Family Road Trip 2024

We try to have an annual family holiday. Swee and Jamie are busy, and we were not able to co-ordinate Kai's school holidays with Warrick's work swings. So this family road trip was just Kai, Grace and I, with Kai's friend Amanda.

We started off at Dunsborough as we had promised to go snorkeling at The Aquarium with a friend. We were very fortunate to be able to stay at Warrick's mum's beautiful home in Dunsborough. Being one to feel the cold in the ocean even in summer, I asked my sister Pearl if I could borrower any wetsuits or snorkeling gear to keep me warm. She very generously loaned me her one piece long sleeve full length wetsuit, a thick vest and a pull over head cover. I then had a new worry, how to get into that wetsuit that looked half my width. Despite Pearls assurance that it'll stretch and to just pull it on, I had visions of me rolling around the beach in an attempt to get into the wetsuit. Fortunately, Kai who is slimmer than I am wore the wetsuit, and I wore everything else; a snorkeling jacket, the vest over that and Kai's long snorkeling pants. The water was icy, but we managed to stay in the water for about half an hour.

Thursday was orchid hunting day, and Grace wanted to return to Calgardup Caves where we saw lots of orchids in 2022. Edwin and Fong picked up Grace and I in the morning Kai and Amanda took our car for lunch at White Elephant and a walk around Margaret River. Unfortunately, the area across the road from Calgardup Caves was very overgrown with wattle and climbing hovea. We saw quite a few donkey orchids and cowslips in the carpark, and a few forest mantis orchids around one spot across the road.

Grace, Jane and I had dinner on Thursday night was at Yari. A most delicious end to a lovely 3 nights in Dunsborough.Read more