Burgled, Bogans and Beer !

Hey there,

what a weird couple of days we've had. Finished work on Friday, came home as normal. Opened the living room door to find a card opened on the floor, blaming diggy I then walked into the kitchen. The medicine was all out of the cupboards and on the kitchen floor, along with all the drawers in the cupboards in the dining area. Emma has been tidying all her stuff out ready for her move home and I just thought she'd maybe finished work early and started tidying. Although thinking at the same time if she had of gone out she would have took Digs and she deffo wouldn't have left Digs alone with the medicine on the floor ??!!

I then walked through to the bedroom and noticed all the bedroom doors were open. Weird, cos everyone shuts them before going out ?? I then went into our bedroom and the double wardrobe had been emptied onto the bed, stuff everywhere. Still not quite understanding what was going on, I then went into Emmas bedroom and everything was everywhere. All the drawers and cupboards emptied. I then rang Emma, followed by Ben and then the police. Everyone got home about 20 mins later and we just couldn't understand what had gone on. They had left everything of value and only took painkillers, cash from Emma's room, our New Zealand Dollars we had, unopened cards we had, a tin of $1 and $2 coins ....... our footie tickets !!. We were very lucky cos it could have been so much worse ! We were just gutted that some strangers or stranger had been through all our private stuff, been in our private space. They had gotten in through the dog door, poor digs must have been terrified ! The forensics rang and said they couldn't come out until the next morning and not to move or touch anything. We couldn't have left it the way it was and we just wanted to tidy up. We were gutted all night and couldn't understand what had happened.

The next morning Ben was working, so me and Emma waited for the forensics to come. They came but didn't get any prints cos we'd tidied up. They said that it was probably kids and just to make sure all the doors and windows are locked with keys. He said they probably wouldn't be back cos they would have just taken everything first time. As soon as the copper had gone, me and Emma just cleaned the place from top to bottom. We wanted to make it our own again. When we finished we instantly felt better ! Ben got home about 3ish and we were ready to go and have a few drinks and just to forget about it for a while.

We caught the bus into town and made our way to the beer festival. Ha ha, Ben got asked for ID on his way into the arena !! So funny !

We went and got some food first, thinking lining our stomach would be a wise option ! It was huge and there was tons of people there, it had started at 12 so there was a few wobbly people already ! We tried Coopers Pale Ale, Little Creatures Bright Ale, Ninja Ginger Beer, Doom Bar Ale, Strawberry Daiquris and even raised our glasses to Owen with a Green King IPA !

Emma treated me to a ride on the chair swing that was there, so much fun ! Ben didn't want a go, thinking he would probably spew.

We sat and watched the live music for a while. We watched One Island East, a samba type band .... very chilled ! We then caught the start of Seth Sentry, he reminded me of Mike Skinner. We managed to persuade Ben to have a go on the Chairs. He loved it, didn't spew which was disapointing ! Ha ha, only joking. Saw the funniest thing though .... while Ben and Emma were on the chairs a guy fell off ! Check out the video, it's at 30sec !! Ha ha, awesome !

We caught a taxi to our local Pizzeria and got a carry out of booze, the perfect end to a great day ! Just what we all needed ! Ben's now at work, he had to go in for a couple of hours. So to is Emma, it's just been me and Digs this morning. We went for a la'al walk to the park and I checked through all our stuff just to make sure the tickets have deffo gone...... they have ! So we're going to get a dvd out and chill out this arvo instead of going to the footie ! Never mind, we'll all ok and thats the main thing ay ???!!

Dockers v's Demons ??!!

Well hello Bloggers !
Alas we haven’t got great news this week, we came 2nd last in the quiz last night ! The questions were just too hard last night and we all struggled. We did win a drinks voucher though, and least we didn’t come last !

We had a pretty quiet weekend last week. Ben was working Friday night and disappeared just before midnight. I met my friend Matt at the Moon & Sixpence British Pub. He’s really settled into the Perth lifestyle and it’s great to hear that his kids and wife has too. Hopefully we’ll catch up again before we leave.

