Tazzie Talk Carnarvon-Perth

Carnarvon – Monkey Mia

We have had a really good time this week. We got to Carnarvon and went sailing out on a 32ft yacht and at Monkey Mia we got to feed a dolphin!

Carnarvon

When we arrived at Sharon and Dave’s house we were greeted by a happy dog called Coco. She was super friendly, funny and cute. We were very lucky to be able to sleep inside which was really cool!

The Yacht

Before we got on the yacht dad gave me half a travel sick tablet and said that it might make me a bit sleepy and boy did it.

We got on the yacht I climbed up the mast which was really fun :)!! It was really fun, it was about 15ms but it didn’t feel that high.
 The yacht was huge it could sleep a heap of people. It had a big double bed that was really comfortable. It was so comfortable that I had 2 little sleeps on it.

When we were looking for animals we saw some sharks and some rays but no Dugongs or Dolphins. I really liked the little shark that was chasing the fish it was really funny and cute! We think it was a black tip reef shark.

We stopped for lunch and I had just woken up from a little nap so I jumped off the boat to freshen up and it was so cold!! I think I got mild hypothermia!! It got warmer after a while but that didn’t convince any of the others.

After lunch we went to a spot where we could fish and straight away we had a fish and it was a big Spanish mackerel it was 38cms. The rest of the fish were tiny they ranged from 14-17cms. Ryley got a big Jew fish that was 32cm.

It was really fun going out on the yacht and its sad leaving Sharon, Dave and Coco but we have another adventure ahead of us and that adventure is......................

Monkey Mia

When we got to Monkey Mia we were greeted by a very cute Blue Tongue Lizard. We were going to spoil ourselves here and stay in a cabin. It was beautiful and the beds were really comfortable.

The pool and Spa

We got there too late for the dolphin feeding on the first day so we went to the hot tub. The hot tub was really nice but the pool was freezing! We met a Canadian family of seven.  They were going around the world! We kept jumping in the pool and then back in the spa.

Dolphin Feeding

I got up really early because I couldn’t wait to see the beautiful dolphins. When we got down to the beach we had to wait up on the board walk because the dolphins were still coming into the beach.

There were three feeds and we stayed for all of them.

It was a really good time to be there because there was a new calve called Piper and she was Piccolos calve. She was the cutest thing in the entire world!

There are only 4 fish per bucket and because of the new calve the public can only feed 4 dolphins. Their names are Nicky, Puck, Surprise and her oldest calve Shock. Piccolo is the other one and she is Puck’s oldest calve and she has to be feed by a ranger because of her new calve Piper.


One of the boys fishing in the shallows



None of us got to feed any of the dolphins on the first 2 feeds but I got to feed Surprise on the last one of the day.



Puck the big poser.

 Surprise was really gentle and was one of the most beautiful things in the world. I loved her, she was just amazing and I could stand there all day just to watch her. It was about 2secs and then it was all over but it felt like time froze because I was in absolute amazement.

On the second day Ryley was the lucky one. He got to feed Puck, she is the show pony. She is really funny to watch. She was really good to take a picture of because she really liked to do lots of poses. 

On our last day Taj and Dad got a feed. Dad got to feed Nicky and Taj got to also feed Surprise.

Fishing

It was a really safe place so Ry and I went fishing by ourselves. We caught 18 fish all together.  They were all really small but I caught one Bream that we could have eaten.

On the second day of our fishing we caught lots of fish. I can’t remember how many but there was a lot. I think Ryley caught 15 and I caught 7. They were all little so we couldn’t eat any.


Our Canadian friends



 

Random Dancing

The Pinnacles

When we arrived at the pinnacles we didn’t know what to expect. We had just been to the best place in the world and we were now going to look at some rocks.

It was actually pretty cool! We played hide and seek, you had to hide behind a pinnacle and then mum had to try and find us with the camera.

I got to strike my moves on the old dance floor. Luckily there weren’t many people :)!



Lewie the Legend

 Perth
When we arrived in Perth I was really excited! We were going to watch Gray Hounds race! I had never been to a dog race but have been to heaps of Horse races.

The Dog Races

The dog races were really cool. We got to go right up to the fence and watch the dogs chase a fluffy fluoro orange and white toy rabbit. We got to meet Lewie the Legend. He had won the mot races at that ground and many more. We called him the ultra racing dog.

We got to bet on a heap of dogs and my favourite one was a dog called Blue Goose. He was paying $15 to win and he won. I made up a song and it went “ Go, go, go, go, go da Goose go da Goose” It went to the beat of the Staying Alive song!

