Geraldton Day 3

Today I got up in the morning and did some Italian schoolwork. After a bit of that we had breakfast.Seeing as it was Sunday we had the traditional Bacon and Eggs and Baked beans. We spent about fifteen minutes doing the cooking but after that we all had a delicious breakfast. Toast, Bacon, Eggs and Beans was what I had. It tasted great. After breakfast I did some more Italian work. That work took me until lunchtime to complete. Dad said that if the weather was good we'd be able to go fishing at the Greenough River mouth.

After I'd finished my Italian Dad and I put our fishing rods together. Dad needed a new leader on his line and I needed a new snap lock swivel on my leader. After getting the rods ready we packed collapsed them and put them in the back of the car for when we needed them. After that we had lunch. Lunch was sandwiches with Avocado, Cheese, Tuna, and Cucumber. After that we drove to the river mouth.

There were two signs saying that motor bikes are prohibited at the river mouth. When we reached the river we saw to out annoyance that there were two seven year old kids riding their two wheelers around. Quadbikes were allowed but the two wheeler motor bikes were not allowed on the beach. After half an hour of these greatly annoying kids honing past us every 10 seconds we packed up and left for the Batavia Marina.

We parked a bit away from the Marina and walked there. On the way we saw lots of Porcupine fish which are also known as Blowfish or Blowies. They can inflate themselvess with water or air when they are captured. Then Dad said that he would go and get the car so that we could fish off the jetty. My sister and I walked out on these two jetties and saw the water bellow was literally swarming with schools of these big silver fish. One fish I estimated was about 60 cm long. Then when Dad turned up I flicked a lure on one of the boat jetties. None of the silver fish took the lure. As I was walking back to the shore along the jetty, flicking my lure that was trailing in the water about 3 metres behind me I happened to turn my head and notice a silver shape of about 25 cm swim swiftly in and hook itself. My rod suddenly bent over and I reeled the fish in. After lifting the fish out of the water I looked at it in complete amazement. I didn't have any idea what it was. It looked like a Snook or a Barracuda. (I still don't know what it is. According to the fish book its probably a Snook or striped Seapike.) After catching and releasing the mystery fish I joined dad who was annoying the Toadfish in the water with his lure.

There were about 100 Porcupine fish in the water and there were thousands more indoor the jetty. They were interested in my lure to. All of a sudden Mum said "I got one". She had. Mum's first ever fish was a Porcupine fish that was all of 6 cm long. The wobbler that she was using was 5 cm long so it figures that those fish are pretty greedy. After that I had to remove the hook and went to wash my hands. When I got back to the jetty I put on a silver spoon wobbler. I had barley lowered it into the water when all these Porcupine fish came swimming out from underneath the jetty. I made the lure dance about by jigging the rod up and down, left and right violently. Pretty soon one of these fish got greedy enough and actually took my lure.

These people next to us were fishing for crabs. So far they had caught 1 crab and it was in a bucket. They asked my to put the Porcupine fish in the bucket so that the crab would eat it. So I put it in and the fish swam around not bothering the crab at all. After a while I fished the poor fish out. Soon after they caught another crab and it went into the bucket as well. Soon I had mastered the art of catching Porcupine fish and was catching them one after the other. All of them went into the other peoples crab bucket. Then the fishing quietened down. I was only catching a Porcupine fish every 5 minutes. Then it began to get dark. After a while we packed up and left.

When we arrived at the caravan Dad and I went and had a shower. The water was nice and warm. After a quick shower we retired to the caravan and I started writing the blog. Then we had dinner. For dinner we had fried sausages, stir fried veggies and mashed potato. After dinner I finished writing my blog. Then we had dessert. For dessert I had 5 german wafer slices. (What a surprise!) After having dessert I went to bed.

Oggi andati a pescare.

Lo pressi alcuni Porcupine pesci.

Oggi sono stanco.