Saturday, Ben was working in the morning. Emma had started her tidy up of her stuff and wanted to take some of her old stuff to Toodyay. Toodyay is the place about 80kms out of Perth where they had all the fires just before Christmas. Me, Emma and Digs took a roadtrip, calling in at Taylors in the Swan Valley on the way. Taylors is a hippie cafe just on the vineyards doorstep, it’s where Emma works on Sundays. It was so lovely and laid back, really nice. We had a coffee and shared a cake before heading out through the Swan Valley Vineyards. Beautiful scenery all the way, all green and lush. The scenery soon changed, as it became more rugged and bush at the sides of the road. Then we came across vast open fields, with the occasional tree looking all black. We were coming into Toodyay. Shacks just sat on their own in the middle of blackness, I’m not sure how they survived .... most didn’t ! It must have been terrifying for them, everything gone. We parked the car and went for a walk around the town. It was so cute and felt like we’d stepped back in time. Little shops, town butchers, it just had a lovely feel to it. Nowhere was open and it was only Saturday just before 11ish. We walked past the Town Hall and decided to have a look in. It smelled so old and it was immaculate inside. Really oldie, gorgeous ! The people inside directed us to the pavilion where we could donate our stuff. We got there and it was packed, everything you could imagine. It was like a massive charity shop, where everyone from around Australia had donated for the fire victims. Anyone from Toodyay who needed anything after the fires could go and take it. Awesome ! After there we decided to go back to town and have some lunch. We had a sandwich each and headed back to Perth.

Sunday was Valentines Day... our first as Husband and Wife. We headed off into the city for a wander and ended up having some dinner there and a pint ... very nice !

We haven’t really been up to much this week, quiet nights in. Emma’s been having a sort out so we’re trying to help where we can. We’ve been enjoying Biggest Loser and even Ben’s hooked now, he’s the one putting it on and reminding us it’s on .... ha ha, sorry Ben !

We’ve got a busy weekend coming up. Tomorrow (Saturday) is the Perth International Beer Festival, it’s held in the Kings Court Gardens. Hopefully Bens not working so we can go there for opening, they’ve got some bands and stalls and stuff. I won tickets to an AFL match through the council, so we’ll be going to see that on Sunday. It’s the Fremantle Dockers v’s Melbourne Demons. We said we wanted to catch a game if we could, so lucky I won the tickets. Think it’s just a pre-season friendly but still should be a great atmosphere. It's at the Subiaco Oval, which is where all the Western Australian Footie teams play.

Got another week at the council next week, this time helping the Chief Executive Officer’s Assistant ! Moving up in the world ! Ben’s still having a ball at Megavision and getting around Perth. He’s working today at the Challenge Stadium, where the Perth Wildcats Basketball team play.

We’re both fine, Blog you next week and let you know if we’re Dockers or Demons supporters !!
Take care everyone and speak soon !
xxxxx

Just a quick one !

Hello there,
How is everyone ??? We're both fine. I'm writing this at 3.40pm on a friday !! Yippee ! Our salad week hasn't gone according to plan ....... we did have one on sunday for the picnic ! Monday night we met up with Dave and Cathy, our friends we met who are from Adelaide. We met them in the Moon and Sixpence and did a bit of a pub crawl. They are such lovely people and want us to go and stay with them. Not sure if we're going to have time though but won't rule it out just yet ! Tuesday we were feeling a wee bit hungover .... I did make it into work though so we weren't that bad ! Needless to say stodge was in order and we went to the pub for 2 for 1 night .... mmmmm mmmm chicken parmigiana ... just what was needed ! Wednesday, Emma cooked us our Australia Day meal .... a roast lamb dinner !! Very nice it was too. And you all know what happens on a Thursday ...... QUIZ NIGHT !! So it was another pub dinner for us all. And you's lot won't believe it, but we came bloody 2nd !! I know !! We had 2 more poms helping us .... so we had an awesome 6 on the team ! We were actually 1st at half way point and we nearly wet ourselves. We collected our $25 drinks voucher and even treated ourselves to a winners Baskin Robbins !! We still couldn't believe it this morning before work .... ha ha ... awesome !
Ben's working tonight, he's going out at midnight !! And they've asked him to work tomorrow too, but just until 2pm ! I'm meeting a guy tonight in the pub for a catch up after work today. He used to work in Ipswich and was a customer of mine from Rexel Senate .... it's a small world ! We've no plans for the weekend just yet, feel like we need a chill one so a trip to the beach might be in order .... oh and lots of salads !!
Well it was just a la'al note to tell you we are the champions of quizzes now !!
When I say pub, you say quiz ........ 'PUB!'
xxx

