Margaret River

Despite a few hiccups, Margaret River was a great place to hang out and to recover from the recent injuries. Mick and Shelly and the boys came over from Tassy to join us for Christmas and it was fantastic to have a big catch up and yes, things did get a little messy on Christmas night!🤪

But unfortunately we did have a bit of an accident prone couple of weeks, firstly on Christmas Day when Marcee jumped off the deck and landed wrong and fractured her arm, so into a cast she went. The hardest part was the first 2 weeks as she couldn’t get it wet until finally she had her fibreglass cast on and then it was back to swimming and surfing again.

Cam however had a slightly more serious injury. While attempting to clean the roof of his car, he slipped of the tray and grabbed the ladder rack to try and break his fall, snapping his bicep off the bone in the process, he even heard it snap and then watched it retract up his arm. Lucky for us Jordan our nephew was there to take yet another of our family members to the hospital.

We can’t fault the the hospital system at all on this occasions. He was in for an ultrasound in two days and then in for surgery two days after that, very lucky to get in and repaired so quickly.👍

The recovery period was going to be the hardest but mainly from boredom because if you know Cam he can’t sit still.

No surfing for him but it gave him time to spend it with the girls to encourage them with their surfing.

We went on some adventures, one of them was visiting the many caves in the area before Cam went in for his op, It was great fun and challenging in parts, especially for the two invalids, but we got there with smiles on our faces.

The large maze turned competitive. Cam and Marcee teaming up and Ilueka and myself out to beat them. Now I would say Ilueka and I won as we made it out first, but in the other teams eyes it was a draw because they made it to the centre first. If we did it on a time basis we still would’ve won because we were waiting for sometime on the outside for them to appear. Another couple that came out said they saw them running around looking lost. Winner winner.😝

Sprout was loving hanging out at Uncle Caveman and Aunty Steph’s place, getting lots of time off the lead, freedom, however the poor little lizards didn’t appreciate it as much as he did. 😢

Bear, Cavey and Steph’s beautiful Kelpie came down every morning for a visit when Sprout had gone for his morning walk, she would sneak into the van and make herself at home on our bed, the couch, floor or Ilueka’s bed, getting lots of pats, hugs and cuddles from her two cousins! Sprout eventually came accustomed to this and infact they were caught sleeping together on our bed on more than one occasion!😂

Cam and I were lucky enough to have a date night and left Uncle Cavey and Aunty Steph in charge for the night with a sleep over and what better way to get your nieces on your side but by serving them up ice cream for breakfast. They’ll be expecting other family members to lift their game when they have sleep overs. Take note Aunty Jack, Kelly and Shelly!😂

We checked out the Margaret River region some more, Augusta was beautiful, the beaches and water colour was very inviting and the fish and chips were yummo the best we’d had on our travels.

Redgate was our local surf beach where we took the girls and on one particular day Marcee got a case of paranoia and kept commenting that she felt like a shadow was following her and very out of character for her, was freaking out a little bit, Aunty Steph reassured her that there was nothing to worry about, next thing you know two minutes after we got out of the water a 2m shark swims past in knee deep water right where we’d just been swimming! That girl is a little spooky sometimes. I did look out to the distance a little later only to see one jump out of the water and smack back down, it definitely wasn’t a dolphin.

Ilueka and Marcee got an excellent Christmas present from their Uncle’s and Auntie’s, a voucher to go zip lining in the trees and with Cam’s injury, good ole Uncle Cavey and Aunty Steph stepped up to the plate and took them for the fun day out. It looked like so much fun, but a little daunting as well. They all did a great job, there were some climbs I definitely wouldn’t do like riding a bike across a suspended bridge, I know your harnessed in, but still.

Back in the day, before modern technology, they used the tallest of trees as fire spotting lookouts. They would drive metal spikes into these trees all the way around and up to the top of the tree like a staircase. There wasn’t OHS back then, so there was and still is very little safety, I’m quite surprised they actually still let people climb them because if you slipped and fall there is very little to break your fall, other than the ground. There was three of these trees, the tallest being about 75 metres tall. Steph overcame one of her fears and climbed to the first platform, I felt due to all our injuries, I would stay on the ground and watch. The girls went a little way up, just to check it out.

While we were in the area, we ventured to Yeagarup, with some of the biggest sand dunes in Australia apparently. It was such a vast area of sand, they even had guide posts along them as though it was a main road so as not to get lost. A couple of challenging spots in the sand and quite challenging four wheel driving but we got through without a hitch and had a great day.

After spending 6 weeks in the lovely wine region and yes I did do a wine tour with Steph and Shelly, I couldn’t leave without doing a few of the many vineyards (no photo’s provided), it was time to part ways and head south to explore the beautiful south west and eventually to Esperance.

A very sad goodbye, we had a great time catching up with Cavey and Steph, the girls were also very sad to say fair well to Bear, I think she was going to miss us, as much us the girls would her.