Lizard in the garden

Just some photos of a Lizard that was in our garden. Its the biggest one we have seen in our garden, though hes quite small in comparison to some of the others we see while driving off the beaten track.

We all got quite close to it before he decided to leave through a hole in the back fence.

It was probably about a meter long.

Camping in the outback

Well not quite the outback but nearly...

We asked a few people if they wanted to try out camping in the wild. We had a few brave takers in Brent, Maria and Trevor, Jackie and their daughter Chloe and we also took along Taydens friend Josh...

Brent, Maria and us arrived out at 40 Mile beach at 9am and set about setting up camp, Brent and us were the only ones who have been camping before, Maria, Trevor and Jackie were camping virgins.

We found a pretty good place to camp and set up all the tents and most importantly the kitchen area. We had taken our fish fry and were doing a fish fry for dinner, Luckily I had taken some fish out as the hunters and gathers weren't much of hunters and gathers at all.

CAMPSITE


ONE OF THE KITCHEN BENCHES

After the tents were all up we were all hot and sweaty so decided to go down to the beach for a swim. The water was littered with seaweed and was pretty dirty, we were a tad disappointed as last time we came out the water was beautiful and clear. The heat really getting to us we launched in amongst all the seaweed and cooled down. There was an old guy there fishing, he warned us to be careful of the stone fish and sharks, then a little while later he came down to show the kids a tiny shark he had just caught, they thought it looked cute and pretty harmless, then he went on to say he had just seen a 5 foot shark swimming our way. We decided to get out rather than become shark bait and went back to camp to have a few coldies.
SWIMMING WITH THE SHARKS


MARIA AND KAHAYLA


The hunters and gathers decided to go looking for fire wood and came back a short while later with our wagon laden with old railway sleepers that they had found. So a huge bonfire was made on the other side of the camp (a fair way from our tents and stuff). The boys went fishing while Maria and I started organising our feast.

JANAYA HELPING HUNTER AND GATHERER BRENT GET HIS TACKLE SORTED

THEN THE REAL FISHER GIRL KAHAYLA (OR SEAHAG AS SHE IS KNOWN AT HOME)HAD TO BE CALLED IN FOR MORE ADVICE

JANAYA SHOWING HOW ITS DONE



NO ROCK FISH IN HERE

dinner was yum with a fish fry, and salads and stuff, I think Jackie was blown away about our camping dinner (I think she thought we would be eating damper or something) We all went over to the fire and cooked marshmallows for the kids before trying to get them all into bed.

I had come very prepared for the huge mozzies and had a ring of fire round the campsite with all my citronella candles it looked really pretty, it worked a treat as no one saw a mozzie. (The mozzies here are something to be afraid of as they carry three nasty virus which can be fatal)

We spent the night drinking and stargazing, the stars were an awesome show.






Sometime at about 4am the heavens opened up and it started to pour, I had to laugh as Sean, Brent, and Trev got up grumbling and moaning about having to get up and shut the windows on the tents.

We all got home a new shade of red (from the dust not the sun) and tired, but it was a good camp.

Oh I saw my first huntsman spider, it shared our tent and it was huge...

lots to update

I am getting so slack about updating the ole blog, so will bring it all up to speed.

3 weekends ago we had a pretty multicultural weekend. On the Saturday, we decided to go out to Walcolt Bay for the morning, and decided to invite a Pakistani family along with us. They were supposed to arrive in November when we arrived, but they had troubles with visa and they didn't get here till January.

I had met Naheed at the airport while waiting for Sean to arrive home from Perth, during the cyclones. We had a good chat and she seemed really easy to talk to, thought I'm not sure what I expected, I guess I just thought there would be this cultural barrier there or something. Sean had got to know Fisal a bit better during the fire training and such.

Anyways we decided to ask them to come along with us, as we know what its like being the new comers and how lonely you can feel at times, even more so for them being Pakistani. They were keen so they followed us out to the beach.

