back to the Lodge grabbed our bags and then headed to the main jetty. As a precaution Jenny and I both took some gravol type pills in hopes that we wouldn’t have another episode like last time. The ocean turned out to be much smoother and was the perfect way to end our holiday in a holiday.