Holiday

Here's a selection of photos from our travels to the UK and Singapore. Starting with the wave machine on Santosa Island in Singapore. The beach resort with Phil's colleague who runs the Singapore office followed by the aquarium, the highest bar in Singapore, the botanical gardens. Lastly some pictures from the Isle of Wight.

Esperance

We decided to spend Easter in Esperance, a town on the South coast 9 hours drive from Perth. I had to go and visit the port and it seemed like a cool pace to visit anyway. Up at 4am on Good Friday and after a false start we finally left Perth at about 5.30am.

We go to drive though the Perth hills to the East of the city, which was a lovely rural region with a lot more green than we'd though it would be. After 4.5 hours driving we hit Hyden which has a rock formation that looks like a wave and a cave with some aboriginal art. The highlight was probably the service stations where we saw how the Aussies holiday. One family had loaded up their HGV with one 4x4 with no back door and a quad bike inside. Behind that there was another 4x4 with the dog in it. The family squeezed in the HGV cab for the journey to who knows where.

Anyway we finally arrived in Esperance by about 4pm. We were invited to the harbour master's house for a drink in the evening and he had a great house with a balcony overlooking the port. The result of that little encounter was that we were both invited to have a free helicopter trip courtesy of the port and a 4x4 trip along the beach to see all the best sights of the region.

I had an early start on Saturday to see a ship moor in the port and then Becks joined us and we jumped in Rob's 4x4 and drove the length of Esperance bay along the beach, up some big and steep rocks, and round to Australia's whitest beach. Amazing stuff and you could only access it with a 4x4.

We then headed to the new Stone Henge. We had though this sounded a bit naff, but Rob to
us the story behind it. A guy in Albany decided to build a stone henge as a tourist attraction and had a guy in Esperance make the stones. The guy from Albany went bust and the guy who

Sunny Saturday in April

Quite an eventful day really. It started early in Fremantle with a didgeridoo lesson, thanks to Amanda for the Christmas present.

We then borrowed a bicycle and cycled over to East Fremantle and along the Swan River up to Point Walter. Here there were a bunch of kids jumping off rocks about 10m high into the river. A very refreshing way to cool off after the bike ride.

We then followed this up by going to our first roller derby event. This is basically a race around an indoor loop where two teams of about 5 girls race and block each other. It's quite full on and there were a lot of crashes and collisions and they're all padded up with knee and elbow pads etc. it was a Star Wars theme so there were a few storm troopers around, including one very overweight one.

March

Just a quick post to pop some photos up. Mostly from the Blues and Roots festival we went to in Fremantle last weekend, where we saw Graveyard Train (an Australian band, really good), Ben Harper, Rufus Wainwright, Paul Simon, Steve Miller Band, Jimmy Cliff, Santana. We had such a good time, and didn't stop dancing from the minute we got there. It was definitely the most civilised festival we've ever been to though - especially as it all ended at 10pm, and everyone politely made their way home, rather than camping out!

In other news, we actually had a day of bad weather during the week. I mean grey skies, over 40mph winds, and fairly torrential rain. But not to worry, we're back to clear sunny skies again... (although it is starting to get noticeably cooler - perhaps 'winter' is on its way?!). We're off to Esperance for the easter weekend, and the forecast there is much chillier - max 22 degrees, min 11 degrees (Perth is set to be around 27), so will need to pack a few jumpers etc. Not quite the snow boots that seem to be required back home though...

Sunset over the 'big top'

Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite

Rufus Wainwright, glowing

A misty morning on North Cottesloe beach (whilst waiting for my bus)

Sunset at Lancelin (having watched some dolphins feeding in the bay) 

A still from a rather unexciting video clip of the dolphin at Lancelin - it was far more exciting in person, honest!

Surfers out at North Cott - it's getting to be surf season!



River trip

We took the SUP boards out onto the Swan River this afternoon, after the wind had dropped right off so it was ideal - much easier than the open sea first time trip yesterday. We even saw a dolphin, and were on the water at the time, however it was too far away to take a decent photo. Was great to be able to see the jellyfish too, from the perspective of being above the water rather than in it - some of them are the size of footballs, but they're not stingers so nothing really to worry about. As you can see from the pictures, today was actually cloudy. Fancy that.

Van racking

Whilst Becks was away in Tasmania over the long weekend, I kept myself busy in manly fashion and built a racking system in the back of the van, and then put a stereo in. And then went to see Metallica at the Soundwave festival.

Tasmania

Bit out of sync date wise, but I just came back from a work sponsored trip to Tasmania. Arrived late Saturday (after a casual 7 hrs flying time via Melbourne) so had most of Sunday to myself. Total bliss! Hiked up mount Wellington in inappropriate footwear, but was very lucky with the weather. In fact, the whole time we were there it was pretty hot, which is apparently unlike Tasmania.

Here's a few photos mostly from my walk up the mountain, but also featuring my first sighting of a cork-hatted local. Pretty exciting find!