We also took Taydens friend Josh. We get out there and Sean drops us off down at the beach and went back to pick them up from the car park as they didn't have a 4WD at the time (They now have the flashest brand new shiny black land cruiser) Fisal had mentioned to Sean that his family wouldn't be swimming as they don't really swim. Well of course my kids were already in the water when they got back and Sean didn't take long to follow. I stayed back to talk more to Naheed. Next thing you know the whole Khan family are in the water having a great time.

SEAN AND FISAL ENJOYING A COOL OFF IN THE WATER

NO THEY WEREN'T GOING TO SWIM

Fisal and his kids and Sean and our 4 (josh being the 4th) stayed in the water for a good hour, I had a quick 10 minute dip during that time just to cool off. Then it was a game of beach cricket, more swimming a bit of fishing and more swimming, you couldn't drag those kids out if you wanted.
PAKISTAN VS NZ IN A CRICKET MATCH

Sean had taken both our surf casters out and gave one to Fisal, never fished before he soon had the hang of it and seemed to be really enjoying himself. Josh ended up taking over from Sean for a while and ended up catching a stingray. The weird thing was that when he got the ray onto the beach there were about 8 other stingrays that came in with him, it was a bit freaky really, I guess it was his family and extended family seeing what was going on. They let the stingray go and he swam away but three other stayed and watched us for a while, odd...

THE HAPPY FISHERMEN AND THE NEWEST MEMBER OF THE WALSH FAMILY, JOSH

I LOVE THIS PHOTO

When it was time for lunch Naheed an I got the food out, She had gone to a lot of trouble and made the most delicious chicken biryani, if you haven't had it before do try it is my newest favourite food. I had made this big chicken salad sandwich on one of those long Turkish loaves and sliced it up into small slices. She was so apologetic as they couldn't eat it as they only eat halal meat. Halal meat is where the animals are slaughtered facing Allah and have had a special prayer said for them. They get all their meat shipped up from Perth from a Halal butcher.

After that we headed home as it was getting quite hot and their new landcruiser was arriving that afternoon.

When Sean saw Fisal at work the other day, he said his family couldn't stop talking about swimming at the beach and their new friends they had made, he also said he was off to buy himself a fishing rod. haha. It made us feel good as we know no one else on Seans shift would have gone to the trouble.

That night we went to a housewarming with all our Scottish friends. On Sunday we were invited to Brians house, he is an Indian who started with Sean but I wouldn't call them true Indians as they are not Hindu or Muslim and have lived in South Africa for a long time. There was also another South African family and an Aussie guy. It was an awesome evening, Brian is definitely the host with the most and is quite taken with Janaya, he couldn't do enough for her. He ended up carrying her around for ages and she fell asleep on him (so unusual for her but he did give her chocolate which could have put him in best friend status in her eyes)

THE LOVELY NAHEED shes such an easy person to get on with very witty and funny.

Floods at home

I was shocked to hear of the once in 150 years flood happening in Whangarei. Quite timely as we had just recieved a letter from the local council about our creek at home and that in a 1 in 100 year flood it would cause heaps of flood damage and Seans Troll bridge that he made would get washed away. Errrr wrong mr council people, the bridge was as solid as ever and yeah the creek flooded it didn't cause any damage to our neighbours or ourselves. We now have a new swimming hole where a bit of the bank has fallen in but other than that it held out pretty well.

Dads farm took a bit of hammering, with slips and his roads getting dealt to in places. He has a lot of work ahead of him now getting it back into shape. We did feel a wee bit helpless being so far away.

We followed the news once we heard and just couldn't believe we were missing out on all the drama, I would have loved to see our creek like that in real life, i have seen it pretty full at times but nothing like in the photos mum sent me. Oh well will have to wait another 150 years perhaps...





Our new swimming hole...

Janayas 4th Birthday 17th March

Well its taken me ages to actually get around to completing our trip at Exmouth so here it is.

Janayas 4th birthday. wow my baby is a big girl now. We woke up pretty early as we were leaving to go home, so Janaya opened her pressies then it was time to load up the car and have one last swim in the pool before we got on the road.


We set up Janaya in the very back by herself and all her new toys, she was very happy. The trip home seemed alot quicker than going down (as it does). The kids are great travellers thank goodness, so we seemed to be home in no time.

