Cape Naturaliste, Whale Watching

G'day Mates,

We sometimes have the opportunity to stay a few days in Dunsborough during our house sitting period and because it's a beautiful area, we make some trips in the surrounding.

We happened to be there during the Whale Watching season and so we decided to do the alternative of going on a tour, which is too expensive for us, we walked to the special made Whale Watching  platform at Cape Naturaliste.

But before we arrived at this platform we had a hell of a time!! We started following the blue signs which leads to the platform....

Beautiful path just a bit stony!!

 In stead of going straight to the platform we decided to do a detour which lead us down to the beach and from there a path had to go up again back to the path leading to the platform. We never found that path back and got terribly lost, we stranded in the dunes and ended up running around in circles.

Although it was very beautiful we didn't think it funny at all, every time we thought we found a walkway we ended up in scrubs and had to go back. 

It took us about an hour to find the path back and finally pfffff......there was the platform.

Enjoying the view and the Whales we (you know us) also enjoyed our lunch...

I'm sorry I can't show you more of the Whales, but as you can see they were definitely there!

This was a mother with a little one and we had a great time, they played in front of us and we saw the very big tail several times jumping up in the air but it went so quick, every time I was just too late making a picture.

Of course I'm convinced that taking a real tour you would see much more and we spoke to a girl who had done the tour twice and she was thrilled about it. Actually she was on the same detour and we wonder if she ever found the path back.

Anyhow we never heard someone was missing.

We were so wise not to try a detour on our way back to the car and so we arrived save at home again.

Cape Naturaliste is not only famous for Whale Watching but also of it's nice little Lighthouse on which you can take a tour and is worthwhile according to reviews....

Even the fantastic walks around the rugged coast of the Cape are a reason to visit Cape Naturaliste

If you want to know more about this area, here is a usable website;

http://www.westernaustralia-travellersguide.com/cape-naturaliste.html

Cheers!

Fremantle Port! Past - Today - Future

G'day Mates,


As you most probably know we are at a house sitting at the moment. If everything is going as planned we can stay till approx. half August, IF we can manage to stay as you know we like adventure and have some gypsy blood in our veins.

Anyhow till now we are OK and we are not far from Fremantle which we love very much. We've been there already three times and one day we saw this;

"Past";

In the Port of Fremantle this nice ancient lookalike ship was docked. The Leeuwin is a three-masted barquentine. It was launched on 2 August 1986 and is currently operated by the Leeuwin Ocean Adventure Foundation, a private not-for-profit organisation that runs youth training voyages along the West Australian coast.

I like these sort of ships....

Must be difficult to handle these ships, especially in bad weather!

Today;

As you can see this is a parking spot for boats and what amazes us so much is that there are soo many!! People must very fortunate in this area, at least a lot!! 

Look at all the masts......

a little further is a port which most probably belongs to the sailing club situated next to it and here it is the same, Crikey!

And then this!! "Future", of course this is also today but there are being built many more of these big ships, must be as big as a little village....

Here is some information of the ship I got from Wikipedia;

Tonnage: 168,666 GT

Length: 348 m (1,142 ft)

Beam: 41.2 m (135 ft) (waterline)

48.9 m (160 ft) (max)

Draught: 8.5 m (28 ft)

Decks: 18 (16 passenger-accessible)

Capacity:

4,180 passengers (double occupancy)

4,905 passengers (maximum occupancy)

Isn't it amazing??

I would like to give you some more information of the entertainment on the ship but it is just too much, I think if you are interested, just google it!  

Look at the Jewel-like observation capsule, you can see the world from 90 metres above sea-level.

It's just amazing, I definitely would like to have a look inside!!

Compare the ship with the train ........

We had a great day in Fremantle and it won't be the last day we have been there so you will get some more impressions in the coming months.....

In the mean time;

Cheers!

Christmas and New Years Eve in Australia

G'day Mates!

First of all, my hubby Fred and I wish you a very happy, but more important a healthy New Year! Losing three of our dear family members in 2016, we hope to have a better 2017 as well.

You know I grew up and lived for 44 years in The Netherlands and had a totally different Christmas as we have now and I must admit, we cannot get used to the Aussie Christmas. It's not that they don't do enough, in contrary, here is the evidence;

and wait till you see the movie of above because it's all moving;

Movie time;

Even inside of our dear friends'home in Perth, where we have been celebrating Christmas, a lot of effort has been made to make it all cosy and to get some Christmas feeling...  

Well what can you do more hey??

It's just the climate which spoils it all (for us), if this was snow it would have been a bit closer to the old Christmas feeling but it isn't, we're on the beach at Christmas day, at approx. 9 o'clock in the morning, having bubbles and some lovely home made snacks and it is already getting bloody hot!

The only thing you can do is singing; "let it snow, let it snow, let it snow," haha, but if that would happen we would be devastated as we emigrated for the nice hot weather, soooo.....

I won't complain anymore!

After the beach and some relax swimming in the pool we had a terrific Christmas meal together...

And after the Christmas meal we unpacked the presents, Crikey were we spoiled!!

We had a great WARM Christmas, and I don't only mean the weather but also the hospitality of our lovely hosts! Thanks!!

What is New Years Eve without "Oliebollen", a dutch tradition and because you cannot buy them here, I had to make them myself which I had never done before! Must say, they were lovely!

From leftovers you can make a perfect dish....

On the last day of the year we decided to go to Fremantle and having a lunch, we went by train and bus so here we are waiting patiently for the train to come....

Kalis in Fremantle is specialised in fish so .....

we had some fish and chips with a bottle of wine!

We came back at about 6 o'clock and had a lovely evening watching telly and especially the Sydney Fireworks!

I planned a surprise for the people outside Australia as they will only see a small part of it. I filmed the whole 11,20 minutes with the intention to put it on my blog for you but unfortunately, and I could have known it, there is copy right on it so I'm not allowed to.

I changed the music and just have a small part now!!

Enjoy;

See ya soon,

Cheers!