We got to meet up with mum’s old friend Mat. He was really nice and he got me lemonade!!

One day maybe I can be a bell ringer haha.

The Bell tower

We met some nice people from over the road and they asked if we wanted free tickets to the Bell Tower. We had no idea of what the bell tower might be but we said yes and then went on our way.

The bell tower was really pretty but I’m telling you that I wouldn’t pay $30 to ring a bell. We didn’t ring the bell because it was really funny just to watch. The Bell ringers took their Bell ringing very seriously and they were very funny. They took their job to a whole new level. They looked very serious and we just kept laughing. I don’t think they could hear us but we still laughed!

I am missing you all so much. Hope to see you all soon Taz

Kristy’s Chat - Monkey Mia – Perth

Before we left Melbourne a friend suggested to me that while on tour we should take the opportunity occasionally to go on a holiday. 

There was never any doubt that the kids were going to love Monkey Mia.  It’s been 12 years since Chris and I were last here and we couldn’t wait to get back.  Having left Carnarvon in a deluge of tears we all travelled the day in quiet reflection.  We hadn’t explained to the kids how magical Monkey Mia is and therefore expectations were low on their behalf.  From the car park where we checked in, it was like any other place that we’ve stopped along the west coast.  It was here however that we chose to have a holiday! 

To the kid’s absolute delight rather than booking our usual powered site we booked into the resort instead (thanks Cath for getting our tax return done xox).  Each of us were to sleep in our own single/queen bed for two nights.  The toilet was only 10m away and our own private shower had fresh water.  Ah what a lovely start to our holiday.

Chris woke us at 7.30am to let us know that the dolphins had come in for their first feed.  We all raced down to the beach and the kids were blown away to see a pod of dolphins in knee deep water. 

 By far the most breathtaking moment was when the two week old baby Piper showed up, a collective sigh of appreciation was shared across the entire beach, followed by laughs and smiles as we watched Piper dive, turn,  jump and interact with the pod.  How lucky are we? The kids did not leave the beach until the last dolphin had swum off.  Even then the kids remained with the rangers asking a million questions.  The following day was the same story and by the end of the feeding session Tamsyn and Ry had both been picked to hand feed the dolphins.  Taj was upset about not getting picked but seemed to get over it with a little bribery.  We had checked out of the resort, hooked the van up and parked it in the car park. It amazes me how much of our stuff had ended up in the motel. 



My new adopted son is the little fella on the left.



While lazing in the hot tub we met a lovely Canadian family of 7 who are travelling around the world.   Both families expressed a desire to go on a charter to see sea life but their 5^th child was going to cost them extra in the deal.  That being the case, I can now inform everyone that I am the adoptive mother of a beautiful little 2 year-old boy.  With his mop of white hair he fitted in perfectly, the accent was a little hard to explain though.  Never-the-less we all boarded a huge catamaran and ventured out to sea attempting to spot dugongs, sharks, sea snakes and turtles.  It was amazing.  We must have seen 15 dugongs. 

 They’re just the most interesting and unusual animals in the sea.  So easy going and relaxed, cruising the shallows all day in the sunshine munching on seagrass. 

We disembarked the boat and headed towards the car park when unbeknown to us the kids lodged their first official protest of the holiday.  They were enforcing a sit-in until we had a family vote to stay another night.  Chris and I explained that the van was packed and hitched, the resort cost lots of money etc.  The kids argued that Monkey Mia is in fact the best place in the entire world.  With all arguments for and against presented votes were lodged 3 to 2 in favour of staying.  However it was back to basics and we unpacked the van. 

 Reluctantly Chris and I went and suffered through another session in the hot tub, followed by a cuppa and beer at the resort before heading off to hire some glass bottom boats.  We then cruised around the shallows watching fish and stingrays, hating every minute of it of course (damn those kids).  The kids headed off for a spot of fishing on their own leaving Chris and I to suffer yet another hot tub and couple of drinks (will he pain never end).  The following morning the kids went to the dolphin feeding again and finally Taj was picked to feed the dolphin as was Chris.  This time there was no argument, we were heading to Perth.

It was a long drive, but with three very happy kids in the car it never seems too bad.  Our first break for the day was late in the afternoon when we stopped at the Pinnacles to see these bizarre land formations rising from the sand dunes.  We played a couple of games of hide and seek and broke into some dance moves before heading off again.  We’ve realised that after eight hours of driving we all tend to go a little stir crazy, hence the dance moves to non-existent music.



