The days are flying by and it's hard to believe that this time in two weeks we will be all preparing to head back to work and school.

Since I last updated this blog we've been and done Perth, Fremantle changed plans and instead of heading right down south to see Albany, courtesy of a gale force warning for this region, we headed straight to Wave Rock then on to Kalgoorlie / Boulder and I'm very glad we made this change.

Perth and Fremantle were as beautiful as I remembered and in addition to checking out the markets in Freo, we also visited the Perth Mint, the roundhouse, enjoyed lunch in the Notre Dame University Precinct, caught up with my cousin Andrew, his wife Sarah and their gorgeous little boy Tasman and also had dinner with our new friends Jim & Julie at their home in Perth.

We also visited the Maritime Museum and were absolutely astounded at the variety of displays and the amount of different things on offer - fishing, immigration, sailing, boating as well as the Australia II America's cup yacht and a brilliant display including the yacht that circumnavigated the globe 3 times.

From Perth / Fremantle we headed to Wave Rock and were once again very impressed with the natural beauty our country has to offer. It's hard to believe that this landmark really only became a tourist attraction in the 1960's after a photograph of it won an award at an overseas photography competition. It truly does look like a wave and the colours on the rock create a beautiful sight. Not far from Wave Rock was the Hippo's Yawn another rock that really does look like a Hippo's mouth. Also nearby was Mulka's cave where the Aboriginal legend of Mulka was given and we were once again viewing Aboriginal paintings that were thousands of years old. I just hope that people respect these for years to come so that many many more people can also enjoy these works.

From Wave Rock we headed to Kalgoorlie / Boulder and the decision to head up to the Superpit Lookout was a great one as we arrived just in time to see a blast being performed. Given that they only perform 3 or 4 of these a week and they can occur at any time, we were very pleased to have timed it so perfectly.

The rain and cold weather that has followed us for the past week or so is starting to become a bit of a drag, so whilst we are still enjoying our trip, we are also starting to look forward to getting home to our nice warm, dry house…..

Today was my birthday and I have had a pretty nice day… Anth & the boys cooked a beautiful breakfast before we packed up and got back on the road to head down to Esperance where I am writing from now.

We stopped for lunch in Norseman at a local park where a group of local Aboriginal kids were playing footy - the boys were invited to join them and they had a great time kicking the ball around. We left our remaining oranges with these kids following lunch and pushed on.

Dinner was going to be a roast pork however, upon arriving at Espereance, we learnt that for many WA towns, there are still Sunday trading restrictions which meant Woolies was closed so instead, dinner had to be created from what was in the van.

Not a big deal at all really, but I think Anthony was really looking forward to cooking me a roast tonight.

The boys put together a birthday cake for me and I have been very fortunate to receive so many messages and greetings via the www wishing me well.