Geraldton Day 2

Today was a rest day. In the morning We got up, had a quick breakfast and drove into Geraldton. First we drove to the farmers market where it started to rain. While Mum and my sister huddled under a stall tent Dad and I went to get the umbrella from the car. When we got back to Mum and my sister we all looked around. There were these people selling juvenile Snapper. The fish weren't even pink! A Snapper is supposed to be pink or bright red. These Snapper looked more like Bream. The only way you could tell that they were Snapper for sure was by looking for bright blue spots near the tail fin. Even these were very faint. They had been raised by kids doing an Aquaculture course. After the farmers market we went somewhere a little drier…the shopping centre.

It was a bit busy in there and we had a bit of trouble manoeuvring the trolly but apart from that it was a whole lot better than the farmers market. Mum went and bought some cough juice from the pharmacy. Dad says the cough juice tastes like raspberry. I think it tastes disgusting!!!!! I said that I wanted some so that my cough would go away before we reached Ningaloo Reef. So as soon as we had payed for it I had to take some. It tastes absolutely disgusting but it'll be worth taking it. So when we go snorkelling at Ningaloo Reef I'll be in good condition. Then we went in to woolworths and found Mum and my sister. Dad grabbed three 600ml cartons of chocolate milk.

We drank one carton together outside the shopping centre with some bread to go with it. Then we went outside to find that it was now pouring rain. We sheltered under the shopping centre roof until Dad had driven the car to us. Then we sprinted to the car and started unloading the trolly as fast as possible. Then when we were safe and dry we drove to the fisher mans wharf. After arriving at the wharf we took a dirt road that lead to a rock point. I hopped out of the car and explored. I found a beach sinker and gave it to Dad. The sinker was in good nick and just needed a wash. Then my sister got out and we went looking for more fishing gear. Almost immediately my sister found a rusty old fish hook. We took it to Dad but he said that it was unusable. A minute later my sister found a set of gang hooks that were almost brand new and they were on a wire trace as well. Dad said that it was a good find as we only had one set of gang hooks.

Then my sister and I went looking for more lost fishing tackle. Suddenly we were distracted by movement on the rocks bellow us. It turned out to be dozens of crabs that were scuttling around on the rocks. After that we walked forward along the rocks until we coupled go no further. Then we looked down at he rocks bellow and saw that they were literally covered in crabs of all different colours. The biggest ones were mostly orange but some were black. Other smaller crabs were army green and some were even brown. Then we drove into town to have lunch.

After walking around some streets we found the fish and chip shop where we had lunch last trip. This time I actually ate a proper meal. Last trip all I ate was a bread roll and I drank half a bottle of ginger beer. Dad and I ate a snapper fillet each with a side of chips. Mum ate a Snapper fillet, 4 calamari rings and 1 prawn. She gave half of her chips to my sister who was eating a sandwich. After lunch we walked back to the car. There we drank some iced tea and ate an Almond and Custard scroll that Dad had bought in the shopping centre. Then we drove to the boat ramp and watched a massive container ship come into the deep water port 10 metres away from the boat ramp. It was really interesting it took about an hour for the tug boats to manoeuvre the big ship into the port. You could see when the helmsman gave the engines some throttle because all this black smoke came billowing out of the smokestack. The helmsmen only had control over the boat in forwards and reverse gear. The tugs had to do the rest. So if the boat had to move forward two metres the black smoke came belching out of the smokestack for thirty seconds and then stopped. We watched this big ship come in from half a kilometre away to the time it docked at the loading port.

After that we drove to the Greennough River where Dad wanted to check out the river mouth which was supposed to be good fishing spot. It was still raining but it looked like a good fishing spot anyway. Dad decided that maybe he and I could come back tomorrow to do some fishing, provided that the weather was nice. Then we drove back to the caravan and I did some schoolwork. I did my integrated studies work. All I had to do was find out who was in parliament and what each person's job was. I looked up all 17 Ministers and the three other people. Then I came inside the caravan and started writing my blog. We had dinner half way through me writing my blog. Dinner was an old traditional Austrian meal…fried dumplings with scrambled eggs. After dinner I finished writing the blog. Then we had dessert. For dessert I had five german wafer slices. Then I went to bed.

