Day 34: Watch out Michael Phelps!

Avery has really taken a liking to the water this trip, and is really getting keen to swim (rather than just float or be pulled around). As you can see from the photos, she even dove down on her stomach in the sand so she could get closer to the water.

Plagued by the black spot

Our readers may start to notice a black spot in some of our pictures. Somewhere in Western Australia a small piece of sand or dirt got lodged in the lens of our new good camera, and now many of our pictures appear with an annoying black spot. We tried to get it fixed in surfers’ but there’s no authorized Panasonic dealer, so we’re out of luck likely until we get home. Fortunately, Stephen brough 3 other cameras on this trip, so we have other options.

Day 32: Swimming in Surfers

When planning our trip, the last place we wanted to end up was Surfer’s Paradise. The endless amount of sky rise condos, the density of tourists, the trashy stores, and the overpriced everything really isn’t our style--or so we thought. Now that we’re here, we realize the appeal of Surfers. There’s an amazing beach (even if it’s too rough to swim in most days), our hotel has a nice pool, and there’s tons of place to eat close by. It’s an easy place to relax with a baby with everything so close by.

Day 31: Avery’s 8th Flight

Avery brushed up on her travel skills today by taking her 8th flight to date. We left Perth first thing in the morning and arrived in our final destination of Surfer’s Paradise around dinner time.

Day 29: Touring Perth

We returned to Perth today and spent the evening checking out the pedestrian mall in the CBD. We were pleasantly surprised to find $1 Bubble Tea! After spending 5 nights in the very rural Smith Beach, Avery was thrilled to have so many people to smile and "talk" to.

After spending almost 4 hours driving in the afternoon, Avery was all too happy to jump around in the Jolly Jumper before bed.

Day 25: Mummy and Daddy’s Day Out

Today a lovely babysitter, Carole, came to play with Avery, allowing Mummy and Daddy to explore the Margaret River region.

While Avery played with her toys back at our hotel, we visit some wineries in the region (Knee Deep, Cullen, Vasse Felix, and Howard Park/Mad Fish), and had a nice lunch out (at Brookland Valley), as well as visit a delicious chocolate factory (MR Chocolate Co.). The favourite wine of the day was at a winery called Knee High, which is relatively small and new winery, and something we couldn’t get outside of Western Australia. By the late afternoon the bad weather cleared up, and we enjoyed an afternoon swim, followed by a trip into Dunsbourough for some groceries for the rest of the week.

Limited Internet Access...

We haven't had good Internet connections for the past week, and are having difficulty uploading pictures to the Internet. Stay tuned for more posts...

Day 24: Weather Déjà V

If Melbourne wasn’t enough (see blog entry for March 8th), today Perth had a huge hail storm. Perth storm a 'natural disaster' Thankfully, we’re a few hours south of Perth, and the brunt of the storm didn’t hit the Margaret River region until after dinner time.

Since today was mostly overcast and rainy, we decided to drive South. We drove all the way to Cape Leeuwin, which is where the Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean meet. We then went to the Jewel Cave. Unfortunately, by this point Avery had enough exploring, and decided to test the acoustics of the cave with her token 3rd stage of crying, much to the disappointment of the other ten or so people on our cave tour. On the way back to our hotel we stopped at a winery for a quick tasting.



Even though Avery hasn't sprouted any teeth yet, she's taken a facination with watching mummy bruch her teeth. Mummy's tired of sharing her toothbrush, so we bought Avery her very own, which is now her favorite chew toy.

Day 23: From Yuck to Lux

Today we left the arguably worst accommodations in our trip to arrive at the best place we’ve stayed so far (with the exception of Uncle D&A’s house, of course!). We love the Smith Beach Resort so much that we decided to extend our stay here by two more nights and stay until Friday. It has everything we could want and more-- a comfortable apartment-style accommodations with all the amenities of home (including laundry--yippee!), a very large en suite bathroom (which we’ve turned into Avery’s bedroom), a nice infinity pool outside our room, a 5 minute walk to a great beach, and only a short drive to all the wineries of the Margaret River Region.

Avery has enjoyed sitting on the large island and watching mummy cook. She also enjoys splashing around in the kiddie pool. Yes, this place has it all…except one key item that we’d never even thing of if Avery wasn’t here--door jams. This means that Avery’s Jolly Jumper can’t be hooked up to any of the doorways in our apartment. Fortunately, some handy work on our part turned what others would use as a wardrobe into a jumping sanctuary.

Day 22: Heading Down the West Coast

Today we left Rottnest Island, picked up a rental car in Fremantle, and drove south down the coast. We stopped for the night in Bunbury, as it was the only town we could find reasonable accommodations for the night (apparently there were several weddings going on in the area). Or so we thought. We have officially learned our lesson on budget accommodations in Australia, and you definitely get what you pay for. The Rose Hotel was rated a 3 star, and it was relatively clean, but we suspect that the finishings--including the beds--were about as old as the hotel (build in the early 1900’s).

