Hutt River Province

Well we've had our first international trip for the year! We made the journey to Hutt River Province - Australia's second biggest country which seperated from Australia 40 years ago. Prince Leo is 84 and still going strong. He was doing immigration duties when we arrived and was pretty happy to go through the whole check in caper. I now have a completely blank passport except for one stamp - Hutt River.

Prince Leo was very entertaining. Unfortunately we were unable to meet Princess Shirley - she was making lunch.

Merredin to Tom Price

We have had many adventures after leaving Merredin. Had a lovely time up the coast. Visited the pinnacles, went through stockmans gully caves and visited Kalbarri. We caught up with Roy and Kim and Angus and Tully again which was great. Apparently young Angus is having withdrawl symptoms since being seperated from Darcy. Hopefully we'll catch up again in Broome.

Geocaching

We have started geocaching which is like a worldwide treasure hunt. People have hidden over a million geocaches around the world and logged their coordinates on the web at www.geocaching.com . The caches contain trinkets and a logbook. You can take things out and should replace them with something of your own. We usually put stubby holders back in and use the trinket to decorate Dane. You can find them using a hand held GPS. It’s been a lot of fun and usually takes us to places that are pretty interesting that we may not otherwise visit.

New Norcia - back on the road

It was a bit of a shock getting back on the road after the luxury of living in the BIG house in Merredin. Happy to be back among the dust, heat, flies and long drop dunnies – nothing like it.

Dropped in to see the monks at New Norcia, Australia’s only monastic community. The Benedictine monks have lived here for 150 years. Quite an industrious lot. They not only pray, but have all manner of industries up and running. They make and sell bread, wine, beer, clothes and food. They have a roadhouse and even a pub. Darcy and I were very greatful for the pub because we could sit in comfort and watch the magpies destroy the Hawks (sorry Diedre). What would we do without the monks?

Ruby & Darcy are 10!!!

How did that happen so quickly! On the 9th of April those two little babies suddenly became quite big. We had roast lamb for dinner and they got more presents than thet deserve.

BIG THINGS

No trip around Australia would be complete without a tour of BIG THINGS. We haven’t actively sought any BIG THINGS because experience tells us that they are universally pretty crap places to visit, but it has been disappointing to report that we have only been to four BIG THINGS (that’s only one per month in a county renowned for its BIG THINGS).

Our first BIG THING was the BIG CRAYFISH at Kingston SA. Dane was tremendously impressed – mainly because he is tied on the back of the van and dosen’t get to see much.

The BIG KANGAROO at Bordertown was very exciting after the monotony of the Nullabour trip, but would probably struggle in any other setting.

I was very impressed with the Wagin (WA) BIG RAM’S MASSIVE TESTICLES.

And undoubtedly the worst big thing was the BIG CAMERA, a very tired attempt at a BIG THING at Kellerberrin WA. Hopefully the BIG THING community will lift its game and show us something truly memorable before we get home.

FAIRBRIDGE FESTIVAL

We travelled down to near Pinjarra to go to the Fairbrige Festival. Jann came with us and we met Harry and Grace and Roy, Kim, Angus and Tully there. It is held at the huge bushland site of a former Orphanage where thousands of people come to camp and have a great time for the weekend. There are literally dozens of venues at the festival all with a wide variety of different acts and activities. We saw almost every conceivable genre of music and even some new ones. How about “tango rockabilly latin gypsy deathcore punk” (I kid you not – and strangely enough I think it was the perfect description for the Barons of Tang). There was lots of street theatre, craft activities, circus skills, convict ghost stories, flying foxes, rope swings, rock climbing, places to eat and drink and all in a remarkable array of buildings, marquees, tepees and in the open. And of course there was a very diverse crowd, perfect for people watching.

The camping grounds were massive with just about everyone there staying for the weekend. I can thoroughly recommend the Fairbridge Festival – not tuna toss but excellent fun all the same.

BIG HOUSE

While we are in Merredin the hospital has put us up in a very BIG house. We could almost park the van in the bathroom I think. We have five bedrooms (one each, including Jann), three TV’s, a spa, three showers and walk in robes that are almost as big as our bedroom at home. It could be a bit of a challenge to shoehorn the family back into the van when we leave, I feel the time is ripe for a rebellion.

MERREDIN

We are in Merredin working for two weeks. It is in the Wheatbelt of WA about halfway between Perth and Kalgoorlie. There are about 3 thousand people living here and it seems like a very pleasant place to live. The X-Ray department has one room, and I am the only radiographer. The hospital is not very big and everyone seems to know everyone else pretty well. The ladies in the kitchen are feeding me very well and Tracey and I have been walking every morning so I don’t get too fat.

We went to Merredin railway museum where by chance we met John Rutherford (84) who was the first West Australian to play test cricket for Australia.

Jann is staying with us while we are here and she is having fun catching up with us all. She has been playing school teacher but Tracey says she gives them the answers too easily.

Perth cont...

Well the rest of our time in Perth has been very busy. Tracey, Sylvia and Harry took Rube, Grace and Anna to see Alice at the movies while Darcy and I went to see Swan Districts (black and white stripes) beat South Fremantle with Lana and Holly. Harry also took the kids for a session on the waterslides at Hilarys and managed to almost knock himself out while Ruby pulled a toenail off and Darcy got a corked thigh. Grace was the only one to get flushed through unscathed.

We visited the Fremantle prison for a torchlight tour which was a bit spooky. The picture is of Darcy just about to have his "inspection" before being incarcerated. There were actors dressed as prisoners who would roam around talking to the visitors about the place. We tried to leave Anna there but she escaped.

The Easter Bunny was smart enough to be able to find the kids so far away from home. I think Anna’s letter made it very clear to him where we were.

Thanks to Harry and Grace for having us. They were perfect hosts. We left after 9 days of being very well fed and entertained. It was great to meet Lana and Holly as well and hopefully we will be able to catch up later in our travels.