It was quite exciting in a strange kind of way to be back in a house. Such a treat having ALL THIS SPACE! With the last 4 months living in a container 4.5m x 1.5m, a 5-bedroom house seemed like a castle! The kids could splash in a bath, we could shower without turning off the water between soaping up and rinsing, a washing machine on hand, not 1 but 2 ovens, a bedroom each if we wanted and for all this luxury (we are now accustomed to the simple things in life), all we needed to do was look after a gorgeous chocolate coloured German Shorthaired Pointer named Castile, Cas for short. While the house was built in 1970’s era with décor to match, not like some of the McMansions that were our neighbours, the location we’d secured was pretty amazing. A stone’s throw to the beach (we were staying at the aptly named City Beach suburb after all), close to parks for the kids to play and cycle tracks all around presenting a great way to explore the area.

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Cas’s parent’s Ryan and Camille talked us through how to look after their baby, what he liked to eat and then Ryan took Cas, Alex and the kids on their regular route so we knew where to take him on his walks, and maybe even more importantly where the kids could play in the park. We had 10 days here, with grand plans to catch up on jobs that needed doing, write blogs to get up to date as well as time to catch up with friends close by.

While Alex and the kids were being instructed on how to look after Cas, I caught up with another Alex in the next suburb who I’d worked with at ICON before he popped off to Indonesia for a holiday that evening. It’s always nice to see a familiar face in a far-off place and it was lovely hearing his news and what he’d been up to. We strolled on the foreshore as the sun started to lay lower on the horizon with big clouds beginning to loom and he told me places to explore and attractions we could go and see. After saying goodbye to Alex, it was a quick shop for food before heading back to the castle.

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Jen & Jacob, friends of ours who left Sydney a month before we did, were arriving in Perth that night, so we caught up for dinner and spent the evening sharing stories of our adventures so far. As we talked the night away, the clouds had gathered overhead and by the time we lay our heads on our pillows for the night, the heavens opened and the wind blew a gale. Older houses creak and moan, but when it’s a house you’re not familiar with the sounds appear much worse and before you know it manifest themselves into ghostly apparitions; needless to say, we had not 3, but 4 in the bed by midnight! Now I’m used to Little Fella jumping in alongside us, he likes his midnight cuddles on a regular basis, but with Lexi wanting in on the action too, I soothed and left them cuddled up to daddy and went to find Lexi’s bed for the rest of the night. The following morning brought bright sunshine which lasted for the rest of our stay.

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We started in earnest on the jobs we needed to do. I’m not sure the washing machine had ever had such a good workout as we put bundles and bundles of clothes and bedding through it – everything that could be washed, got washed. Alex began his little jobs of fixing bits on to Minty and Tinfish which he’d not had time to do before leaving Sydney. Kids got their fix of Netflix as they were allowed to watch movies as we cracked on with jobs and their fix of cuddles with Cas, who they adored. Not wanting to have too much excitement in the first couple of days, we spread the jobs and schooling over the week so we could also get out and explore.

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With a little preplanning, we’d ordered another bike and had it sent to a friend’s house, along with a large handful of other packages of bits and pieces. It was like Christmas had come early. I’d read many a blog prior to leaving of people’s opinions on whether to take bikes or not, the end result a mixed bag, but I’m glad that we brought them and having invested in the other adult bike we were certainly going to make sure that we used them.

With such a large dose of TV, the kids needed a balance of running off excess energies and what a better way to do this than an inaugural family bike ride. We headed out donned in our gear, and began down the cycle track to Scarborough, 7km north. It was an easy ride and we then relaxed in the local 50m swimming pool for the next 3 hours, kids splashing and mummy & daddy trying to relax – hard when the splashing is focused on you! The foreshore is well set up with grass banks to picnic on, pop-up bars, a skate park and even a climbing wall. Perfect to relax with a glass in hand and watch an amazing WA sunset. Alas, not this day as we had a cycle ride to complete. The kids had a climb on the wall, an ice-cream to pump them up again and them it was time for the cycle home.

