From Perth to Monkey Mia V

Sebelum I jadi malas dan letih nak mengupdate continuation of our road trip story, baiklah I update cepat2 kan. Pastu, boleh I sambung balik tayang gambar our dinners yang dah terbengkalai for more than a week. Ada pulak nanti yang ingat I ni dah lupa macam mana nak masak sebab dah berhari2 takde gambar dinner, hehehe.

Anyway, we left Denham early on Saturday morning, heading towards Geraldton for our stopover. On the outskirt of Denham, we stopped at Shell Beach. It’s really amazing looking at the beach and seeing this long, brilliant white ‘sandy’ beach sejauh mata memandang. And then when you get closer, barulah you sedar yang the beach is made up entirely of shells! The beach is about 60 kilometres long, made up of this tiny white coquina bivalve shells. Rupa macam shells of kerang yg jual kat M’sia tu but so tiny and so white. Silau giler mata memandang the beach bila tak pakai sunglasses.

It’s amazing how white it is. Kalau sesiapa nak mandi kat beach ni, boleh aje but I guess no one was brave enough to mandi masa tengah Winter ni cos the water was freezing cold, hehehe. Walaupun nampak macam matahari memancar2 dengan kuatnya, tapi, believe me, it was quite chilly!

Selalunya kalau pergi pantai, main pasir and make sandcastle. But when you go to Shell Beach, you have to make shell castle :-).

Bila dah sampai Geraldton, masa The Little Misses tengah busy main kat playground tepi pantai, I pun ambik lah gambar the ocean.

I have no idea what’s the house/building in the middle of the ocean above the waterline is.

Geraldton is a port town so memang penuh dengan kapal besar2 lah.

We left Geraldton for Perth the next day, early in the morning. Some more photos of the sceneries along the way.

The structure that looks like a windmill is a waterbore. Sebab kat OZ ni kan is a dry land yang jarang2 hujan, so people use bore to find water underground for their livestocks.

And then, we saw this along the way, about 15kms of burnt trees and land from bushfire. It must have happened last Summer sebab not many trees have grown back. It looked so stark and bleak but pretty at the same time.

Some more photos of the farms along the way.

We’ve got sheep and cows here too ;-).

I think that’s enough kot of photos of the sceneries kan, I pun dah nak termuntah tengok, hehehe….

I’ll put photos of The Little Misses and of the sea creatures we saw next time kay….

Road signs and town names

We are finally back at our home sweet home today, Alhamdulillah. It’s so good to see our own beds, play in my own kitchen ;-), use a PC instead of EEPC to update the blog and use our own bathrooms, hehehe.

We got home around 1 o’clock tadi but have been busy with unpacking, doing the laundry and then cooking dinner. Pastu, I had to go to the laundromat for the dryer, punyalah panjang queue nak guna dryer. Mentang2 lah Perth sekarang ni tengah hujan non stop. Berjanggut tunggu my turn! Esok kena pergi lagi cos there’s 3 more loads of laundry to be done. Kalau nak jemur dalam rumah, alamat lah ambik masa seminggu baru kering, hehehe…

Ok lah, sambung balik with stories and photos from our trip ye. But tonite, I nak tayang some road signs we saw along the way coming back from Denham to Perth. Saje je tayang sebab some of them, quite unique  for OZ.

Before that, I nak tunjuk the cabin we stayed in Geraldton on the way up to Denham and also the villa we stayed in in Denham.

Ini lah cabin we all kat Geraldton, so comel kan, hehehe… Dalam tu ada double bed with a bunk bed for The Little Misses, a small dining table, a stovette (which is a small stove with attached oven), microwave, fridge, tv and ensuite bathroom. So, memang comfylah for 1 night and boleh lah nak masak our own food.

This is the villa in Denham, which is much bigger but has the same basic amenities. Sebab susah nak dapat makanan halal kat sini kan, so tu yang lagi senang cari villa or cabin yang ada cooking facilities so I can just bawak aje all the food and cook them myself. Sambil tu boleh save money on eating out kan :-).

This is at Denham. Saje tunjuk so orang percaya yang we all memang pergi Denham this holiday, hehehe.

Tengok lah, mana ada kat negara lain kan, on the same road sign, 2 gambar binatang yang sungguh berbeza, a cow and a kangaroo! Hahahaha… But selalunya waktu malam aje boleh jumpa kangaroo crossing the road ni :-).

