MAY - JUNE - Birthday Bash & Ningaloo

NIK’N’OFF

May – June

Something we have been doing for quite a few years is head to one of favorite places in Australia is South Lefroy Bay – Ningaloo Homestead. May and June are our time there but this year we were delayed a few days to me turning 60. My family wanted to celebrate this milestone in my life, at the thought of this I recoiled not wanting to make a fuss but Vickie talked me around and she was getting a lot of enjoyment out of the planning.

When we started planning I had no idea I would have more than a dozen family members attending but the number kept increasing and at last count around 56 friends & family were coming along. We had recently in Feb attended my life long mate’s 60^th and Vickie got some idea’s in regards to catering for the event. Unfortunately we didn’t go with the same company they used and though ours was satisfactory it was not as good, thank goodness our Daughter Caddie had made some delicious finger food sausage rolls as well as they went down a treat. The night went off great, far better than I could have imagined, it was very humbling to be surrounded by the many friends and my superb family and extended family.

Mick receiving his present from his Kids

Brett & Aaron

Elle, Erin Scott

John [Bro] and Mick

3 Beautiful Ladies - Elle, Erin Rae

Millana, Scotty and Ruby

Johnny P and Daniel

Poppy and his girls, Millana and Ruby

Evie Rae, isn't she gorgeous!

Good Looking Dave and Johnny

Fozz, Curls and Julie

John and Linda

Maddi, Erin and Chris

I take this opportunity to thank my ever supporting wife, Vickie, my daughter Caddie for her help and everyone else that attended, I had a great time, I’m sure everyone else did, THANK YOU !

Well with that occasion out of the way it was full forward in preparation to our trip north. This year we had Vickie’s Brother Allan [ FRAPPER] and his wife Eileen [ CURLS] traveling up with us in their newly acquired Caravan. Brother in Law Dave and his son Trevor were also traveling up with us so we had a CONVOY ….

We left early in the morning to try and beat the traffic on the freeway, it worked slightly and we are glad we left when we did as the roads were still very busy. It didn’t take long though and we were out on the open road heading for our first night at Geraldton and a stopover at our mate’s Geoff & Vickie’s property. The weather forecast was not good with high winds and rain forecast and that proved to be the case. Vick and Geoff again turned on their hospitality making everyone a delicious meal of seafood, I was very surprised when Dave went back for seconds on one dish as he is not known as a lover of crayfish mornay, so it must have been good. Geoff and Vickie also surprised me with a Birthday Cake, wow two Birthdays in less than a week, I am spoilt!

Mick and another Birthday Cake, courtesy of Geoff and Vickie

1st stop, Parkers place, Geraldton

2nd Night - side of the road Camp

Cute Bird

Honey Eater?

 The next morning it was time for farewells to our good mates and continue the drive north. Past years we have driven up in two days but this year we had a few days to spare not having to get to Ningaloo until the 10^th so we stayed another couple of nights on the road before getting to the dirt road into the Homestead, here we stayed out at the gravel pit so we would have plenty of time to travel in slowly with the Van’s. Frapper was particularly a bit anxious as he didn’t know what to expect in how rough the tracks would be. Traveling slowly no one had any problems and around a couple of hours later we were at our designated camp area where we have stayed for many years in the past.

3rd Night - Gravel Pit

Detour Track into the Homestead

Collecting Water

Frapper and his girls, Minnie and Dusty

Curls enjoying a laugh

The Group. Happy Hour at Sunset

Another Ningaloo Sunset

ONE SCARY DUDE ! .. Trevor decided to go Mohalk

Mick and Vickie

The weather wasn’t kind, with the wind spoiling it for most of the past five weeks, Frapper and Curls stayed their two weeks and sadly they didn’t get to see the attraction that we do, they did enjoy it and so did their two kids’ Dachshunds who gave their little legs a good work out in the sand. Curls ticked off one box with a nice sized Spangled Emperor caught out of her Kayak, and a ‘Charlie Court’ Cod caught off the beach. Frapper is not into fishing and became the camp ‘Bitch’ making sure the area was tidy and twig free. Happy hours became earlier the longer they were there, a trick by Frapper to make the stay go quicker I think.