Geraldton Day 1

Today we traveled 220 km to Geraldton. In the morning I got up and made a hot chocolate for my sister and myself. After breakfast the whole family helped pack up the caravan. I emptied the dishwashing waste bucket, brushed off the mats that we had outside the caravan, coiled the hose and stowed it away. My sister took away the wheel chocks and wound up the legs. Dad for once didn't chat to a neighbour and helped. I think this is because most of the caravan park residents were still sleeping. He coiled the electricity cable and did some other stuff. Then when we were ready Dad and I hitched up the caravan and we drive off in high spirits.

The drive was boring. My sister and I listened to audio books and watched the country fly by. When we arrived at Geraldton we found the caravan park and set up the caravan . Then after we had wound out the awning Dad realised that he'd done it wrong. So the awning poles had to be unpegged and after a bit of mucking about with the pole settings Dad got it right. After that we had lunch. For lunch we had some mini pizzas that Dad had bought when we stopped somewhere. There were four pizzas, one was Vegetarian, two were Hawaiian and one was meat lovers. We warmed them up in the microwave and ate them. They tasted surprisingly good and I normally don't like Pizza so thats saying something.

After lunch we had a quick dessert of the three remaining doughnuts nuked in the microwave. Dad ate one, my sister ate one and I ate the last one. Then we went and explored the playground. There wasn't much. Just a couple of swings and some monkey bars. There was also an old tractor tyre. It was two metres tall and prefect for climbing. My sister and I perched ourselves on top of it and made some sand features.

Sand features are bits of hard sand with holes in them. My sister and I invented them last trip. It takes real skill to drill a hole through a bit of fragile sand with a stick. We broke about 10 before we got the type of sand. I made about twenty and broke or stuffed up thirty. Then these other kids came to the playground and started acting real feral. They threw sand at us and each other and tried to climb the tyre even though they could see that there was no room. One of them even grabbed my sister's leg to hoist himself up the tyre. My sitter nearly fell of and the stupid kid didn't even say sorry. Then this kid started flicking our sand features away to the sand bellow where they shattered to bits. That kid destroyed 2 hours worth of work in a matter of seconds. After these kids were at the playground for 10 minutes my sister and I hid our sand features and walked back to the caravan.

After that we sat outside drawing and listening to our iPods. Then dinner was ready. We had toasted cheese sandwiches with Tomatoes and Avocado. After dinner I wrote the blog while my sister dried the dishes. Then we had dessert. For dessert I had five german wafer slices. After dessert I went to bed.

Cervantes

Today we drove 200 km to Cervantes. It is home to the famous Pinnacles. In the morning we got up and had breakfast then Dad, my sister and I packed up the caravan. I dealt with the water system and my sister took out the wheel chocks and wound up the legs. Dad stood and chatted with the people that had turned up last night. So basically my sister and I did all the work. Then we hitched up the caravan, drove off and left Perth behind us.

Soon we stopped to get the fruit out of the caravan for morning tea. I ate a Pear and an half Orange. My sister ate the other half of the Orange. When we arrived at Cervantes we set up the caravan and had lunch. For lunch we had salad sandwiches. They tasted great and they were home made for a change. After lunch I got through 4 weeks worth of reading work. Then We drove to the Nambung National Park where the famous Pinnacles were to be seen.

On the road just outside Nambung National Park I spotted a flock of 6 wild Emus roaming around the side of the road. There were 3 on each side and there were some great photo opportunities. I got a good photo of a baby Emu. It looked so fluffy that I wanted to pat it. But I knew better to because those Emus can run very fast when they want to and they have very sharp beaks. Even though I was in the car these Emus stayed within 5 metres of the car. Eventually they wandered off into the surrounding scrub.

