Thu 12/06/14 Spent today touristing Fremantle. Watched some quite talented folk showing off their tricks at the large skate park on the Esplanade. Kids had a go at the climbing park, them headed to Cicerellos for fish 'n'chip lunch and afterwards took snaps with statue of "Bon Scott" - AC/DC's original frontman. Nice walk in the sunshine along foreshore to "the Roundhouse precint" - a heritage limestone prison built to house colonial prisoners, complete with stocks & other equipment purposed for the public humilation of criminals. Arrived in time for the firing of the cannon at 1pm- block your ears! Continued our walk to the Maritime Museum at the large Docks precinct and saw a ship load of sheep destined for curry.....oops, I mean Arabs/India. Here the AFL penny dropped for Lukas - "Fremantle Dockers...ohh, I get it!" Fremantle was where the ship that brought Poppy's family to Australia first docked before taking them on to Melbourne, so he was keen to explain/show this area to the kids - Tom was about Lukas's age (10 - 11) at the time. We enjoyed touring the museum. It had a side exhibition called "Inside" about kids placed in the orphanages and homes many years ago....heartbreaking what they suffered. In the museum proper, we saw the America's Cup winning yacht "Australia II " and her famous winged keel. K,ML&B then did an hour tour inside the Museums' retired Oberon Class submarine - 'The Ovens' - traditionally all Oberons were named beginning with "O". All Australian commissioned submarines these days are "Collins Class" and much more technologically sophisticated. Was really, really interesting to see how it worked inside. Extremely cramped quarters - can't shut the dunny doors cos you wont fit in - hard to believe so many men manage to live so close for months at a time. Emergency escape procedures not particularly comforting. Tough job - L&B have managed to rule out 'submariner' from their career options. Unfortunately Lexi started to feel unwell today with a belly ache so she stayed in museum with T&M in case unwellness escalated; is disappointed she missed out. Next headed to visit L&W's friends, Ned & Georgia Stokes who treated us to a wonderful roast dinner. Very welcoming people and we all enjoyed our visit very much; headed home around 9.30pm to another freezing night - van heater & wheat bag buddies are worth their weight in gold at the moment. Brodie snagged another sleepover in the cabin.

Fri 13/06/14 Poppy played his usual couple of games of Uno with the girls after breakfast. Lexi still a bit dodgy in the tummy and kids wanted a break from driving / touristing, so had a relaxing day gaming, scooting and biking around at the caravan park.The scoop ball and badminton sets given to us by Aunty Louise have been put to good use during our stay here and today was no exception. We bought an extra suitcase and spent some time sorting out approx. 30kgs of stuff to send home with T&M - some full journals, completed school books, souvenirs, completed reading books, excess clothes etc. Spent the arvo chatting with lovely 80 y/o couple camped next to us - Irvine & Anna. They immigrated to Australia in 1958, same time as T&M, so lots of things in common to discuss about here and Europe. Spag bol for dinner & taking full advantage of Lex's unwellness, Brodie had yet another cabin sleepover.

Sat 14/06/14 Despite it being another freeezing night, Michael was up at 5.30pm wrapped in blankets in the annexe to watch Australia vs Brazil in the Soccer World Cup; crazy...sooo cold. Said our goodbyes to Nanna and Poppy around 9am, then LB&A settled down in the sunshine to do their journals and the blogger set up in the van to attempt to catch up....very behind... have to do entries back from Pemberton! Stayed up to 1am the other night to begin drafts, hopefully will crunch through it all today and be back on track before we leave tomorrow. Michael took kids to spa after returning from airport to relieve blogger of her "3 little interruptions' for a while. 3pm and back in time to watch more soccer - Holland vs Spain. Blogger still blogging! Have to pack up annexe tonight in preparation for departure tomorrow - "Hurry up Kaaren!"