Frapper and Curls enjoying a brew at their Van

Our Camp 2013

Trevor and Mate Daniel, doing it hard

They continued to do it hard all night

The Group at Camp NIK'N'OFF

Trevor is always good value going away with, this year we didn’t get to do ½ the beach fishing we usually do due to the windy weather and wrong tides, and when we did the fish caught are not worth mentioning, except for Trevor's GT which measured out at 1.1mt. Why do we continue to come back? The answer to that is simple, we love the place not just for the fishing but lots of reasons, it only takes a nice day chucked in amongst the rough to remind us why we keep coming back.

Trevor and GT 1.1mt

Even with the lousy weather we still manage to fill our days in, this year was no different, from sorting out Frapper’s Caravan water  tank problem’s, ‘a Kinked breather hose’ to installing some LED strip lights to our cars. This is something I have been meaning to do for a long time now and this year Trev surprised me with a 5mt roll of LED strip to fit into the canopy of my Ute. The result was excellent, very low power consumption and nice and bright white light lighting up the interior and exterior of the canopy.

Before we knew it we were saying goodbye to Frapper and Curls and Trev as they made their way back home. We were not by ourselves for long though as we had Trevor’s Brother Chris and his mate Mark coming up for 5 days and in the middle of that we had Abby, Chris’s girlfriend flying in for a 3 – 4 day stay. Now you would think with so many people making the effort and expense to come up and see what we and the Billy’s have been talking about all these years the weather would be on its best behavior, but alas no, the wind continued to blow and the fish continued to stay away.

This may have been the best day of Frapper's life ... leaving 

Safety 1st Chris, enjoying a Fish

 Another week passed and it was farewell to the latest visitors and then there was just the Billy’s and Us, ………… Then the weather Gods started to smile, not in a big way, more like a grin but the weather has improved, Unfortunately my back has been playing up big time and taking away the good feelings I should be having, to make matters worse we had to do another Midnight drive into Exmouth as Vickie had severe stomach pain like she had in Kho Samui. The Hospital kept her in a couple of days and ran some tests, they thought she had a kidney stone but wanted to confirm that so that meant we had to drive down to Carnarvon Hospital for a CT scan, then a few days later back into Exmouth for the results which confirmed the Dr’s suspicions.

Apart from pain management they haven’t done anything else, hoping that by drinking lots of water she can pass the stone, as I write this now on a Tuesday Night she is again in pain and being sick. Whether we stick out the next 3 weeks I cannot confirm, if this continues we may just have to head home where she can get the help she may need to remove the nasty stone.

In between all that’s been happening we have caught up with many people that we know who like us come here to Paradise every year, We have had some lovely Happy Hours, one in particular that continued into the night at Brett and Doreen's Camp, lots of laughs along with Gary and Pam. It’s a small World and we have met people who live not far from where we do, plus a couple of friends who we convinced to buy a Bushtracker, they are extremely happy and haven’t looked back.

High Tide caught a lot of Campers unaware

Camp NIK N OFF

Camp MEERCAT MANOR

Interested Goat

Ningaloo South Lefroy Bay

Old Whaling Station Ruins- Norwegian Bay

The Ranges

Ningaloo Sand Dunes

Ningaloo Sand Dunes

Old Grave Site -  RIP

Dave Made it up in the old 1HZ

Ningaloo Sand Dune Photo's

Vickie and Jo - beach fossicking

Vickie at the Old Whaling Station - Norwegian Bay

My Gorgeous Beautiful Darling Wife - Vickie

Mick Mr Busy

Kung Fu Dave

Camp Meercat Manor

The Mighty 'Trucks'

Underwater shot,

Underwater Shot

Leopard spotted Charlie Court ??

I think the 1st time Frappers 4WD has seen mud

Doreen, Camera Shy but i sneaked one in

Brett, our neighbor. His wife Doreen supplies lovely cooked cakes

Doreen's Cake's - YUM!

April 2013 --- We are back

Wow!

My last post was way back in November, what has kept me so busy that i could not have continued my posts ? The answer to that is doing very little other than just the usual things people when they are home.

We did have Christmas and like most years where we had other family share the day with us 2012 Christmas Day was different. This time it was a quieter time, as the years move along families grow and branch out, ours is no different. Our relatives spent the day either at home hosting their own or visiting other's. Christmas Day came and went, I never get off on the whole celebration thing and i am quite relieved when things get back to normal. Of course our Grand Daughters loved it, and as usual received way to many presents and we all had way to much food.