Day 20 & 21: Relaxing with the "Rats" on Rottnest Island

There is no lack of Quokka’s on this island!! According to the tourist literature, there are about 10,000 of these marsupials here, and it feels like at least half of them are following us all around. These are not shy animals, and they’ll come right up to you to ask for food. Some people find them cute, but mummy is not one of these people! At night they take over the island and you can't look outside without seeing at least one.

We enjoyed the rest of our stay hanging out at the Basin and Parakeet Bay, our two favorite beaches on the island. Both have beautiful soft sands and relatively calm and clear waters. The Basin is only about a 10 minute walk from where we're staying, while Parakeet is a longer 40 minute trek.



Daddy decided to burn off some of the Tim Tams climbing a steep sand dune at Parakeet.

Would you pay $5 for an avocado??

Avery loves cucumbers and avocado, and we really lover her, but that love was tested this trip when we discovered the hugely inflated prices at the general store in Rottnest. We decided that the somewhat more reasonable Zuccinni (only $2) would be a suitable substitute for cucumbers until we returned to the mainland.

Day 19: All Aboard the Beach Bus

Today we got day passes to the hop-on hop-off bus that tours the various bays of Rottnest Island. Avery enjoyed the calm and clear waters, while daddy checked out some of the tropical fish in the nearby coral.

Day 18: On our way to WA

Today we left Melbourne and headed to Perth in Western Australia.

We made the mistake of taking Virgin Blue, a discount airline, which we booked before we’d packed our bags in Canada. Since we seem to be travelling with more luggage than an university student moving into a dorm, we had to pay and extra $50 for the extra weight. Avery has now become a seasoned airplane traveller, and almost immediately upon boarding the plane will grab for the inflight menu and/or safety card, which she loves to “read” and occasionally chew on.

The VB flight attendants were in awe of Avery (who wouldn’t be???), and asked if they could take her to the back of the plane and play with her. Mum and Dad--who were still recovering from carrying all our luggage in the airport--gladly let her go play for a while and used the opportunity to relax.

We were greeted by some warm sun in Perth, and Avery modeled her new baby sunglasses (we're tired of her pulling off her hat and then screaming at us when the sun gets in her eyes). Unfortunately, she found it just as fun to play the "let's pull off my sunglasses" game as she does pulling off her hat, so they didn't last very long.


When we arrived in Perth we headed to Fremantel, where we took a ferry to Rottnest Island.

Day 15 & 16: Sunny Days in Sandy Point

We spend the weekend hanging out with Uncles D&A in Sandy Point relaxing, lounging at the beach, and pigging out on Tim Tams. Sandy Point is a very small place on the way to Wilson's Prom...the "downtown" has only a general store, a cafe, and two real estate offices. It very much reminded us of towns around Muskoka, with a holiday home vibe.

Avery enjoyed spending time with her doggy 'cousins' Bolly and Patz, and watching Uncle Alex's Jazz Hands (which she could do all day!).

Day 14: Just a day at the beach

After a few hectic days in Tasmania we spent today relaxing at the beach on Phillips Island, situated South-East of Melbourne along the South coast of Australia.

We were fortunate enough to hitch a ride with Uncle D (who needed to visit the YMCA camp on the island for work) on the way to our weekend getaway at Sandy Point. We lucked out and got gorgeous weather and were able to hang out on a virtually deserted beach for a few hours.


Once Uncle Dick finished up his work stuff we headed to Sandy Point, where we were greeted by Uncle Alex, Bolly and Patz.

Tonight Avery discovered her new favorite thing -- Jazz hands!

Day 13: Hiking to Wineglass Bay

Today we got on the road early (if only to leave our hotel ASAP) to hike down to Wineglass Bay in Freycinet National Park.

We started by doing the 1.5 hour hike up to the lookout, followed by a much steeper one hour hike down to the beach. Avery had the best time on the hike hitching a ride on mum in her carrier. Others doing the hike kept remarking about how brave Christina was for carrying her on such a steep hike--little did they know that Stephen was carrying twice as much weight with the backpack full of all her stuff!

The beach was a beautiful silica sand (the kind that squeaks under your feet) and there were very few people on the beach, as it wasn`t the easiest to access. After a nice packed lunch (there were no McCafe`s on this beach), we did the much more tiresome hike back.

The area was so beautiful that we wish we could have spent more time there. Unfortunately, we didn`t realize how much we`d enjoy Tasmania, and had to leave on a flight back to Melbourne that evening.

Today is Avery`s 7 month birthday, and she took her 7th flight this evening--not many babies can say that!