We call these long trailers yang ada 2-3 big trailers attached to the cab ni road trains. Because diaorang memang panjang and bagak mcm train but on the road.

Drivers on the highway ni are quite berhemah, kat tempat yang ada double lanes for overtaking, diaorang akan stay in the left kalau tak nak overtake walaupun tak slow.

Kenapa I ambik gambar ni? Sebab I suka sangat2 tengok the train symbol, sebijik macam Thomas the tank engine kan, hehehehe. Mana lah ada lagi steam train kat Perth ni, but they still use that symbol for trains, so cute!

And we also have this signs along the road. Do you know what it means?

It’s the legal limit of blood alcohol reading in your body when you are driving with a full licence. So, basically you can still drink and drive, as long as it’s below 0.05. But, it doesn’t take much drink to go above 0.05 ni pun. But for a P-plater, the level is 0. You can’t drink and drive at all.

And ini pulak the names of the small towns along the way from Geraldton to Perth. So cute nama2 ni and most of them are Aboriginal names.

The Other Half and I siap argue2 manja lagi dalam kereta tadi on how to pronounce these names, hehehe.

P/S thanks for people yang sudi comment on my previous post and in the chat box. I’ll answer them when I have a bit of free time ye!

From Perth to Monkey Mia IV

Last nite was quite scary sebab it was raining really heavily with gale force wind the whole nite until early morning. Masa we all bangun pagi2 sebab nak tengok dolphin feeding, it was still very very windy and the ocean was extremely choppy and the waves so high (we can see the beach and the sea from our front door, posh eh! ;-)). Hehehehe….

Tapi disebabkan panggilan dolphin lagi kuat, we all gagahkan jugak keluar sejuk2 meredah jalan to Monkey Mia. On the way, we saw broken boats and stranded boats on the beach. Must have been really strong wind last nite! Kesian the boat owners :-(.

Anyhow, when we got there, luckily the dolphins were still game enough to come out to the beach to play and be hand-fed even though it was quite cold. Sempat lah tengok 2 feedings and dapatlah Miss 6 and Miss 11 got picked by the ranger to feed the dolphins, seronok lah diaorang :-).

These dolphins are wild dolphins and they are not in cages. But for 40 years, they’ve been hand fed by the rangers in the morning so their whole keturunan dah ‘jinak’ sikit lah dengan orang and dah tak takut sangat dengan orang ni. Tapi bukannya feeding times ni were set, it’s up to the dolphins when they want to come ashore to be fed and they will only get fed in the morning so these wild dolphins will still have to hunt for their food at other times in the day. Tu yang we were quite lucky pagi tadi sebab we got to see 2 feedings within 15 minutes of each other.

Layan some photos that The Other Half took this morning and some I took yesterday while waiting to board our boat.

This is a female dolphin and ada anak with her but anak dia tak berani datang ke shallow water sebab takut tersangkut. This dolphin is 33 years old (tua lagi I kan, hikhikhik).

Sempat lagi senyum tu walaupun menggigil2 kesejukan.

 

Busy mendengar taklimat pagi2 morning…

Yeay yeay, our turn to feed the dolphin now :-). Even though Daddy only took photos of our behinds but we are still happy, hehehehe….

The Other Half dipaksa dek I untuk ikut The Little Misses menunggu the dolphins kat tepi gigi air tu and menangkap gambar2 yg menarik of the dolphins and of the girls. He said, “it was numbingly cold in the water. I couldn’t feel my toes!”

While they were in the water, I was watching them at the jetty (yang you all boleh nampak kat gambar atas tu). But it was also sejuk giler kat atas jetty tu, rasa macam sikit lagi nak terbang kena blown by the wind.

From Perth to Monkey Mia III

Since tak jumpa any dolphins nor dugongs nor sharks masa naik cruise boat tadi, we might go to Monkey Mia again esok pagi2 buat to see the wild dolphins being hand fed by the rangers. But the feeding time is only in the morning and tak tentu masa pulak tu so tu yang kena pergi pagi2. Kiranya bangun tidur, tukar baju terus pergi lah. Dolphins tu tak kisah kan we all mandi ke tak, hahaha.

And since tak dapat ambik gambar all the wide sea creatures tadi, we all ambk gambar each other aje tadi on the cat, hehehehe. It was freezing cold on the catamaran out in deep sea with the wind blowing and the so much cloud cover as well. Nasib baik lah our noses tak kena frostbite aje, hehehehe.

Miss 11 helping the catamaran crew with the sail :-).

