28 Parrot Mob of Kangaroos in field across fom house
Old Gum Tree shedding its Bark View from Patio, Roo field to the right
Lil with Bad Hair Day Exchange Home
The weather is wonderful, in the low 30's and now (January 23) we have warm showers. Of course this is the day I decided (lil) to do a wash! Homes here don't have driers but all do have good outdoor clothes lines.
On Jan 26 national holiday, “Australia Day”, we went to the Lions Club Breakfast, at the Waroona Community Hall with Andrew & Pat our neighbor’s, good Cheap Breakfast. We have found that meals are high by our standards, a steak or seafood dinner runs about $30.00, the Canadian $ runs at about par with the Oz $ We have found on the average groceries are about 35-40% higher than at home.
January 31: A few days ago the temperature was 37 so the air conditioning got a workout. There is a cyclone off the west coast, running south, so we did have some winds here as well as a night of tropical down-pouring rain. It was like a sauna. Tomorrow we go to our next exchange. It's south of here at Eagle Bay near the ocean The Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean near here as it is pretty well at the bottom of the continent. We have enjoyed our stay here in Waroona and look forward to the next place..
Old Gum Tree shedding its Bark View from Patio, Roo field to the right
Thrombolites Lil, Bird watching at Lake Coulton
Preston Beach on Indian Ocean Hiking in the Bush near the house
Lil with Bad Hair Day Exchange Home
2011 Australian Blog Blog# 1 WAROONA
G'day family and friends, here we are down under in Western Australia, no flooding here fortunately. To begin, at the beginning: Jan 15 our good friends and neighbor’s Sandy and Jim McDonald drove us to Kamloops airport for the 8:05PM flight to Vancouver. We were there nice and early, so were lucky to be put on the earlier flight as there was freezing rain falling, and they were not sure the 8:05 flight would get in or out. With a quick de-icing of plane, we were on our way.
The 11:45PM Air Canada flight left late, as usual, around 1:AM. The flight went well, we did sleep some, had a couple of dreadful meals and after 15 hours of flying we landed in Sydney where we stayed overnight at a motel quite close to the airport. It was 11:00 AM Oz time so we just switched and called our dinner, breakfast and we were pretty well on their schedule. Tired of course, but so happy to feel that sun. The flight from Sydney to Perth left at 6 am and after 5 hours and 3 time zones, we were on the West Coast at 8 am where we were met by our exchanger, Chris, who drove us south for about an hour to arrive at their home in
Warrona, “our home” for the next two weeks.
The home is on 12 acres of gum trees with a few shrubs, very dry area with a drought at present. There is a Mob of about 45 Grey Kangaroo's that feed in a field about 100mts Away. It's hard to see how such big animals, up to 7 feet tall can find enough nourishment on the bit of dry grass that is in the field. There are some smaller 'roos hopping about too, but so far we haven't been lucky enough to see one in mom's pouch.
There are some lovely birds including lots of a large green parrots called “The Twenty- Eight Parrot”. Honestly! It's in the bird book. It's name comes from it's call of three quite shrill notes that sounds like twenty-eight. Go ahead, try whistling twenty-eight!
This is a large 4 bedroom home with an upstairs...good for the legs. There is air conditioning and all modern conveniences and we are very comfortable. Unfortunately there is no internet, which was disappointing as their Exchange site, said there was, So we got acquainted with the local library, until Herb got a USB Wireless Broadband device. The town of Waroona is a little smaller than Chase, with most of the basic stores and services.
We do have the use of a newer Toyota Rav4 ATV, and have been seeing some of the country. This area has many dairy farms and herds of cattle. Some of the less traveled country roads, have only one paved lane in the middle of the road, when you meet another vehicle, each vehicle slows down and move over so you have one wheel on the gravel and one wheel on the pavement. Sure saves a lot of pavement, and maintenance costs, and you can pave a lot more roads, at the same cost for the pavement.