Garn daan sarf again !

Hey there Bloggers,

we're back from another great weekend with the tent. We thought Ben was working this weekend but found out on Friday that he wasn’t needed, so we asked our great landlady if we could borrow her awesome tent again and quickly got our hire car and off we went. We woke early Saturday morning and packed the car and head off out onto the Freeway. We weren’t sure where we were going to stay and just decided to head to the furthest point Augusta. It wasn’t much driving this time and the furthest we had to drive was 340kms. We decided half way that we would pitch the tent at Margaret River and then just do our visiting from there. We got there just after 11ish, just as the rain was starting !! Awesome, our first rain in Australia !

The site was right in the middle of Margaret River. We pitched it no bother and then decided to head out. We drove onto the Caves Road and headed south. Margaret River is the Western Australian Wine Making Region and were we wine drinkers we would probably have been excited. Didn’t matter not being wine drinkers though, the scenery was so lovely. The views from the road were amazing. The vineyards are so beautiful and with the rain aswell everywhere looked so green !

We passed a sign for the Lake Cave and decided to pull over and have a look. We paid our money and timed it right to have a guided tour. We had to descend 350 steps down into the doline, where we met our tour guide. We were surrounded by Karri trees, some towering more than 20 stories high which means they are very old !

The Lake Cave was discovered by a guy called Tim Connelly around 1897. He just ventured underground and was waist deep in water and discovered what was underground. He was so impressed with it, he invested everything to make it into a Tourist Cave. He built all the walkways and it was ready for the public tours by lantern in 1901 ! Amazing. We were told that we had some more steps to climb and to watch out heads on the way down. There was 2 rocks we had to watch out for, Headache Rock the first and Splitting Headache Rock the second. It was already feeling damp and cold, we were glad we’d donned our hoodies ! It was amazing underground, we weren’t ready for what we saw. It was like something out of Disney, crystals hanging from the ceiling and coming up from the ground. There was a small lake running through the middle and drips were echoing around the whole cave. There was a little walkway which runs through the middle.

We were lead by torchlight not lantern but it was equally eerie! As we walked through the view just got better, the reflections in the clear water made the cave seem so much bigger. In the middle was the “Suspended Table”. The “table” a massive column of calcite weighing more than five tonnes that just hangs from the ceiling, just hanging above the lake. We got to the end of the cave and sat whilst we got to hold a piece of the calcite crystal, it was so heavy and it’s amazing to think how long it has taken all these crystals to be formed. Can you imagine finding something like this ???? !!! Wow !

We sat whilst they had a little lightshow and sometimes all the lights went off together and it was so dark and so quiet. We had 10 mins to have a look around and take photos ourselves before heading back up the stairs. Some Scientists wanted to know how quickly the crystals were forming and decided to burn one of the tips off and see how fast it grows back. You could see the tip of black where they had burnt it and it was about 1 1/2cm’s growth, that little growth had taken 60 years !! Incredible aye ?!

It was such an effort to climb the stairs back up but we managed it. We climbed in the car and carried on the Caves road towards Augusta. When we got there we stopped off at Hamelin Bay, it was funny because there was only 2 roads when got there. One going to the Boat Ramp and the other to a Campsite. We headed to the Boat Ramp and parked up the car. We had a short walk to the beach and had it been a nice day we would have stayed longer. Surprisingly the water was still turquoise even thought the sky was grey.