Gotta love random dancing.  Don't be
fooled, Ry cuts loose!





Spot the Pentlands







Just when he thought the camera
had been put away.



We attempted to go to the Lancelin dunes before sundown but pushed the time barrier a little too far.  This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as after our roadside stay we headed back into Lancelin and found a gorgeous monument to participate in Remembrance Day.  The Lancelin dunes were good; having experienced Anna Bay’s sand dunes it’s fair to say we have very high standards.  After a few races down the dunes we headed to Perth with sand embedded in every fold of skin, every crevice and crack, hardly a comfortable journey.

Perth provided us with the realisation that our trip is coming to an end.  Driving in city traffic just reminded us of home and to be honest it’s all come around too quickly.  Having said that, Perth is the most beautiful city in Australia.  We enjoyed views from the Bell Tower and from Kings Park.  Even the kids were impressed.  We found factory outlets and restored the clothing tubs to half full status (we’ve had to throw out so many clothes because the kids have grown so much).  

 The highlight for the kids was attending the greyhound races where I got to catch up with yet another of my friends from my teenage years.  Matty Holmes hasn’t changed a bit, albeit a brief catch up it was lovely seeing him again and he finally got to add a personality to the names and photos of my kids. 

As Perth just reminded us of home we decided to head south to the well acclaimed Margaret River Region.  This did not disappoint.  The park that we are staying in has a five star kid rating, although Taj gives it 1000 stars.  It allows us to let them wander off while we relax.  They’ve found heaps of new  friends and taken the opportunity to break away from each other a little.  Unfortunately we were forced to interrupt their social development, driven by my need to get some good wine.  We headed out on the road to a thousand wineries, breweries, dairies, lolly factories and fudge factories. 



 To remain sober we also threw in a cave tour and some whale watching to break up the day.  It was a brilliant day.  I love watching the kids try all the different foods and explain the flavours.  Tamsyn even took great interest in the wine tasting, smelling all the different wine and ports (and you thought that the resemblance ended in our looks).  One of the great parts of the day was when I dragged the kids to a cave tour.  I quite like caves but the kids were really reluctant after their experience at Undurra.  I couldn’t have picked  a better cave then Ngiglis. 

 After a 10 minute tour you’re left to venture through the cave on your own, and boy what an adventure.  Beautiful stalactites and stalagmites, limestone and calcium curtains, tunnels and holes to crawls through, the kids had a ball.  Oh and in case you’re wondering, yes, I did manage to find one or two bottles of wine!

Cheese factory

After yet another family discussion we decided to extend our stay here to allow the kids some more play time (really, thanks Cath for our tax return, the budget’s looking good again) before heading to our most Southern point of the West.  As informed the south of WA is beautiful and we could spend months down here but Xmas is fast approaching and we still have about 3000km to go.  With a new set of tyres on the Patrol we should see the SA border sometime next week. 

Brewery

Love and miss you all,

Kristy 



Winery







Ry’s report Exmouth – Monkey Mia



This is Picolo with her two week old baby Piper.





This is a turtle nest.

 We drove into Exmouth and I felt sick, I had a cold.  We wandered down on the beach to see what there was and we saw lots of mating turtles.  They were really funny because the girl was smacking the boy in the face with her flipper.  We also went into the Ningaloo Reef National Park where we did a lot of snorkelling.  It was really cool.  Mum, dad and I got to swim with a green sea turtle it was amazing.  There were also lots of different types of fish.  My favourite was all the pretty parroties.  There was one that had lots of fluoro colours I dove down to it but it swam off really fast.  Tamsyn and dad got to swim with a white tip reef shark.  I was really jealous but then I got to swim with one of the fish that I had really wanted, a coral trout. They are red with blue spots.  It was a pretty good place for Taj to swim but he took in a mouth full of water first thing and then he didn’t want to swim anymore.  He ended up just going in the shallows which was good because he could still see fish there.  It was different to the GBR because it had hard coral, most of the fish were bigger though.  I liked them both the same.

You can see the turtle making her way back to the water
behind me.

At night we went to the beach to try and see if we could see a turtle laying her eggs.  As we wandered along we saw a turtle crawling up the beach, we sat down and waited for the turtle to start laying her eggs.  When they start laying their eggs you’re allowed to move within a meter of her back.  The eggs were white and really beautiful. When the turtle was making her way back down to the water we sat down to watch her go, and then she crawled right up to us and started rubbing her flipper on us.  Her shell was really smooth.  It was one of the best things I have done on this trip.