First we drove around a 4 km dirt road circuit that gave you a tour of the Pinnacles. The Pinnacles are oddly shaped columns of rock that rise vertically into the air. Some are as high as 3 metres. We drove around and I took some photos of oddly shaped Pinnacles. Then we stopped at a spot where I took some photos of Mum and Dad next to a Pinnacle. Then I took a photo of Dad looking over a tall Pinnacle. After that we drove to a lookout and there were all these annoying insects. They were like a cross between a Wasp and a Fly. I didn't know if they had stingers or not so I just made sure that they stayed off my cloths and skin. We took some more photos and then drove to the discovery centre at the entrance to the Pinnacle road tour.

It was very interesting and there were some interesting displays. Some held stuffed spiders and one had a stuffed snake. I learned that the Pinnacle Desert is home to some types of scorpions as well. I couldn't take photos because they would be to dark if I didn't use the flash and if I did use the flash it would reflect off the glass around the displays. So I just looked and read. After that we went into the gift shop there and I showed Dad a Wobble Hat which came in a large size. He thought about it a bit and then went and bought it. He was in need of a new one anyway.

Then we did a short 1 km walk to the Pinnacle lookout and took some photos. We had a break while Dad took some photos and then we walked back to the discovery centre and left. We drove back to the caravan park and on the way stopped at a service station to get fuel for tomorrow. When we arrived at the caravan Dad and I went and had a shower. After a nice warm shower I started writing my blog. Then we had dinner. Dinner was Spaghetti Bolognese and noodles. After dinner I finished writing my blog and had dessert. Dessert was two warm cinnamon and sugar doughnut nuked in the microwave. After dessert I went to bed.

Perth Day 3

Today we got up in the morning, had breakfast and then drove off to the Fremantle Maritime Museum. Fremantle is famous for this museum. Its very interesting with all of its displays of motor boats, sailboats and fish. It is also home to an Oberon class Submarine that is open to tours through the hull.

When we arrived we walked into the Kimberly Nature meets Science exhibition. It is a sort of gallery of pictures that were taken by different photographers. There were an awful lot of mangrove snails and Fiddler Crabs. There were also a fair few fish photos. . All of the pictures were very interesting. There was even a video clip showing about how Fiddler Crabs live on the mudflats. Then we went to the assembly point for the tour of the H.M.A.S Ovens, the Submarine which had its home at the museum.

H.M.A.S stands for His or Her Majesties Australian Ship. The tour guide, who's name was Fritz told us that there was an actual difference between a Ship and a Boat. The difference being that you step down into a boat and up onto a ship. The tour through the submarine was very interesting and I was amazed at the narrowness of the rooms and smallness of bunks. We stopped at an old bow that was cut off from another submarine to be exhibited in the museum. The big lump at the end of a Submarine is where the sonar is housed. A Submarine has two modes. Active mode and passive mode. When in active mode the Submarine sends out a ping and the ping bounces off an object and goes back to the submarine, therefor letting it know what lay ahead. In passive mode however the Submarine just goes along underwater listening for another Submarine's sonar pings.

Then we went inside the submarine. It was on a slipway pulled all the way out of the water. We entered through the most forward hatch which would normally have been used to load the torpedos into the torpedo room. In the torpedo room which is the most forward room. One corner held a dummy dressed in an orange suit. This suit, I later found out, was used for emergency escape. What happened was this. The person was dressed in this orange airtight suit and the suit is filled up with air. The person then climbs into a chamber with a hatch at the bottom and a hatch at the top. The bottom hatch is then closed and sealed while the top hatch gets opened. The chamber then floods with water and the person floats to the surface of the ocean and waits to be picked up by a rescue boat. Pretty clever hey?

Next we moved into the junior sleeping quarters room. This is where the junior submariners slept when the vessel was in action. All the bunks are 6.4 foot long and have a safety belt across the middle of. The reason for this being, should they surface in rough weather, then the submarine would pitch from side to side therefor throwing the crewmen out of their bunks if they weren't strapped in. The next room that we walked into was the senior sleeping quarters which actually had tables to eat at. The seniors ate at tables in the mess unlike the juniors who ate in their cabins. The bunks were pretty much the same. The room after that was the control room. The access to all rooms on a submarine is through a round door hole that is sealable so that they could stop water spreading throughout the sub.