I had a paddle and the water was freezing ! We didn’t stay long and drove to the most South Westerly Point in Australia to Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse.

The weather had changed again and it was so windy, felt like we were going to get blown off the edge ! We quickly took some photos and then ran back to the car. We weren’t allowed in the lighthouse as there was some maintenance work going on.

We drove back to Augusta. It was such a small place, just one street of shops. We got some beers for the evening and headed back to the tent so we could chill for a while. We played a few games of cards and then we were ready for our BBQ tea.

Ben was incharge of the barbie and took the relevant tools of the trade over and got started ....... a beer and snags !

It was raining by the time we’d finished cooking so we took the stuff over and sat in the tent, listening to the rain. That was pretty much our evening ..... eating, drinking and listening to the rain. We loved it. It pretty much rained all night and packing away the tent wet in the morning wasn’t much fun.

We had our breakfast Bagels with cream cheese ...... we were really ruffing it this weekend ! Ha ha. We set off just after 9ish heading up north again.

We were heading up the Caves Road when I mentioned to Ben about the Margaret River Chocolate Company, that was it. The car had to be turned around and there we were heading back down the Caves Road. It wasn’t much of a detour and we found it.

It was amazing, the place was filled with chocolate .... Ben thought he was in heaven ! And there was FREE samples ! We were still tasting our breakfast but that didn’t stop us filling our pockets, bags any holes with the free delicious chocolate. Ben would even say that it’s the best Milk Chocolate he’s ever tasted ! Now that is a statement ! Needless to say we left there feeling a wee bit under the weather and 11 bucks lighter as we bought some homemade cake aswell. Ben says it would even be worth paying the airfare from the UK to Perth and then hiring a car and driving the 300 kms to buy some of the milk chocolate .... I’d say he can make do with Dairy Milk like the rest of us !

We drove back along the Caves Road, such stunning views and stopped off at Dunsborough. We parked the car and had a walk around the town. It was lovely, little boutique shops and it was really busy. There were so many motorbikes that had overtaken us on the windy roads and this is where they had all arrived at. We walked right down to the beach and it was so quiet and still. The water didn’t look too deep, like you could walk for miles knee depth. There were loads of people sitting and chilling, it was really lovely. We walked back and decided to get a brew and take our cake back down by the beach. We called in at a Christian Fletcher Gallery on the way to the car, amazing photographer ! We chilled eating our cake and managed to hold it down before setting off back home.

We arrived home to our welcoming party of an excited Digger and quickly emptied the car. Ben was incharge of making the picnic and I was incharge of washing and emptying the bags. We were in and back out again heading towards South Perth to have a picnic and watch the sunset over the skyline.

Ben wanted a photo of the Narrows and the Perth Skyline so we took the opportunity whilst we still had the hire car. It was well worth it, the view was amazing and such a good sky. Perth didn’t have the rain that we did in the south so the sky was really nice for it.

We even managed to drive round by the Perth Wheel and take a few photos. What a way to end a weekend, we had such a lovely time and we can cross another thing off our To-Do list !

No other gossip really, apart from we came 8th out of 12 teams at the quiz the other night. Luckily we had a friend of Emma’s with us cos me and Ben were useless this time. So many Aussie questions, we put it down to “Mark”, our usual team host not being there ! Booooo !! Meeting our new friends from Adelaide tonight, Dave and Cathy. They fly out of Perth on Thursday Morning so we thought we’d meet them and see what they’ve been up too, no doubt share a few pints with them again.

It’s a regular evening thing now with me and Emma watching the Biggest Loser and Ben playing his Pokie online. Ben’s loving it and so are we ! Great TV ! Well no other goss at the moment, we’re both fine. Hope everyone’s fine back home, sending our love to everyone.

That’s it for now, take care and speak soon.

Love the H’s xxx

Heirisson Island and stuff ......

Howdy Doody Everyan !

How are you all ? We’re both fine thanks, well and truly recovered from the weekend ! We had a great time (as usual) since the last time we spoke. I had a great birthday and the fireworks were awesome. Me and Emma went and sat on the hill, down the road from where we live and watched the fireworks over the skyline. There was loads of people ! We had a great view and could even see Ben’s searchlight.