Ada net kat tengah2 tu and you can sit on it, lie on it, walk on it to watch the sea flows pass under the boat. The yellow jacket tu provided by the crew so tu yg besar gilers, hehehe.

Berposing sesama sendiri since tak boleh nak berposing with the animals kan :-).

And then, after maghrib and dinner tadi, we went out again to the jetty to fish. Miss 11 lah yang tiba2 kemaruk nak fish again but this time The Other half yg caught 2 fish but not big enough to keep, hehehe…

Penat weh menunggu ikan2 tu nibble :-). I and Miss 6 balik villa dulu after only an hour being bored waiting, hehehehe….

From Perth to Monkey Mia II

Before I sambung cerita our trip ni, I just want to apologize for not answering any comments. I do read all the comments (apart from some comments yang Blogger pandai2 buat magic David Copperfield with and have disappeared tak tau kemana but hopefully will reappear in due course!). Selalunya I will have time to answer each and every comment, but sejak berpoya2 on this road trip, terasa macam teramat terhad pulak masa nak lepak2 depan EEPC ni:-). Nak update bolg pun ambik masa sikit nya lama ke because I’m not used to typing and uploading photos on such a small keyboard without a mouse so everything takes extra long to do!

And then all the photos that I put up of the trip pun I tak boleh nak touch-up kasi mekap cantik2 dulu kat Picasa before post kat blog. So, all the photos memang in their natural raw form lah (tu yang gambar2 we all pun au naturel aje aka messy, hehehe).

Anyway, we managed to leave Geraldton quite early pagi tadi around 9 pagi tadi and we reached Denham at 2 pm (with a 45 minute stopover at Hamlin Pool to see the stromatolites). If you think the trip from Perth to Geraldton is boring with only farms and nothing else, wait till you see the trip from Geraldton to Denham! Lagilah teramat boring nya towards the middle and nearer the end of the journey. Just bushland and more bushland. Nak hilangkan keboringan, I started counting the roadkills by the roadside! Hahahahaha. We all jumpa about 20+ dead kangaroos and a few dead emus by the roadside. Sian diaorang, tak pasal2 kena langgar dengan the traffic. Tu lah, sape suruh tak pergi sekolah. Kalau pergi sekolah sure belajar yang before you can cross the road, you have to look right, left and then right again. Kalau clear, baru lah cross….

Some photos of this leg of our trip.

Outside of Geraldton

Northampton, a small town between Geraldton and Denham. We all tak singgah pun, just ambik gambar from inside the car aje.

Remember when I told you that the highway is only a 2-lane jalan bertar? Well, this was what happened when  a humungous oversized thing came bearing down on you from the opposite side. You quickly drove onto the shoulder and stopped and waited until the humungous thing passed you by. And since mamarazzi ada dalam kereta with her camera ready, dapat lah ambik gambar of this monster.

Punyalah bagak benda ni. I kesian kat all the vehicles that got stuck behind this truck, sampai bila pun tak dapat nak overtake kan!

And then, bila dah nak dekat ke Denham, we started seeing the ocean along the road. It was such a great sight.

And then we stopped at hamlin Pool to see the oldest living thing on the planet called the stromatolites. It’s been alive for billions and billions of years.

I know they look like rocks but believe me, they are not, hehehe. They are cyanobacteria colonies that have been continuously alive for billions of years. I said to The Other Half, “we came all this way to see this? Man! what a disappoinment!” hikhikhik…..

The girls and their shadows. I hate this angle, it makes it look like I’ve got a tummy (but not as big as Miss 6’s! muahahahaha).

Then when we reached Denham, we (The Little Misses and Dad) went fishing, I tukang ambik gambar aje. Mula2 fishing kat tepi beach aje, pastu pindah ke jetty pulak. They are going fishing again tomorrow nite sebab bila waktu malam, baru lah banyak ikan yg datang. But they are just fishing for fun not for food, hehehe.

Gaya mesti ada walaupun cuma dapat catch sekor fish aje :-). Miss 11 was so proud sbb she managed to catch 1 fish at the jetty.

Miss 6 lagi suka kutip shells dari fishing :-).

The beach memang penuh dengan shells.

Some more photos of views of Denham after sunset.

Punyalah banyak gambar I letak, it took me an hour to post N3 malam ni, sampai mata I pun dah naik kuyu, hehehe.

Tomorrow, we are going to Monkey Mia and hopefully we’ll meet the dolphins and the dugongs there.