Catching Green Mud Crabs

 The next day we went to Learmonth jetty to do some fishing.  We caught lots of fish and I was talking to a guy on the jetty.  He asked me if I wanted to use his net but didn’t know how.  Then he asked me if we would like to stay at one of his houses in Exmouth.  It was much better than an expensive caravan park.  The house had an underground trampoline that was really fun, we played on that most the time.  They also brought their dog over who was really energetic and loved to play. His name was Harvey.  We liked to play fetch with Harvey and run around chasing the ball but Harvey was too quick.



Catching Tata Lizards

 As we arrived at Coral Bay I said Wow because it was really beautiful, it had lots of trees and a beautiful reef.  We went snorkelling but it was a bit rough and murky.  If you dove down you could see the fish.  We also went fishing but caught mainly longtoms that had really sharp teeth.  The next day we relaxed until lunchtime and went for another fish.  We caught mostly longtoms again.  We went fishing an hour before sunset and caught longtoms again.  When the sun went down a man caught a spangled emperor which was what we wanted to catch.  That was the start of the big bites.  We kept getting heaps of bites and they were snapping off our line. 


Catching fish

  I saw a big shark swimming across the top.  Then we got our first fish after sunset.  That night we ended up catching heaps of fish and plenty of keepers.  My favourite fish was the yellow tailed trevally.  We only kept one fish, our spangled emperor, it was over 60cm. 

The next morning dad and I went to the shark nursery.  We saw heaps of sharks.  They were mainly black tip reef sharks.  When we got back we told Mum, Tamsyn and Taj and we all walked back.  The sun glare was really bright so we had to use polarised sunglasses to see them. 

Tamsyn Dad and I went to the fish feeding on the beach.  At the fish feeding they throw in heaps of pellets and all these huge fish come in.  Tamsyn dad and I started snorkelling around all the fish.  When more people came we got pellets thrown at our feet and the fish would come and suck on your toes.  It was fantastic. 

The next day before we left we went back out to the sharks.  It was really shallow so there weren’t many sharks.  We walked out deeper and there were heaps of sharks swimming around us.  It was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had.

We drove to Carnarvon to meet with some of Nannas old friends.  Sharon and David have a big catamaran that they took us out sailing on.  The sailing was really fun, we saw manta rays, sharks and other cool things.  After a morning of sailing we had a fish.  We caught heaps of fish but they were only small.  We caught two big fish, one was a Mackerel and the other was a Jew fish.  The mackerel was the biggest.  I liked sailing.

We went out to Quobba where we did some snorkelling and saw a blow hole.  The Blowhole was really cool, because the water shot up really high from underground we got drenched. 

 There were lots of crabs where we snorkelled but not so many big fish.  There were lots of angel fish and parrot fish, they were all friendly and swam right next to me.

Monkey was the best.  We spoilt ourselves and stayed in one of the motel rooms.  First thing in the morning we got up to watch the dolphins feed.  The wild dolphins come in every morning to meet the rangers who feed them a little bit of fish.  The rangers only give them a little bit of fish and only feed them in the morning because otherwise the dolphins would stop hunting for themselves.  There are only five dolphins that get feed.  They only do 10 minute interactions at the moment because they have a new baby calf that needs to be fed every 7 minutes and the mum needs to be out in deeper water for that to happen. 

 The baby was very cute, really active and loved to jump out of the water.  The baby’s name is Piper they don’t know if it’s a boy or girl yet because they need the dolphin to flip onto its back to see its gender.  I got to feed Puck who is a big poser. She’s always showing off to the crowd.

Tamsyn and I were able to go fishing by ourselves because it was really safe.  We caught 26 fish in two days (hopefully Grumps reads this).  We also enjoyed the hot tub and pool.  One of the best things we did was going on the glass bottom boats.  There were these little boats for two people that had a glass bottom and we were able to drive them ourselves.  We liked driving over stingrays and fish to see what colours they were.  We even ran over a person.  It was awesome.  We also went on a big boat to see dugongs and turtles.  We saw heaps of them.  I liked it because we saw heaps of dugongs.  We had also made new friends with a family from Canada who had five kids.  They’re travelling around the world. 

Driving the glass bottom boat with Dad

 Tamsyn and I ended up taking them fishing and we had a great time.

See ya next week from Ry.