Me and Emma even managed to sneak a couple bottles of cider for watching the celebrations and finished our night with a Baskin Robbins ice-cream ....... much to Ben’s disgust ! Ben had a great show and got some good pics.

He came home early though cos he dropped a massive trolley on his foot. It was all swollen and bruised. He was given the next day off and made sure he put loads of ice on it and rested it. It’s all better now but lucky he didn’t break anything !

Saturday, me and Ben went for an early morning swim. We managed a whole 1km .... 20 lengths of the pool ... we were so chuffed we celebrated with a fry up at the cafe near it !! All that hard work aye??!! We called in at Blockbuster and got a couple of DVD’s out and got home and chilled.

Emma asked if we fancied going to Heirisson Island for a few beers and a walk around. It’s an island just off the Causeway and sits between South Perth and North Perth. In September 1984

the Government of WA erected a statue of aboriginal warrior Yagan on the island.

In 1997 the statue’s head was sawn off by vandals apparently in some sort of comment about the then current attempts to return Yagan’s head from Britain. We took Digs and walked around the riverside, seeing the families out fishing and even saw some people kayaking. We sat and enjoyed a beer before heading towards the swings .... so much fun !

We then walked under the causeway and headed onto the Island. It’s all fenced off because of the Wildlife that’s on the island.

We had a walk about and watched as the sun came down. We managed to spot some Grey Kanagroos, couldn’t believe that we used to walk passed them on our way into the city. There was about 6 of them and Ben got right close and got some good photos. So cool !

Sunday, it was an early start and kindly Emma got up and dropped us at the Boat Yard ready for our Private Charter to Rottnest. We got there super early so went for a cuppa to warm up before setting sail. We made our way back to where we had to meet, and Ben saw his Boss Jeff. He was aboard the Aussie Warrior.

There was about 30 of us altogether with Customers and Staff of Megavision. We waited as they loaded up the boat and then boarded. We sat and listened to the safety instructions and a brief talk from Jeff and then we set sail at 9am.

It was such a lovely day, not too hot. It took about an hour, probably felt longer for all the

women aboard feeling seasick ! We saw Rottnest and anchored down at a Bay called Parakeet Beach. We quickly got changed into our Boardies and donned our snorkelling gear. Snorkelling across to the beach, it was so cold but so cool ! Everyone got stung on the way over by some jellyfish, nothing too serious which was good news but enough to tingle for the rest of the day ! We had a few games of volleyball then headed back to the boat for some grub. A BBQ they’d put on, it was so nice. Washed down with some ice cold Corona’s. After dinner we boarded the dingy back over to the island where we all had a game of Cricket. Ben got some stick for being an Englishman and dropping the ball !! I just kindly reminded them about the Ashes, seems to shut them up for a while !!

It seemed like the day went so fast, we didn’t even get to have a walk about before the boat was back to take us back to the charter. We set sail back and landed back just after 4pm ish.

Me and Ben celebrated with an ice cream and then made our way to the bus station to take us to the train station. When we got to the train station we started talking to a lovely couple from Adelaide. They were here on holiday, as they’d gotten some cheap flights. When we got to Perth we invited them to join us at the British Pub for a drink and that turned into 2 and before we knew it we were at their apartment enjoying some bevvies there. Can’t quite remember what happened much after that but remember being a bit worse for wear when I got home !! Whoops !! Needless to say I had a day off on Monday to recover, but Ben made it .... not sure how, but he made it through the day ! We had such good night .... we think ?!

This is my last week at the Council and not sure if I’ll find out if the agency have anything for me until next week .... could do with not having to get up at 6.15am for a while !!

No other gossip at the moment really, just Ben’s job is starting to get busy now and he’ll be working most of the weekends. Not sure when we’ll be able to fit in the rest of our travels now. We haven’t even looked at anything for NZ yet cos we’re still here in Oz and don’t want it to end!

Take care everyone and speak soon ! xx