Good Day to you matey's at long last we have put finger to pad and updating you on our Australia Journey. We will be leaving tomorrow for Malaysia so the next blog will reveal what goings to transpire.
Back to Oz well we firstly went to Sydney for a few days did all the tourist stuff, Opera house, Sydney bridge, Chinese Garden and we took in some culture! Culture I hear you say, it was really nice to spend some time looking in galleries and we both realised that we had missed this quite a bit. We saw the 'First Emperor' Terracotta Army' exhibit which was worth seeing if you get a chance and we saw the photographer Annie Leibowitz exhibition of lifetime pictures which we would recommend highly. Craig was comparing his photography with her photos and I must say Craig's photography is getting rather good which you can tell from the blog. Sydney also has a large Chinese population and the Chinese garden was truly magical, we had some lovely Chinese food which was well appeicated. Sydney itself seems a nice city not very large or that busy compared to other cities we have been to. We then flew onto Perth and the real reason we came to Oz was to spend time with Craig's mum who has lived here for 27 years so you can imagine it was wonderful to see her and make her part of our spiritual journey.
In fact Rita and Ross her partner live about one and half hours outside Perth in a place called Pinjarra. The first thing we both recognised was the complete vastness and size of this country. It took us 5 hours just to fly from Sydney to Perth and we even went through a small timezone! Western Australia is far hotter than its other states, it has large open plains and the grass is bleached from the sun with large Eucalyptus trees shedding their bark everywhere. We have both never seen trees shed their bark the way these do,and literally break down similar to a snake shedding its skin. There are piles of branches and wood everywhere making way for new life to re start again. The land goes on for miles and miles and by sunset the fields are dotted with kangaroos waking from their sleepy day. Pinjarra is a smallish country town growing slowly with shops, restaurants and houses. It has a pretty river running through it and a quaint little tea-room which do a great quiche and cappuccino, FAB! Our addiction of cappuccino's is still with us folks what will become of us ?! The tea room and its surrounding buildings date back to 1896 ( old in Oz terms) and have rose gardens, quilting shops, knitting circle and a old steam engine museum. It feels familiar to times gone by in England and gives us a nice warm cosy feeling except that we did not have Possum's in the UK. Possum's are delightful little creatures that are very partial to jam and bread (all part of their natural diet, NOT!) They have great big round eyes long claws and can hang upside down from their tail to eat the jam and bread (see photo). I also decided to spend a day with the ladies and the knitting circle, OK I know a few of you out there are now saying coffee, knitting, what will be next? where has the vodka drinking party gal gone? Well she is still there inside in a small part of my linear body but she is having a well deserved rest and exploring other things. I can say that knitting is really therapeutic and I even tried my hand at spinning some wool. This is really difficult but I gave it a go and made about 2 metres of yarn, oh dear wont be able to make a sweater from that one!
Rita has a lovely little dog called Rosy (see photo) she gets VERY VERY excited she spins around in circles when you take her out and jumps really high when she greets you. She stands on her back legs and puts her front paws up as if she is in a hold up, she makes us laugh so much and she runs around the garden catching the air in her mouth, chasing the parrots, crows and willy wagtails as fast as her little legs will take her. She wants to be loved all the time and if she could would lick you to death! We have taken this time here to do a lot of studying on lots of different holistic therapies and have been meditating with Rita every day with different modalities which has helped us tremendously. As the country is so large we decided to spend all of our time in WA and explore the little towns and areas, there are a lots of Dams here and the state has made some of them into open air venues such as theatres, which is a really good idea. WA has quite a few rivers that are surrounded with large boulders which you can climb it feels very much like you expect OZ to be and very quiet. I had my first experience with a snake on the first week we were here. You sort of forget that you cannot just go off walkabout in the long grass like at home so on this particular time i needed to pee, off I go into the bush and was just about to do my business and there is the snake wiggling near my feet!! That was the fastest I moved in a long time! Snakes and Spiders yes they are all here but luckily we have not had too many experiences with them. Craig and I have mentioned this before but we have been so blessed to meet such lovely people along on our journey and Oz is no exception. People here are very polite and welcoming and we had the pleasure of spending time with Rita and Ross friends Anne and Eric on their farm in the South.
The south of WA is farming country, Sheep, Sheep, Cows, Cows and HORSES! beautiful elegant horses. WA is very much into horsey things so the horses are very well cared for and beautiful and as the horse is one of my main spirit animals i have been surrounded with their spiritual nature, Bliss. We all stayed with Anne and Eric for the weekend, Craig got to fish for Marron and Yabies similar to prawns and lobster in a man made dam and rosy ran her heart out with other dogs on the farm. We sat outside in Anne's rose garden with brightly feathered parrots flying overhead drinking tea and talking about their adventures as well as ours. We had a wonderful time.
