We go where the wind blows and gin is on offer !
October 26th to 8th December .
A month and a half of visitors socialisation and civilisation
We headed down from the north west tip of West Australia to meet up with the girls who were flying in from Melbourne . We had a week in and around Kalbarri ( “what’s occurrin “ for you Gav and Stacey fans ) . Girls in the swags whilst Kate and I lorded it in the “vantstic”
After week we headed down to Perth as we had rented a house in Port Coogee for the arrival of gran Woodburn. Kate had worked her usual magic and landed a fantastic joint near the beaches, harbour and shops and of course it was stunning .
From there we visited the Swan Valley wineries ,
Perth city itself , Fremantle market to name a few places .
We were lucky enough to spend Georgia’s birthday with her and her chosen activity was barefoot bowls at a community club followed by a very top end French wine bar those extremes are what we expect from our youngest !
I used the amazing kitchen facilities to reacquaint myself with baking bread , roast dinners , scones and gran woodburn turned her hand to her world famous tablet .
We said sad farewells to the girls at the now very familiar Perth airport.
Our next stop was another win from our accommodation booking guru which took us to South Terrace in Fremantle . A very different style but no less impressive . In the very trendy area for the “replacement hipsters” ( they were all very funky but over 55 ) the accommodation was stone built with a little garden and a granny flat for … gran . Kate described this to one Australian friend that her mother in law was living in the outhouse which has a very different meaning . So from flash to quaint .
We were able to explore Fremantles shops , cafes and bars in great detail. It was a drag having to walk 15 steps to get some of the best coffee and THE best almond croissants on the planet .
We also met up with Nick and Sue our pals who emigrated to Perth over 25 years ago and we visited here when Georgia was a babe in arms and in fact took her first steps on a WA beach.
Sue is a budding Barrista with a penchant for long blacks .
It’s amazing how you can still have a strong friendship when you never see each other ! Needless to say we laughed out little socks off . Nick and Sue dusted off their old photo albums – some classics !
Grans world tour had to come to an end ,we had packed a lot in and the weather had been very kind to boot .It was an emotional send off for gran Woodburn at the airport as it always is . The trip back to the UK was uneventful at least according to gran who has been known to escape a building on fire and forget to tell us !
Here is gran Woodburn with a bad case of tea pot envy
With no rest for the wicked we headed straight to Margaret River to meet with Matt and Heather friends from Melbourne who had flown out to spend some time to explore Margaret River with us . It was great catching up and we wined , dined , wineried , fished ,walked and laughed the long weekend .
It again sad farewells were said on a Monday morning after a fantastic brekkie at the Margaret River Bakery which was so funky it felt like we were in a cross between a five star kitchen and a junk shop.
We had two spells with our “cockeny”friends Kev (Kevlar) and Nicki . One with gran Woodburn and then another after my cape to nearly cape walk .
Nick and Kev offered to take us out on their cruiser.
Despite the water earlier being “like a mill pond ” the trip to the Mandurah Quay and back was fun but also traumatic . We had a great meal at the oyster bar and I was lucky enough to have one of the best oyster combinations ever. Natural oysters with beetroot shavings and horseradish cream- try it its the future !
Due to a freak combination of weather and chance the boat hit one of the big green posts in the middle of the estuary , then we had to make an unplanned detour to allow a local friend bring some petrol so that we could make the journey home. The wind then whipped itself up , so we battened down the hatches (first time I have been able to use this phrase accurately in my life )and tried to stop gran Woodburn getting too wet by placing a towel on her head. By the time we got back to the jetty gran Woodburn was laying a trail of burley for the local fishermen and looked as green as David Bannerman getting angry .
The second day out on the boat a week or so later was a very different affair . The water actually was like a millpond both in the sea and on the estuary , there was no wind , it was 35 degrees and we had no fixed objects mysteriously finding their way into the boats path. It was glorious ! Again a super meal at the quay with a couple of frothies was the order of the day .
I was dropping off Kate and Nicki when I was asked to make a little detour so that Nicki could pick up a recently created painting . Kate and Nicki were putting the world to rights and I was getting intermittent navigational pointers. I was very impressed when we pulled into the driveway of a dog grooming business and realised that Roxy or Gizmo must be Picasso Pooches ! Alas Nicki had been navigating on auto pilot and we ended up across town from her painting teacher but in the driveway of her dog groomers address by mistake. It is above my pay-grade to make any gender stereotype joke about women and three dimensional spacial awareness. To cover her blushes I silently slipped into reverse and we made a hasty retreat before tricky questions were asked by the patron or any passing customers.