Christmas 2012

Eve's 1st Christmas

Millana and Ruby

So with that out of the way life at home settled down into a journey of Doctors for both Vickie and myself, my body has been hurting more each day and further tests show that my Joints and spine in particular is riddled with osteoarthritis, not much they can do other than prescribe pain relief, most of which disagree with me, making me nausea's and or sleepy. Having not lived in our home for over 5 years and therefore not attended to many small jobs around the house it gave us time to fix a few things up. The big jobs i can no longer do, so when we do take our home back we will have to do a complete makeover with painting being the priority by the professionals

It is pointless trying to write about what we have been doing as it really is just mundane, usual stuff that people do. The only thing worth mentioning is our youngest Daughter got married to Scott and the wedding took place in Kho Samui Thailand !

The wedding was 12 months in the planning, with invites going out early to give people the opportunity to plan for a holiday and attend the wedding at the same time. We were very pleased and surprised to get so many people attending, it's a mark of the character of Erin & Scott that so many family and friends made the effort and expense to attend.

Vickie and i went over for 12 days with the others arriving during that time, it seemed each day more guests were arriving and with the majority of them all staying at the same resort it became a real party atmosphere around the pool. It was our 1st visit to Kho Samui, all our other overseas trips have been to Bali which we enjoyed, here it was very different in respect to the shopping where the owners didn't hassle and everything was very clean compared to Bali. We hired a van and driver for a day and 7 of us toured around the island which is only 52k's in circumfrence, stopping at many places of interest, the weather was hot and humid and it was a relief to get back into the air conditioned van after each stop.

Four of us Boys hired Motor Scooters and had a fun day exploring the mountain trails, riding a motor bike in Bali or Thailand involves forgetting all what you know about road rules in Australia and just work on the principle ..... Don't Hit Me and I won't Hit You .. for most of the time it works well, we didn't have any worries and i really understand how the system works and love it. The freedom a motorbike gives you is beyond words, but don't bother unless you have the confidence in yourself.

Boys and Bikes

Wedding Day arrived and in the morning a lot of the girls were going into town to have manicure's and pedicures, why not i thought, so i went along as well. Well it was another 1st for me and one i can say i enjoyed, relaxed sitting in a chair between my two adorable beautiful Daughters getting the treatment was a fun time we will never forget. I was talked into having a foot scrub to get rid of the hard skin, another nice experience until afterwards it felt like they had removed 10mm of skin from my foot! .. Nice and soft but very tender, not the sort of feeling you want on the morning of a wedding.

By the time everyone had been pampered it was time to get back to the Resort and start to think about Lunch and Pre -Wedding drinks and a swim in the pool. Then it was back to our rooms and shower and get dressed in our smart casual beach wedding attire.

Erin and Scott were being looked after by Michelle, the Wedding Planner at the Resort Nora Beach and Michelle was fastidious in her attention to detail. Whilst the Groom and his Men attended to themselves in their Chalet, Erin and her Girls were in another luxurious Chalet getting themselves ready. Vickie and i were invited over to Erin's room early to have some photo's taken and see 1st hand our gorgeous baby getting her hair & make up done by Ashely the girlfriend of Trevor, Erin's Cousin.

Danny our son arrived with the video camera and proceeded to keep us and the photographer entertained with his poses, the whole scene was one of fun and relaxation, no stress.

The time had come for me, the Father of the Bride to walk his Daughter down the path's to the beach setting where everyone waited. The walk was partly a blur and partly so etched in my memory it will never go away. To think i was fortunate enough to have such a wonderful daughter, and for that matter such wonderful children I am so blessed. We walked past all the guests, we walked up to Scott, we shook hands, our eyes met and words did not need to be said, He is part of our family and we love him as a son, There was no need to adopt you after all Scott, you adopted us.

Father and the Bride

Scott and Erin

The ceremony was full of love and laughter, A baby Elephant arrived to join in with the celebrations which was really different, then it was time for thousands of photo's to be taken. When Erin & Scott went off with the Photographer it was time for the rest of us to head up to the reception. The Resort is built on the Beach and the reception area had been decorated beautifully, again the detail was amazing. With everyone mingling and a drink in their hands Us and Scott's parents were presented to the guests and then came the Bride & Groom. Speeches were made, a wonderful buffet meal was consumed along with many drinks, A Band had been organized and they were terrific barely stopping for a break in the six hours that they played. I do recall getting up on stage and pretending i knew how to sing, no need to go into detail there.