In the control room there were all these screens and about a zillion knobs and dials. There was also a steering joystick to dive up and down. They steered the submarines with steering wheels just like boats. The seats in front of two screens were for the people in charge of firing the torpedos. Another interesting thing was the massive sprit levels that show if the submarine is level. The spirit levels are about 40 cm long and 10cm high.

After that we went to the engine room. There are two massive engines, each with around 600 horse power. The submarine's maximum RPM are 1800. In the engine room when it was running, back in the days of service the temperature and noise could reach an incredible level. Then we walked trough the small passageway between the rear torpedo room and the engine room. In that small passageway there are three toilet cubicles which are so small that you have to undress, back into the toilet, sit down do your business and get up, get dressed and walk away . After that we went into the rear torpedo room which was easily the biggest room in the sub. The rear torpedo tubes were removed because new torpedos were being developed, those you could steer with a wire that came out of the end.

When we came out of the submarine we had found out lots of new things about submarines. One really interesting thing was that the control room had two periscopes. One was an attack periscope which had a very small diameter so that it did't create a big wake. The other periscope's name escapes me but it was used when there was no stealth required. Another thing was that this particular submarine flew the jolly roger from it's conning tower. The reason for this being that the captain had overheard another higher ranking officer in the army (he didn't like submarines and their crewmen) talking about submariners in a mean manner and calling them 'pirates'. So as they came into port the flew the jolly roger and sank a ship which is now a dive wreck.

The tour was very interesting and left us feeling very hungry. So we headed to the museum cafe and bought lunch. I chose a roast beef salad sandwich and my sister chose a ham/ salad sandwich. Dad choses a salad Pannini. Mum chose an Arancini which is a risotto rice ball and it was quite big, about the size of a cricket ball.

Then we headed off to explore the other part of the museum. I saw the actual Australia 2 sailboat. It had won the America's Cup when no one except the Americans had ever won the race in over 100 years. There was also a boat that had a wheelhouse on top of the passenger area. I couldn't see the bow because of the passenger area's roof. It stretched for about two metres before the bow started. I went into the wheelhouse and checked myself.

After that we left the fascinating museum and drove to the Bell tower in the C.B.D. of Perth. It is 82 metres, 246 foot tall. Which is pretty high. It is made out of glass and offers some of the most spectacular views in Perth. Then we went shopping for dinner and Dad bought some doughnut balls for dessert. When we arrived back at the caravan Dad and I filled up the water tanks and then we went had a shower. The warm water was nice on the mozzie bites that I had gotten while we were filling up the water tanks on the caravan. After our shower Dad and I went back to the caravan and I started writing my blog. Then we had dinner. Dinner was two Chicken and Avocado sandwiches for me and chicken and rice and stir fried veggies for the rest of the family. Then I kept writing my blog until we could have dessert. Dessert was the doughnut balls and a glass of chocolate milk. Then I finished writing the blog and went to bed.

Perth Day 2

Today we went into town. After a breakfast of leftover doughnuts from last night and a hot chocolate, we drove into Perth. When we arrived in the C.B.D we parked. On the way to the consulate Dad stopped at a phone shop to get a more reliable internet access thingy for the caravan. I saw the funny functions of the iPhone 4. It can be used as a remote control for theses things that fly around and are shaped very funnily. Then I watched the TV that they had there for people who are waiting. Then we walked to the Austrian Consulate. Dad needed his fingerprints renewed for his passport. The Consulate actually spoke german! After an hour of getting stuff straight in there we headed off down the streets in search of the Apple store.

