The One About Inori

Hellooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s been soooo long!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you everyone for the comments left while I was gone…. I will try to reply them one by one so please be patient! I’m not ignoring anyone!!!

So.. yes… as you can imagine, I have much to say and many pictures to show.

We reached our destination in mid December but because of the Xmas and New Year holidays, it took so long for our furniture to arrive as well as the phone AND internet to be connected. The phone would have been connected earlier but the telephone company made a huge mistake and cut off my neighbour’s line instead of installing ours!!!!!!!! *Duh!*

THEN, our removalists managed to lose A LOT OF items. For example, Sunshine’s wooden table (very sad over this as Ikea doesn’t produce this anymore!), our bed slats (what good is the bed frame without the slats!?!?!?), parts of my armchair (again, from Ikea)… our hot water flask, my lace blocking kit and mats!!!! (ARRGHHH!!!), and many more items.

We are of course, very miffed and will be filing a complaint as well as claiming from insurance.

We had to buy wood boards from a hardware store (I love Bunnings, don’t you?) to use as the bed base, try not to wobble the armchair from side to side and grieve over the other lost items. (T___T)

Alright. I’m going to break our trip into 2 parts. To be honest, I don’t know when I can write part 2 of this post as we still have plenty to do around the house but I try my best.

There are 40 pictures in this post so if you have slow connection, or limited time, consider yourself warned.! Hahaha. Otherwise, click ahead!

Before we left Perth, we went to visit our dearest old friend, Kelly. I feel very very sad to leave her although I know she is in good, loving hands. She’s the best cat I’ve ever had.. (well, I only ever had one cat but she’s the coolest because she loved the doggies… ) I miss her a very very great deal and consider from time to time to ask her new owners to send her to us… But I know it’s not fair to both Kelly herself as well as her new family.

I love you, Kelly.

On the road! The road is long and never ending!!!!!!!

We had to dry our laundry on the dashboard. Hahaha! Oh dear… I had to hand wash everyone’s clothes every evening so we would have constant supply of fresh clothes and so that we won’t have to pay for laundry services. But it wouldn’t dry overnight under the air con in motel rooms.

Since the temperatures were just…….silly (35 to 45 degree Celsius!!!), we made full use of the sun’s power to dry our clothes!

But yeah.. we were also baking in the car. We do not turn on the air con for fear of overheating the engine as we were going at more than 110kmh under extreme heat.

We stopped at some beaches to stretch our legs and get a breather. This is still in WA… I THINK it’s in Albany.

Benji became Chubb’s pony.

Daddy and daddy’s girl on the beach.

I don’t understand – why is the statue flipping me the birds?

Well, I flipped back at it and it was unamused…..

Moving on…

The doggies’ ‘home’ for 6 days. We unload the bags under them every evening after checking into motels to give them enough room to sleep in.

Ahhh! SNOW!!!

YOU WISH… at 40 degrees summer heat in the Nullarbor? NO WAY!

It’s a dried up salt lake.

The longest straight road between Balladonia and Caiguna in the whole of Australia. VERY VERY BORING.

They really should rename it ‘Nullarbor-ing’ because it is.

After 3 days and 2 nights, we are finally out of WA!!!! My goodness. WA is really huge!!!!!!!

Chubbs and his daddy. At the Nullarbor roadhouse (Motel/fuel/rest stop).

My bet is that he didn’t do it in summer? Spring maybe? It’s bad enough in the car in summer!!

Because of the time difference (1.5hrs), people used to go into the roadhouse and exclaim if the time was correct. So they put up a sign to say that the clock is correct. And a sign to say that the sign that says that the clock is correct, is correct.

Very very funny.

Reminds me of this.

Still at the Nullarbor Roadhouse. I just like this picture. And the random whale behind the Mobil sign.

This is the treeless plains.

Very……..very………….boring…………

With an eagle to spice things up… just a little.

Wished I brought my better zoom lens.

At the Head of the Great Australian Bight.

We missed the whales by… uhh… 2 months. (Dang)

We passed many a road train! Overtake with caution. Make sure that the road is straight and no crests before overtaking! (And of course, no oncoming traffic, duh!)

Peaceful sleep. The babies slept most of the time. They were really well behaved!

Including Lulu.

Oh wait.. maybe THIS is the treeless plains…………….. Anyhooo… BORING.

Another beautiful salt lake!

SA is much much prettier than WA, in my honest opinion.

See what I mean? Lush and rolling hills! None of that in WA.

Australia, land of flies.

Kamikaze-d flies. Very juicy, some of them.

Juicy muffin man.

It was actually cold and she was shivering! But she loved it, thus the huge smile on her face.

Chubbs exploded on his seat. Had to wash it in the motel. SIGH! Debs thought I fed him a canary.

In the spa tub. And after talking to my good friend about spa tubs (she had one before she renovated her bathroom), I found out that the jets were actually water pumped out from pipes that held the remnants of the previous bath. (Please forgive me if I sound incoherent.. it’s almost 3am!)

So think about this.. everytime you run a spa bath, you are getting old water from the previous bath pumped into your new bath water. And what do people usually do in spa tubs in motels/hotels?

Food for thought?

Never again.

*Shudder*

Dingo Chiyo.

They are 7 and 6 years old respectively and yet still have so much energy and behave like little puppies, running in the wind and having the time of their lives.

They even splashed in the salty water much to my horror as they had to get back into the car after their romp. I had to wash them down with fresh water as best as I could.

But thinking back, I’m glad they had fun. They deserve it.

I think the boys want to join in the splashing fun.. but can’t. Because I said so.

SA’s pine tree plantation. The area actually smells nice! Pinewoody smell!

The Blue Lake in Mt Gambier (South of Adelaide).

It’s a dormant volcano. The Blue Lake supplies fresh water to the surrounding areas and has been for years!

Finally, we reach Melbourne. We stayed there a few nights with some relatives and this picture was taken after church on Saturday. We brought the kids to a park near by.

Chubbs LOVES the swing!

We brought the kids to a mineral spa in Hepburn springs. This is Chubbs’ second time in the pool. His first was also at Hepburn springs. He loves to bob in the water!

Sunshine would only play in shallow waters. She doesn’t like it when water splashes on her face.

I love this photo. It looks like it was taken with a Lomo!

The 40th and the last photo of this post. Melbourne city. Too busy, too noisy, too messy, too crowded for me. I don’t think I will ever love Melbourne. I’m glad we don’t live there.

Alrighty then. I’ve sacrificed a huge chunk of my sleeping time just to update this blog! Time to hit the sack! Toodles!