Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Arriving in Perth one of the first things we needed to do was organise ourselves for Christmas.

The green grass of the van park was a welcome sight - no red dust! For this part of our trip we are staying in the Swan Valley which is a wine and food area of Perth - 14km from the city. Our site is quite large and backs onto a vineyard which does make it very pleasant. We were advised to watch our for some local inhabitants - snakes, apparently they are known to wander through - (none sighted so far).

We did find though that the park is very quiet, and mostly made up of permanent people - so quickly realised that we would be a small group of three for Christmas lunch - so Judy and I started to organise our "bonsai "christmas. One of the first things that happened was to decorate the van - even had a little tree (much to Peters disgust). We decided we would have the traditional fare - so off shopping. Success was achieved - and on Christmas day (after drinks and chrismas fare on Christmas Eve) the following menu was produced from the travelling macs van.

Christmas breakfast - Eggs Benedict (with smoked Salmon

Christmas Lunch - Prawn Cocktail, Roast Pork with Apricot stuffing, Rolled Chicken with Cranberry and Macademia Stuffing, Baked Leg Ham, accompanied with 7 vegetables. Plum Pudding, brandy custard and cream.

I should say that the pudding was eaten for christmas tea as no one felt like anything else.

A couple more people have now arrived and it is now good to have neighbours beside us and opposite us and we have achieved the occassional natter and drink. On the subject of the park one of the things that has got up our nose is that the park would not accept our booking made about 9 months ago without full payment ($850) to secure the reservation. This was done as we were advised that Perth would be booked solid and it would be difficult to find a place - this is simply not the case, there are heaps of vacancies in our park alone and it would appear we have been spun a line which we are not happy about.

In the couple of days prior to Christmas we did have the time to go on a cooks tour around Perth (the sat nav in the new car has been great!) - it truly is a beautiful city - we just love the gardens, trees, river and the surrounds. It is so good to see Kings Park being used by families for picnics and leisure. The night lights of Perth show a lovely city scape and the lighting on the gum trees in Kings Park is an added bonus.

Judy and I managed to get ourselves into the city for the christmas sales, although it must look amusing to others when Judy gets out of the car and provides direction so that I can park it properly - just a little larger than the Territory! We also travelled to New Norcia (the only Monastic town in Australia) - this proved to be a real eye opener about their way of life and history. We came back from there via a different route and this gave me the opportunity to call into the pub at Bolgart and look up Richard Campbell who left Jerilderie some 45 years ago - still looks the same just a little older. I will be catching up with his sister Claire when we get to Esperance.

While on the subject of old friends, I contacted Annette Foster (Dalrymple-in black) an old school friend, and we made arrangements to catch up - Annette and Peter (her husband) very kindly invited us over for a BBQ on Boxing day. What a surprise! - Mary Byrnes who was also a school friend from Jerilderie was spending Christmas with Annette. As you could imaging quite a lot of "yakking" took place. Through Annette and Peters hospitality we had plenty of opportunity to talk as we were back on New Years Eve to their place and they took us out on the river (in their beautiful boat) on 2 Jan 2009 for a lookaround and BBQ lunch. We cannot thank them enough - it has been so good to catch up, share laughs and generally have a great time with such nice people.

Typically the blogger has not recorded any of the really important statitices for the serious readers. The boat is a 31.5ft Sea Ray powered by twin inboard Mercruisers and is able to sleep 4 below decks and two up top. It has a full galley a toilet and shower and dining area below. Also she forgot to mention admiring the black swans on thge river and having the pieceful scene rudely interrupted by a sea lion which scared the s--t out of everyone including the swans. She also forgot to mention the lovely house forsale in Peppermint Grove we saw, asking price is $60-80m and is Australias most expensive house- we seriously thought about it for a moment but decided Tuross had as much to offer.(this bit has been added by the editor in chief)

Judy has also spent a couple of days withfriends she met while overseas - they invited us for dinner and it was one of the best asian meals we have had in a long time.

It is off to Freemantly tommorrow, and as the Hopman Cup is in Perth we have made arrangements to go to two sessions on Monday 5 Jan. We will then be ready to continue on down south - Bunbury on Wednesday.

To all our Blog readers - we hope you had a Merry Christmas and wish a happy and safe 2009 to all.