Reception

Eve Meets an Elephant

Walk past and Flower Throw

Guests and Family

Mic, Vickie, Erin with Eve, Scott, Caddie, Elle and Dan

Lets Get The Party Started

 I wont mention everyone who attended, thank you everyone! without you the day would not have been the same. Many would have loved to have been there but couldn't, and to those people we know you were there in spirit and you were in our thoughts. 


It was a wonderful Wedding, in a beautiful setting and full congratulations must go to the Nora Beach Wedding Planner, Michelle.

Nora Beach Resort Koh Samui

Me and my Baby

With only a few days left before flying home, we organized a boat trip around the Islands and some more shopping. As luck would have it the night before flying out Vickie was struck down with a tummy bug, severe enough to have to take her to Hospital and get some treatment. Unfortunately she wasn't well enough to fly so we had to stay an extra night and arrange new flights. Fortunately we had travel insurance and we were able to be reimbursed for the extra expenses.

So back home again, still living in our Van we have planned for the next big occasion, My 60th Birthday,  wow whoopee i think, but Vickie want's to make it a big deal for me and i love her for that. It wont be a fancy affair, and honestly i could do with out it but I'm sure i will enjoy it when it happens. Once that is out of the way we can get back to the serious business of travel, and Ningaloo is again # 1 on the list. We will get up there on the 10th of May and looking forward to two months of fishing and relaxing.

Adelaide - October - November 2012

We have been camped at our daughters place in Adelaide for six weeks now, it certainly wasn't our intention to be here that long as we had hoped to get Vickie's eye operation bought forward but that did not happen. She is booked in for the 13th and then we have a week to wait until she has it checked before we can start to head West.

Adelaide feels like our 2nd home because we have been here so many times, Erin's home is very central to the city and nothing is to far away. We are just about regulars at the Chinese Cafe we go to at the Central Markets, we will miss that place for the delicious lunches when we leave, also the markets themselves which Vickie loves to do her grocery shopping. The prices are so much cheaper than back home and the choices are amazing.

Some Beautiful Motorbikes parked at Hahndorf SA

Taken with iphone and altered with Vintique

Plenty of beautiful character homes in SA

Red Peacock? no just altered with Vintique

Another version

We even started to dream about living in SA and searched the Internet for homes for sale, unfortunately the lotto numbers haven't come up so that dream got shelved. Instead we are looking at taking our Perth home back towards the end of next year and concentrating on doing some upgrades & maintenance to it, We don't intend to stop travelling just pull back on the amount and distance that we have been doing and concentrate on our home State and explore it more. Another good reason is to bond with our newest Granddaughter who is already 7 months old and we haven't seen her since Ningaloo when she was just two months old. Our son sends us photo's and we can't believe how much she has grown and changed in the time since. Our other two granddaughters Ruby and Millana  are now 6 and soon to be 8 and would love to have their Nana & Poppy around more.

Millana and Ruby

Elle, Dan & baby Eve

Beautiful Evie

We haven't got up to too much whilst being in Adelaide, drives out into the hills are always nice and we have had many nice lunches in the small towns that are scattered about in the hills. Vickie and i have upgraded our bikes and have been riding more, trying to lose a few kg before Christmas and also Erin's wedding in Koe Samui Thailand next year. It hasn't been easy with so many cafes, Villi's pie shop and some of the best Burger shops around. I love my chili and we found an excellent shop selling nothing but Chili products, we bought a few and the one i have tried since lives up to it's name 'One Fuckin' Drop At A Time' ... yes it is that hot but dripped on some food it is delicious.

Tasty Chicken and Rice with Laksa sauce, the two small bowls are the secret ingredients

Another yummy lunch

Burgers from the Burger Foundry Norwood SA

Certainly one of the biggest and tastiest Burgers i have had

Just a small section of a great range at Chile Mojo, Norwood SA

Take Note !!!

Well that's about it, after nearly 5 years of traveling throughout Australia our trip home will just be a 3-4 day drive as we have some jobs that need attending to at home, i'm certain i will be bored stupid as we will still be living in the van even when we get back.  Roll on Ningaloo 2013 :-)


Safe Travels to those on the roads, and an early Merry Christmas greeting.

Vickie and Mick