Craig , Mum and I also decided to take 5 days away to another part of the south. One of the places we went to was Margaret River a tourist town with a slight hippy feel to it within a wine region. In this particular part of WA the trees and earth are much greener with tall Karri tree forests everywhere. There are great places to hike, a bird sanctuary where we saw eagles flying very low taking food from one of the workers and more owls. We have spent so much time with our feathery friends on our travels and the beauty of the birds in all the countries have been wonderful to see. You come to realise that for years a lot of people take nature and its flying, crawling, four legged friends for granted and when you stop and look and listen you see what you have never seen before, beauty in its finest. After a few days we went onto Pemberton a small town with beautiful forest walks. We stayed on a farm and sat outside at breakfast time with the sheep, goats, horses and kangaroos a few footsteps away, it was very peaceful and the children in the next block fed the animals every morning. It is so important for children to experience nature and all that it has to offer and I realised that a lot of children back home in parts of the UK have never experienced this. Since we have heard about the earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan you understand how much the planet is suffering and how important it is for all of us to care for and send respect to this world. Spending time in nature is so important in a child's development and they then come to understand and respect this wonderful planet of ours. Send some love and light to the planet when you receive this blog just once a few minutes a day will do wonders for it.
It has been wonderful to share time with Mum and Ross and the 2 months seem to fly by so quickly. WA we have been told is often overlooked because a lot of tourists tend to go to the East coast as there are more cities to experience. There is beautiful scenery even in the most sun drenched places and the tiny towns you pass through often have little galleries offering very good art and glass wear by local artists. The sky at night is without smog or pollution and the sunsets are often a orange hue against the blackened trees. You can walk for miles and see only a few cars passing you if any, and we hardly saw other people besides ourselves when Rosie was taken for a walk. By 9pm cafe's and restaurants are closed so if you are looking for some late action this is not really a place to come to, instead our highlight of the night was sifting through mum's DVD collection that she has collected over the years! The only thing we did not experience was a bush-tucker walk with some indigenous people but as for tucker which they call food here reminded me of the UK years ago..A typical Ozzie bloke, eats bread and butter with his meal, loves meat especially lamb and beef everyday for his supper, does not eat messed up food, egg and bacon sarnies likes a bet on the horses and dogs and loves their beer! Ross is a typical Oz guy and works even after retirement and tinkers in his shed with engine bits on his off days. So we were surprised to see that he was very much into alternative medicine and was very much up to date on new things. He had lots of paperwork with interesting articles and I have listed in my book all the wonderful new discoveries that doctors are making.
My Turn Now "you know" the tall short thin fat good looking ugly bloke, yeah that's her ! Hi all it was lovely to see & spend time with mum, Ross & little Rosie. Mum got right into the spiritual side of things with us, we were meditating most days & trying different methods & other meditating Cd's, some of which mum was already using. It was a good time to study as Gale has said, we had chance to look into a majority of different things. Whilst here I was befriended by an old Weybridge friend on Face book & was amazed to find he lived just outside Perth! how mad was that, so Gale & I popped up on the train to see Paul & his wife Emma with their little boy Ben. Its funny seeing an old friend half way around the world & to find Paul saying he missed the RAIN!! WA didn't have much, it was very hot there & no rain for over 120 days, I though it was lovely. We got to see a few Kangaroo's up close, once in a animal sanctuary with some Koala Bear's arrrrrrr they are so lovely, they don't do much, they spend 20 odd hrs a day sleeping wake up & eat then off to sleep again! We got to see another Skippy on the farm at Pemperton, he was a pet there & he mixed with the sheep & goats. He was really lovely too, when you gave him something to eat he was so gentle & we could even stroke him like a dog, but if the sheep or goats tried to muscle there way to his food he wasn't having any of it. The farm was mostly accommodation for tourist & had a swimming pool, it wasn't far from a forest which had huge 150ft look-out trees, in case of forest fires. There are a number of them, when a fire has started people climb the trees as a point of reference so they can determine which way the fire is going, airplanes are mostly used nowadays but they still use them if the planes take too long taking off. Tourists are allowed to climb them too & I thought if two young teenage girls are climbing it, I should have ago. so standing on a pole & holding on to another like steps leading round & around to a platform at the top, wow its like standing on the tree tops & you can see for miles. A childish thought flashed into my mind of spitting at the people on the ground, must be a boy thing! So after spitting at everyone "not really" I came down & mum Gale & I were off for a walk into the forest. I must say I was very impressed with the facilities everywhere we went, they really cater for the public well, all clean with soap & running water in every one. Australia is still booming at the moment, the $ is equal to the US $ I think the first time ever & its been like it for a while. House prices are still strong but like the rest of the world its slowed down a bit, but they managed to stay out of the recession which is good for the people. We were amazed at the wages & pensions there, the economy works well. I've got to get this blog uploaded its well overdue, we have left OZ, been to Kulula Lumpur, Malaysia & Bali & now in Bangkok Thailand & off to Koh Chang island 11am tomorrow! Too much moving around its sooooo stressful, I bet you all feel sooooo sorry for us, NOT. I must say old boy, its rather hot here in Thailand I'm all clammy like a wet fish, Nice aye!