As we got nearer to Karratha we were amazed at how green everything was, apparently it hadn't stopped raining since we left just after the cyclones. I had to take photos as I just couldn't believe my eyes. Where there was usually red rocks and red dirt there were pastures of green grass and for a moment it felt as if we were driving in rural NZ.

The road when we left

Five days later, amazing what a bit of rain does

Karratha itself was an overgrown mass of green grass everywhere, very pretty but also the realisation that there are lots of snakes around also enjoying the new growth. Our front verge from our fence to the roadside has aways been just ugly red dusty dirt, but we were greeted with nice grass which we are going to try and keep alive.

We threw a very impromptu party for the birthday girl and had maccas for tea. She had a blast, even though she had spent 5 hours in the car...





Since then we have had another cyclone come and go with no real excitement we were on Blue alert for a day with the cyclone looking like it was going to directly hit us, but at the last minute did a u turn and crossed between Broome and Port Headland. Pretty non eventful.

The Ningaloo Reef

I've saved the best till last, it was also our last day in Exmouth too. We took a long drive down the westside which is where the Ningaloo reef runs down. The Ningaloo reef or Marine Park is the largest fringing coral reef in Australia and is the only large reef in the world found so close to land. It covers more than 4000 sq Kms and extends 10 nautical miles out to sea and is just breath taking.

First stop was Osprey Bay, nice camping spot and beautiful little cove. You can camp at most of the beaches, but there is no facilities or even water so you have to take everything you will need, the beauty of this place is worth roughing it anytime.

OSPREY BAY

Next was a quick stop to the equally beautiful Sandy bay, If we had arrived 2 seconds earlier we would have set up camp for the day as there are two sun shelters but a car had arrived just before us and both shelters were occupied. There were also 3 kite surfers, great to watch but wouldn't have been very fun for us trying to snorkel so it was off to find the perfect spot.

Sandy Bay



We stoped at 6 or 7 beaches before deciding on Turquoise Bay, it certanly had the WOW factor for us, white white sand and crystal clear transparent water. The water was nice and cold and so refreshing, with the water being so clear we could clearly see schools of Trevally swimming next to us in knee deep water, it was amazing.



With all our snorkeling gear on it was off to explore some of the coral reefs, Tayden and Kahayla being seasoned snorkelers now found the swim out easy, Janaya was awesome, she was in her ring and just swam next to us or hitched a ride on my back when she felt like it, We hadn't swum far when we reached a big mass of coral so Sean and I took turns diving down with the kids for a look, and it was like being in a huge finding nemo fish tank, we even saw nemo and dory and most of their friends, so amazing in real life and so many fish to look at. We stayed out for a while then I took the girls back into shallow water while Tayden and Sean went exploring further out.


Sitting on the beach I was in Awe of the beauty of the place and felt really lucky to be here in such a remote part of the world. There were a handful of people here also so we didn't quite have it to ourselves. We stayed for a good part of the day, then it was time to head back to Exmouth.

We spotted these massive sand dunes on the way home, so we found a track and drove down to investigate. The kids and I had a race to the top, and when we got to the top it was like being in a sand desert, just sand for as far as the eye could see (in one direction anyways as the beach was just on the other side. So we had heaps of fun sliding down the hill and seeing how could come up with the best statagy to go even faster.







Next stop was an old ship wreck and this also being the top of the peninsula, then home for a bite to eat and to get ready for another night fish off the beach.

Truck all loaded as for the previous nights fishing it was off to our spot. The kids got stuck into constructing a massive sandcastle, and Sean and I tried our luck again with the fishing. This time we lost most of our gear to the reef, Sean spoted a school of fish and tried out his $8 lures only to loose them one at a time as soon as he cast out. It was a good thought though.


My Shark

Kids sand Castle with moat and coral

We moved a few meters up the beach and out of the reefs way. Once again I got the first one in yep a shark, I was beginning to think this was to be a repeat of the other night. Couple of sharks later Sean caught two small fish, really nice looking fish kind of like a snapper and an emperor of some sort, too small to keep so we kept trying for the mummys and daddys but no luck, We left empty handed again and most gear gone. But It was good