My mum, dad and brother Mark have been over for a visit and sadly they have been back in NZ for a week, and its taken me this long to find some time to write about their visit.
They spent the first night and a good part of the next day in Perth and it was agonising knowing that they were here in WA but still so far away. They decided to spend the morning having a look around Freemantle, so jumped on a bus to the Train station, and the bus they were on CRASHED!
THE UTE OCCUPANTS
Apparently a ute came into the bus lane and hit the bus then the ute was sent airborne and landed on the grass verge on the other side of the bus. Pretty scary for them all but no one was hurt but their bus was a bit munched, so they hopped on a replacement bus which took them to the wrong place. What a good way to start their holiday, but they made it to Freo and had a nice wander around.
They arrived up in Karratha in the afternoon, Sean was at work, so the kids and I got out there extra early and sat waiting patiently for a glimpse of the plane. As soon as it touched down, out of no where I burst into tears. I just couldn't’t believe that the plane had my parents and Mark on it. Seeing them in the flesh again was so awesome, and a few more tears were shed. As it was about 5pm I thought oh good its nice and cool for them but when we got out to the car park, Mark said something about it being really hot, and I said no it’s a bit nippy. We got in the car and Mark said boy I hope your air con works, I said of course so we set it to high and after a few minutes down the road, I was freezing.
The kids gave them all a tour of our house and showed everyone to their beds, then we settled down to catch up. It was like xmas with all the gifts we were very spoilt, there were bags and bags of snifters, pineapple lumps, perky nanas, onion soup and smoked fish, all the things I have been missing from home. Sean had asked dad to bring over some truck tie downs, and the kids got soooo spoilt with lots of goodies.
Mark and Dad were still commenting on the heat so I turned the air con up a bit and by the time Sean got home the place felt like a fridge. Sean laughed and said you finding it a bit hot. To cut a long story short for the next two weeks we all wrapped up in jumpers and jeans at night apart from Dad and mark. Mum didn’t find it too hot, she found it quite comfortable.
The weather at the moment is just bliss barely reaching the 30s some days and getting down to as low as 20 over night.
The other thing that they had to contend with was the flies, they were so persistent, we don’t usually have that many flies but they have been really bad the last few weeks, you just get one annoying little fly that will constantly come back and land on your face, no matter how hard you wave your hands.
Sean worked the next day but was off on a rostered shift off after that and he didn’t go back to work till after they had gone home. Janaya and I took them for a tour around the place showing them this and that, then I took them to the shopping centre. Mum could have stayed there for hours I think, We did leave her there for a while as Dad and Mark had seen enough so I dropped them home and went back to fetch mum.
When the kids got back from school I took them out to Dampier and Hearsons cove, Dad was quite fascinated by all the red rock around the area, big hills of the stuff and it looks so unnatural an like a dump truck as dumped it all over the hills.
Mum really wanted to go and have a look at Roebourne she had read up on the place and thought it sounded interesting. I joked about it, as to me Roebourne isn’t a place you would want to stop at, I explained that it was kind of like driving through Otangarei…. How wrong was I. We went to the old Jail and the place is preserved in History, I learnt a lot about the area and got a bit more of an understanding why the aborigines are so hostile towards the Caucasians. They were treated so badly its quite sickening. We offered to leave mum at the pub in Roebourne so she could mingle with the locals, but she declined.
Dad with the ball and Chain
In the slammer
Then we went over to Point Samson to go have lunch at the restaurant overlooking the beach. Being a Sunday it seemed that everyone else in Karratha had the same Idea, the place was packed. Sean suggested we go to Wickham and find something there, but everything was closed!! The supermarket, the service station, everything closed. With us all getting quite hungry I suggested we try the café at Cossack, Sean was adamant there was nothing at Cossack and it would be a waste of a trip, and I was sure there was. He was made to eat humble pie as we saw the CAFÉ OPEN sign come into view, but not for long, as they only served pies and sausage rolls, so $40 worth of frozen pies and sausages rolls heated in the microwave (which took half a day) we were finally eating, it wasn’t quite the nice Sunday lunch I had envisioned but it was something. We sat on the wharf and watched the people fishing, dad getting some tips on crabbing while he was there. Then we went and spent the afternoon at Walcolt beach, had a nice swim and headed home.
On Monday Mum and I took the kids to school (they had days off here and there depending what was on the agenda) When we got to kindy, Mrs Blackman asked if we could stay and have nana as Janayas news. I was so proud of my wee girl standing up there in front of all her little kindy mates, She told everyone that this was her nana that came on the plane to see her from NZ, Then the map came out and they showed the kids where NZ was and then there was Question time (yes in kindy) so a few questions were thrown at her. One little boy put up his hand and she said Yes Daniel, and he asked ‘which ones your nana’ lol.
Dad really wanted to go crabbing and it was all he talked about, he talked to a few people to get ideas, and got some long steel rods and fashioned some crabbing tools. Sean, Dad and Mark left early one morning off on the great crab hunt. They went out to 40 mile and walked 10 kms for 3 crabs. hmmm. He later found out talking to someone else, that you can get them off the town beach quite easily. (Oh well never mind)
Dad and his crabs
Wednesday we went out to Seans work to look through the visitors centre, Sean and I had never been through it so it was good for me to go have a squiz and see what he gets up to.
WOODSIDE
It was a pretty big flare that day
Later that night we invited a few friends over for a BBQ so that they could meet the Whanau. Was a really good night, and we finished up around 1am.
Fishing was the next must on the agenda, the guys hired a boat and headed out for the day. They didn’t catch much but enough for a feed of fresh fish which they fried up in the fish fry. It was so good as we have only had fresh fish once since we arrived.
To be continued…..
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