Perth and the South Coast

After our fun weekend in Geraldton we arrived in Perth ready to move house. The morning we left Geraldton I had seen updated info on the ship carrying our van saying that it had arrived in Fremantle so we knew we were close now. Upon our arrival at Perth we checked out our new home for the next week or so which will be the same park we are booked into for Christmas. It wasn't super busy, was pretty close to every shop imaginable and Charli was thrilled to find a bathtub in the amenities block. Knowing we still had a few days we slowly began packing up our belongings to make the transition as easy as possible.

Tuesday found us fixing some items in the van that had been damaged, specifically a patch of wall that had begun delaminating and needed to be repaired. We ended up using patterned contact/wallpaper to cover the mess (once it had been sanded and filled). While the pattern hid the damage well it was a bugger to line everything up properly.

On Wednesday we decided to go out for some fun while we waited for the call about the van, deciding to visit Whiteman Park with our bikes. As we arrived we got the notification we had been waiting for asking us to come and pick it up at 9.30 the next morning. With this excitement we arrived at the park, cooked some sausages on the BBQ for lunch and went for a ride. We then visited the children's forest which the kids loved exploring.

Thursday morning arrived and we excitedly headed to Canningvale to pick up our van. It was so exciting to finally see it in person and get a real picture of the sizes of things like cupboards. We spent the remainder of our afternoon moving our stuff across to the new van and slowly working out where everything would go (and rearranging it multiple times over the following days as we found better ways of doing things). Work continued over the next few days interspersed with some small outings to the shops and around the Swan Valley which we did on Saturday afternoon after my blood donation that morning. We stopped in at a distillery (and bought some spiced rum), chocolate factory (yummy purchases for all), a brewery (for tasting), and an icecream shop (for icecream of course!). It was nice to have an afternoon off from sorting out the van and neglecting our children.

Sunday found us at the Perth 4x4 and caravan expo which just happened to be on. We didn't really find anything we were looking for but funnily enough we ran into the couple that had picked up our old van only 2 days before, lucky they were still happy! We finished p and enjoyed a picnic on the banks of the river overlooking Perth city. With our lack of success we popped into 4x4 Supacentre and walked out with a 90lt fridge, and some bags for the girls clothing.

On Monday Dave was out for the day doing some training in confined spaces and working at heights to help with some work in the new year so the girls and I braved the rain and the public transport system to pop up to the shopping centre. Our main mission was to get Charli's ears pierced as the deal was the girls can get it done when they turn 8. While Charli's birthday was just under 2 weeks away at this point, we allowed her to get it done early while we had easy access to a shop that did it. She was very nervous in the lead up to this as she remembered Elly screaming when she had hers done but a repeated mantra reminding her that "Elly is a big fat whoos" kept her laughing and got her through and now she loves it (although she was shocked that she now had holes in her ears??)!

Before we left Perth on Thursday we decided to go out for dinner on Wednesday night for both of the girls birthdays. This was almost cancelled when Dave decided to drill a hole through his finger! Silly boy was trying to take shortcuts and put the 5mm drill bit stright through leaving 2 nice holes. Some quick first aid and some pain killers and he was determined we would still go out. Our plan was to take them to Sizzler as they were closing their restaurants on Sunday but when we arrived and saw the queue we decided that the wait wasn't worth the experience and ended up at Hogs Breath Cafe instead. While the service left a lot to be desired the food was good and the kids were happy.

We left Perth the next morning (or should I say afternoon really) after I finally convinced Dave to go to the doctor to check his finger. Nothing was broken or stuck inside so we were good to go. We drove about an hour and a half south to a property in Yarloop that we had been told about by fellow isolators back in Kununurra. We planned to stay here for a week and do day trips out.

Our first trip was on Friday for Elly's 10th Birthday. She had decided she wanted to visit the Dolphin Discovery Centre in Bunbury. We headed into town to pick up some bacon and made breakfast in a park before visiting the centre. The girls had a brilliant time learning about dolphins and other marine wildlife but their favourite activity was using the VR goggles which they did twice. They also enjoyed decorating pictures and scanning them into the fish tank and we all made Happy Birthday creatures for Elly. That night we enjoyed beef schnitzels for dinner and apple crumble for dessert (with candles of course).

Saturday was spent hanging out at the campsite and then Sunday we visited Mandurah. We had lunch in a park and then wandered the foreshore taking photos with their art installations. We also discovered a Christmas shop and while Dave was nervous about us going in he was pleased to see us walk out empty handed. On our way back to the car we decided an ice-cream was in order and we stopped at Simmos Delicious Dilemmas where Elly tried the apple pie ice-cream which tasted exactly like eating a piece of apple pie with some ice-cream.

On Monday we ended up driving back to Perth as we had located a place that stocked the walls to fit our awning. We took care of a few other jobs while we were there including sending off the last of the family Christmas gifts back to Melbourne and visiting 3 different Bunnings stores to find what Dave needed. We then spent the next 2 days in camp hiding from more bad weather and catching up on work/schoolwork and just resting. Dave decided to install the diesel heater as we had had a few cool nights and it was a surefire way of making sure the nights were warmer and we wouldn't need it.

Thursday found us exploring the local towns with most of our stops being in Harvey. We began with a climb up the big orange before heading into town. The old cottage behind the info centre was once the home of May Gibbs, author of the Gumnut Babies stories and we enjoyed the display in the visitor centre. We also visited Ha-Ve cheese and enjoyed some tasting, walking out with some Haloumi and some herb and garlic butter. From here we returned to Bunbury to get some work done on the suspension at ARB so we spent the afternoon on a walking tour. We visited Taffy's lolly shop (again left with purchases) and climbed the lookout tower before walking along the beach and back to collect the car.

Friday was birthday number 2 with Charli celebrating her 8th birthday. Her choice of activity was to visit Penguin Island off the coast at Rockingham so back up the hwy we went. While the island was not what she expected she still enjoyed herself and we saw a lot of nesting seagulls. We followed this up with a hot chip picnic on Rockingham beach before returning to the campsite to make pizzas for dinner, while the girls watched Mamma Mia the DVD Charli had received for her present.

Our final day in Yarloop was spent slowly packing everything away ready to move on to our next adventure.