Inside the apple store is what would be described as really awesome. There were about 10 iMac computers lined up along one wall, then came the Macbook Pro laptops in a row in next to the iMacs, then the Macbook air laptops in yet another row, then came the iPads in…… you guessed it, another row, and then came the iPods display along the room's other wall. Each display had an iPad to go with it where you could select and choose different things to find out about each item. At the iPad section you could test the iPads. They have everything from internet access to facetime. Mum was even able to check her email on it. My sister and I played games on the different iPads. My favourite game was Critter Ball. It's a game where you tilt the iPad to control this little ball and have to roll him to the exit. The only thing that I didn't like was that they only displayed the latest models of things. For example they didn't have the iPod generation 1 and 2. They only had the iPad 2 which is the latest model. But they had all the Macbook laptops which was good.

After that we looked for a bakery to have lunch at. We found one and went to choses our lunches. I chose a Chicken, Avocado sandwich (One of my favourites). Mum and Dad chose sweet chilli, chicken and salad sandwiches and wraps. My sister chose a Ham, tomato, cucumber and salad sandwich. They tasted great! After that we walked back to the Consulate to get Dad's passport back. Then we spent the avo walking around Perth and discovering interesting things. One really interesting thing was that they had an African store. You could buy all sorts of sweets, cheeses and spices in there. There were so many in fact that Mum could have spent a whole day on there and still not be satisfied with her time in there to shop.

Then Dad found a toilet which he described as an adventure toilet. It all works electronically. You push a button and the door opens, you push another one and the door closes. The tap is sensor operated. All you do is hold you hand in the tall basin and the water turns on automatically. The toilet flushes as soon as the tap sensor is activated. On the walk my sister discovered that the trees growing on the nature strip were Olive Trees. There were Olives all over the footpath.

When we finally arrived back at the car we drove to a caravan accessories store. At the store Dad bought a replacement pad for the broken one on the bottom of the caravan. Then we drove to All Tools but Dad didn't get the Jerry can that he wanted. After that we drove back to the caravan and I wrote the blog. Then we had dinner. Dinner was fried sausages with fried potatoes. Then I went to bed. I slept very well.

Perth Day 1

Today we traveled 400 km to Perth. In the morning Dad and and I packed up the caravan. We didn't unhook the caravan last night because we would be driving agin today. All we did was take the pressure off the sway bars. So in the morning all we did was put the sway bars back on and away we drove. The drive was pretty boring seeing as I couldn't do any school work because I'd get carsick if I looked down for too long. So we drove, only stopping for fuel, until we reached Perth.

At Perth we set up the caravan and then went into town in the hope of buying lunch. We drove to the local shopping centre and split. Dad and my sister went to buy my sister an iPod case at Harvey Norman. Mum and I went to Woolworth to buy fresh fruit and veg. After an hour of shopping we met outside Woolies and went to buy a late lunch. At the food court we looked around and decided what we were going to have.

I chose a Chicken wrap, Mum and Dad chose chinese and my sister chose a pizza. We all shared our stuff around and by the end we were full and felt very content. Dad went to buy dessert for dinner at the doughnut shop. He bought a family pack of 8 doughnuts. 4 were chocolate and 4 were jam. He also bought a dough ball bag. Its basically cinnamon doughnut dough rolled into a small ball and covered with cinnamon and sugar. They were a great driving snack and we soon polished them off. We stopped at Bunnings on the way back to the caravan for something that Dad needed to fix his chair.

When we arrived at the caravan Dad found some ducks and we fed them bread until it started to rain. Then we went inside our caravan and I did some schoolwork. Then, when the rain had stopped my sister and I went outside to find that the ducks had taken shelter under the caravan next to us. We coaxed them out with bits of bread that we threw to them. Then 2 more ducks came to join the free feed but one of the other ducks chased them away in an aggressive manner. After using up 2 slices of bread we went back inside and I started writing the blog.

I tried to ring Mitchell on facetime. The signal kept dropping out and after half an hour we had to stop yakking. Then I finished writing my blog and had a quick dinner of a few rice cakes, Avocado and cheese. Then I went to bed.