No Thru Road

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It all began the day before New Years, a couple of quiet champers turned into dinner with freely flowing wine and great food (thanks to Claire and Steve) Thus preparation for the new Years cocktail party were a little sluggish as we all tried vainly to regain equilibrium, something the the Hughes family seem to have an innate ability to do. From there the cocktails and Champagne flowed once again and I've created two new rules (you could call them resolutions) I will not drink anything that is not a colour found in nature nor will i do shots, both successfully avoided all new years and as such the following morning went very smoothly. However no sooner had we got up then we were off to visit Phil and Dot Hughes (who had smartly left all the kids at home and headed off to Mclaren Vale) for lunch and yet more beer and champers at which point Julie's liver ceased to work. A late night trip to Glenelg for f&c and icecream did not make things better as hoped but the subsequent stroll did some good. The second of Jan we headed vaguely in the direction of home and have thus far made it as far as Portland in the west of the state. It is a very historic town with heaps of old building and gardens, even a cable tram. We're bunkered down here whilst the wet weather lasts and the fishing is good - whiting and squid and then assuming the loud whirring noise our car is making doesn't see the vehicle falling apart (almost guaranteed by the mechanic, we became RACV members anyway) we'll make our way back along the great ocean road to home. Start cheering now.

Well it may take a while to fill in the last couple of weeks but here's the haps. We left Perth and generally headed east toward home. Day two saw us visiting Wave Rock which was really amazing and had really awesome acoustics which allowed voices to travel the length of the rock with perfect clarity, much like the whispering wall in SA for those who have been there. At this stage the days temperatures were heading up towards 40 degrees but thankfully the storms rolled in about 5pm and hit us with a nightly downfall which made sleeping a thousand times easier. We spent the following day in Kalgoorlie, didn't do the brothel tour - we need to leave something to do next time. We spent the week of christmas down at the beach on the recherche archipelago about 80km east of Esperance where the special day was celebrated with a champagne breaky, G&T's and steak. We saw the most beautiful beach at Duke of Orleans called Whartons (recently i the news for a shark attack on a teenage surfer) It was just spectacular. What followed was the dash to Adelaide for New Years with Kate and Dan. 2000km in three days and being our car struggles to do 90km an hour it was a very long three days but we did get some spectacular views of the Great Australian Bight though which always makes the trip worthwhile. Not long now until home time anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks and you'll be seeing us again. Have an awesome night wherever you are and i'll leave you with my new years resolution...... Next year i'm getting a passport!

Last post we posted our year in review which was really quite average so i thought i'd post some actual highlights

The $50 beg by Kingsley Walker in Alice Springs
The Ghost Tour of Port Arthur
Living in a rest stop for 1 month
Breaking down in Dubbo
The worlds crappiest zoo- Northern Territory
Being told by the English guys that we have murdered the English language when they finished each sentence with 'yeah' or 'innit'
The beginning of Wet Season - Gibb River Road
An agressive turkey named christmas that made a mission of harassing Bella
Snorkling Great Barrier Reef
Watching the average age of our friends become 60
Boris the bush pig and his feral offspring
Bushy the Vietnam Vet living in the back of nowhere
Tom Pipers
Kudzi the crazy South African
Camel road kill
Walking cradle mountain
Catching a shark
Catching any fish

Well we've rounded the last corner and we're on the home stretch 40 odd sleeps until you all must once again suffer our presence. We're currently based in Perth where Luke flew back to Melbourne for Matt and Sheree's wedding and Rosemary and Megan flew to Perth to spend some quality time with the Jul. Perths Like a more awesome Geelong better stores less decay and more people (Sorry Greens, Tangeys and Posterinos... or is that posterinii) Anyhoo Kings Park is magnificent, like the botanic gardens but on a large hill overlooking the swan and city. Fremantle Prison was sensational but we weren't able to do the spooky candlelight tour, Perth zoo better than a poke in the eye with a sharp gibbon worse than melbourne zoo. Rottnest Island hardly liveds up to it's name there were far worse islands around. In fact it was quite spectacular with our own private beach where we could snorkle laze and chase quokka til our hearts content - quokka tastes a little like red panda stuffed with Bok Choy. It should be called bestest Island (ugh - poor joke)

Now for our look back at the year ala tim:

Go to your Calendar and find the first entry for each month of 2006. Post the first line of it in your journal, and that's your "Year In Review".



Jan
And so it begins
Having sent an email that was telling you our journal was up and running, I felt we had to have something for you to read.

Feb
We arrived at six thirty in Devonport and then spent about the next hour going through quarantine (so much for being first off the boat).

Mar
After our dash against the blooming Algae we travelled onto Wynyard to meet up with Mum, Chook and Garry

Apr
Whilst waiting in line to board the Ferry last Thursday it was amusing to see one dedicated punter order pizza and have it delivered to them in line so they they could be one of the first on and therefore first off the ferry.

May
Well we're off again for sunny- nay windy and miserable -Barooga.

Jun
This week life gave us lemons...literally!

Jul
Just for you Gags
Thanks for your support with your mandarin eating episode - we're on to corn now and we're expecting the same level of dedication to our cause.

Aug
Still in Sunny Cairns (28 degree days of sunny). Whilst Jo was still here we went up to the Daintree and Cape Tribulation

Sept
Now I can hear you all groaning, "Yes Luke we know you went diving on the reef and we're sick of hearing about it", but it is actually a pertinent topic. This is because I believe that Julie must be in some way responsible for the death of Steve Irwin.

Oct
A visit to Alice Springs from which travelled south to Uluru and Kata Juta - Both spectacular but we chose not to climb (I was a little relieved, i didn't remember it being quite so large and ridiculously steep.)

Nov
So we've arrived at a point where we had to work once again.
We found work quickly as Carnarvon is a produce centre of the west, work which has developed it's own pros and cons

Dec
Well we've rounded the last corner and we're on the home stretch 40 odd sleeps until you all must once again suffer our presence.

As the day passed and i tried vainly to remove small grapes from the larger bunch without marking the good grapes i realised that more time spent playing "operation" in my childhood would definitely have enhanced my future employment skills for the better. Go Figure.

So we've arrived at a point where we had to work once again.

We found work quickly as Carnarvon is a produce centre of the west, work which has developed it's own pros and cons

PRO.....................................CON
Outdoors all day........................8 hrs on your feet
ipods are ok............................pay is small
nice bosses.............................many bugs
daily exercise..........................early mornings

But best of all... Check out the office

Imagine how quickly we though of Micah when we came across this sign just before the dry riverbed of the Gascoyne river....Buh da da dum!

We have taken an abundance of snaps lately so we thought we would share a few of them with you all.

Bella is obviously quite happy to be allowed to run free on the beach. Especially when there is a ball to play with.

Hi Billy,
Have a look at this huge truck and who is that in front of the truck???????

Check out the shark I caught from 14 mile beach.