Petra Olive Oil Estate

Sunday 25th October 2009
Having had an early night we were able to wake up early and go out for breakfast, the weather was absolutely gorgeous and at about 28c, the perfect temperature for not doing a lot.
We went for breakfast at Petra Olive Oil Estate in Yallingup, or at least somewhere near Yallingup, it was recommended to Ian by one of our suppliers, so with only one child in tow we thought we would give it a go.
It is a bit out of the way, but we found it in the end and after tasting a few dips and oils we ordered our breakfasts.
Ian had had the Olive Pickers Breakfast which was basically a big breakfast with a twist, the scrambled eggs were mixed with an Indian style chutney to give a very tasty and interesting flavour, the only downside was the Yallingup Wood Fired Sourdough Toast, which didn’t seem to be as fresh as some that we have tried.
Carolyn had the Poached Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon and enjoyed it apart from the eggs being a bit under cooked, she doesn’t really do runny poached eggs.
Kristian had Toast and Jam, except he didn’t want it toasted and that was fine, it was the same Sourdough and he did struggle to get through it a bit, but he did enjoy the jam, although his favourite part was probably making friends with the house dog “Gemma”, but then he is young and has never been hungry enough to really appreciate food.
It was a very nice setting with a good ambience and a nice dog; we will try it again sometime. They also have dog friendly accommodation, just in case you are interested.

After breakfast we drove to Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse so that we could go for a walk down to the Whale Watching area, it is Whale Watching season, we haven’t seen any in the wild and we wanted some of it.
As we walked round the headland we saw a couple of spurts of water going into the air as whales surfaced or submerged or whatever they were doing, when we got to the Whale Watching platform we saw a few more.
Unfortunately they were quite a way out and there weren’t any Liverpool fans around, so no beach balls to play with, they were barely breaking the surface and even with binoculars we could only see the water breaking as they came up for air or went under, but based on the position of them we reckon that they were Humpback Whales as they don’t come too close into shore.
After that we went to a school fete in Dunsborough, talk about a professional job with plenty of local business backers, this was an event that was going to raise a fortune, just not out of us, we wasted a couple of dollars on a wine raffle then headed for home.
We got home to find two manic puppies, starved of attention for more than ten minutes and desperate to get outside to relieve themselves, so we let them do that, put out some washing to dry and went down to the jetty for a coffee in the sun.
After coffee we went for a walk round Busseltons two art galleries, before stopping at Gelato for the obligatory hot weather indulgence, ice cream.
From there we went home to wait for Fraser and Marisa to come back from camp, when they arrived we were informed that Marisa was grumpy because she didn’t get much sleep, no surprise there then, she never does on theses things then wonders why she is tired.
It’s been a very enjoyable day for us and we weren’t going to have it upset by grumpy kids, so we stuck them in the shower, fed them and sent them to bed, peace by 7.15pm, not bad.
We watched a couple of episodes of guff that we had recorded and had an early night ourselves.

Troop Day Out

Tuesday 14th July 2009
Fraser and Marisa went out on a Scout troop day out today, it was an event organised by one of the other Scouts who had to organise an event as part of his efforts to get a badge.
They went to the Maze at Yallingup, where after playing in there for a while they had a picnic before heading off to Ngilgi Cave.
The trip to Ngilgi cave was not the one we went on a little while ago, this one involved them being led down some of the dried up river beds underground by torchlight on their hands and knees in places, they had a great time.
In the afternoon Carolyn took Kristian to the Dentist, he was almost as brave as last time but he did have trouble keeping his mouth open, something he never has trouble with normally, he did get the fillings he needed though, so that will hopefully cure his toothache that he gets from time to time.

Pretty Good Friday

Friday 21st March 2008
We had a lazy day today, we all got up late, Carolyn did the washing, the boys played or read books and Marisa made lunch and the evening meal supervised by Ian.
Marisa made rolls for everyone for lunch and cooked up some vegetables to make a Russian salad. She also prepared the rest of the salad for the evening meal and made a massive trifle so that it would be ready for us to eat when we came home in the evening.
In the afternoon we went for a walk round town to see what if anything was going on and to see how much the influx of tourists would affect this quite little town. Answer, it didn’t affect it much at all really; the majority of shops were closed and nobody was going out of their way to grab the tourist dollar, the couple of Cafes on the front were doing well as the beach was a lot busier than normal (bloody tourists). Other than making your own entertainment there was not a lot going on really.
We decided to head out of town this afternoon and headed for the beach at Yallingup, it is supposed to be one of the best surf beaches in Australia but unfortunately we have picked a bad day to witness this because the weather is so good the water is like a mill pond.
There appear to be 2 sections to this beach; there is a small almost enclosed stretch of calm water almost like a lagoon which is surrounded by a reef the other side of which is where the surfers sit for hours waiting for that elusive wave; the other section is a sweeping sandy bay that drops very sharply into the water where the waves rise up very sharply only a couple of yards from the waters edge and then come crashing down, we started off here, it was good fun for an adult but not so good for the kids. We did try swimming out past the waves but the undercurrent made it very difficult to swim back in so we moved to the calmer area so that it was safer for the kids to play.
As the sun started to go down we left the beach, went home and enjoyed the evening meal that Marisa had prepared for us and after eating too much trifle we put the kids to bed before relaxing with a couple of tinnies in front of the advert ridden telly watching Legally Blond 2, it was rubbish.