We are about 20 minutes from the Indian Ocean where there are miles lovely beaches. So far none of them are very crowded although it is summer holidays for the school kids. They go back to school the first week in February.
G'day family and friends, here we are down under in Western Australia, no flooding here fortunately. To begin, at the beginning: Jan 15 our good friends and neighbor’s Sandy and Jim McDonald drove us to Kamloops airport for the 8:05PM flight to Vancouver. We were there nice and early, so were lucky to be put on the earlier flight as there was freezing rain falling, and they were not sure the 8:05 flight would get in or out. With a quick de-icing of plane, we were on our way.
The 11:45PM Air Canada flight left late, as usual, around 1:AM. The flight went well, we did sleep some, had a couple of dreadful meals and after 15 hours of flying we landed in Sydney where we stayed overnight at a motel quite close to the airport. It was 11:00 AM Oz time so we just switched and called our dinner, breakfast and we were pretty well on their schedule. Tired of course, but so happy to feel that sun. The flight from Sydney to Perth left at 6 am and after 5 hours and 3 time zones, we were on the West Coast at 8 am where we were met by our exchanger, Chris, who drove us south for about an hour to arrive at their home in
Warrona, “our home” for the next two weeks.
The home is on 12 acres of gum trees with a few shrubs, very dry area with a drought at present. There is a Mob of about 45 Grey Kangaroo's that feed in a field about 100mts Away. It's hard to see how such big animals, up to 7 feet tall can find enough nourishment on the bit of dry grass that is in the field. There are some smaller 'roos hopping about too, but so far we haven't been lucky enough to see one in mom's pouch.
There are some lovely birds including lots of a large green parrots called “The Twenty- Eight Parrot”. Honestly! It's in the bird book. It's name comes from it's call of three quite shrill notes that sounds like twenty-eight. Go ahead, try whistling twenty-eight!
This is a large 4 bedroom home with an upstairs...good for the legs. There is air conditioning and all modern conveniences and we are very comfortable. Unfortunately there is no internet, which was disappointing as their Exchange site, said there was, So we got acquainted with the local library, until Herb got a USB Wireless Broadband device. The town of Waroona is a little smaller than Chase, with most of the basic stores and services.
We do have the use of a newer Toyota Rav4 ATV, and have been seeing some of the country. This area has many dairy farms and herds of cattle. Some of the less traveled country roads, have only one paved lane in the middle of the road, when you meet another vehicle, each vehicle slows down and move over so you have one wheel on the gravel and one wheel on the pavement. Sure saves a lot of pavement, and maintenance costs, and you can pave a lot more roads, at the same cost for the pavement.
We are about 20 minutes from the Indian Ocean where there are miles lovely beaches. So far none of them are very crowded although it is summer holidays for the school kids. They go back to school the first week in February.
We visited a lake near by where there are Thrombilites. These look like boulders with barnacles on them. Actually they are living organisms that take the minerals from the lake water and grow at the rate of 1mm a year, These are supposed to be 500 million years old. Very interesting but not a action situation. They are called living fossils.
The weather is wonderful, in the low 30's and now (January 23) we have warm showers. Of course this is the day I decided (lil) to do a wash! Homes here don't have driers but all do have good outdoor clothes lines.
On Jan 26 national holiday, “Australia Day”, we went to the Lions Club Breakfast, at the Waroona Community Hall with Andrew & Pat our neighbor’s, good Cheap Breakfast. We have found that meals are high by our standards, a steak or seafood dinner runs about $30.00, the Canadian $ runs at about par with the Oz $ We have found on the average groceries are about 35-40% higher than at home.
January 31: A few days ago the temperature was 37 so the air conditioning got a workout. There is a cyclone off the west coast, running south, so we did have some winds here as well as a night of tropical down-pouring rain. It was like a sauna. Tomorrow we go to our next exchange. It's south of here at Eagle Bay near the ocean The Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean near here as it is pretty well at the bottom of the continent. We have enjoyed our stay here in Waroona and look forward to the next place..