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I had been told that the wind channels down the coast but hadn’t noticed its help on the way up, but boy, you could feel the resistance on the return journey. The kids did really well but were pretty knackered by the time we got back to the house. They had grand plans to put their feet up in front of the gogglebox, so I kindly reminded them that we needed to walk Cas. A few moans and groans ensued, but they donned their shoes and off we went so Cas could get a good run. After our 3km walk with Cas they flaked!

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The kids enjoyed their bike ride so much, the following day we took to them again, this time to go geocaching while daddy took the car to do ‘busy things’ (read – takes off for half a day to get peace and quiet!!). Being relative novices at this, there is still a lot of excitement at what we might find and it’s a great way to get out and about. Feeling a little guilty at leaving Cas at home, I thought we could take him with us which would kill two birds with one stone as that could be his walk for the day. How hard could it be riding with him beside me?!? Man, I COMPLETELY overestimated my dog-cycling ability… These dogs are strong and while I could probably have let Cas just pull me along as he bounded down the road, the reality was that he cut across in front of me, suddenly stopped to pee and then lurched ahead at the sight of other dogs. About a kilometre down the road after I’d come off my bike and given myself a lovely bruise all the way down my left thigh, I managed to attract the attention of the kids who were another kilometre ahead, tied up my bike and walked Cas home. He could have his walk later!

We’d targeted 3 sites; the first site was under construction and as we couldn’t find the geocache decided that it had been removed from the site. Not to be defeated, after a play in the sand dunes and balancing on walls, we continued on our way. After another couple of kilometres, we cycled / pushed our bikes up a hill and bingo, found the tub in a bush with a few goodies. After a long dilemma of what the kids could exchange – to be fair they had the choice of a discount personal fitness card, a large blue plastic paperclip or a small magnet – they decided to keep their swapsies for another time. Reo was getting tired by now and after a closer look at where the 3rd site was, it wasn’t actually easy to get to by bike, so we returned home for cuddles with Cas.

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As we were there over the Easter w/e which was closely followed by ANZAC day, we needed to plan our dinner dates with friends to tee up everyone being in the same place at the same time. Kirsty and Hamish, two friends we’d met in Thailand on our last big trip, now lived in Perth and had invited us over for dinner. It had been 12 year since we’d seen them, yet we settled into conversation like it was only yesterday since we’d met. A delicious table full of fajitas was presented and we sat and devoured them as we caught up on the last 12 years. It was a great evening and we tore ourselves away after a few fun games of Jenga at nearly 10pm to get the kiddos into bed.

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The time was passing quickly and we relaxed in to house living rather too easily! With such fabulous weather, we migrated to the beach with Cas so he could have a good run around. He loved to splash in and out of the water and some days it was hard to tell who was having the most fun, the kids or Cas. They loved looking after him and I was impressed at how well they took on their responsibilities of walking him.

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With the ANZAC public holiday upon us, we’d been invited to Alexey’s home for the afternoon and dinner. Alexey works with Alex and had been our postman and kindly kept all the parcels for us until we arrived in Perth. With 2 young kids as well, it wasn’t long after we stepped foot in their house that the kids were off having fun which left us time to catch up with him and his wife Elena. Another magnificent spread was laid out and again the hours fled by – I could get used to all this wining and dining! Another late night ensued and we crawled into bed the same time as the kids.

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So far we’d spent most of our time packing jobs in, playing with and walking Cas and socialising with friends. I felt we should do at least a little sight seeing while we were in WA’s capital city. What a better place to start than Fremantle prison. We managed to get spots on the last tour of the school holidays which meant the kids got their own tour while the adult went on theirs – fabulous! However, the kids didn’t seem that pleased, maybe because they’d overheard my conversation with the lady I bought tickets from asking if I could leave the kids there if they weren’t behaving!

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When presented with new situations, Lexi likes time to understand what is going to happen and isn’t always keen to go off by herself initially and this was one of those occasions. As the discussion was starting to get heated about her going on the kids’ tour, I agreed to accompany her at the beginning until she felt comfortable. As it turned out, the kids tour was such fun I gate crashed the whole thing! The guide was very knowledgeable and she made it fun for the kids while trying to get the history through to them. In the day, there were some characters in the prison, with a few interesting stories of escapee’s. One guy, Moon Dime Joe, who’d escaped and been recaptured 3 times had a cell designed especially for him, with thick Jarah wooden planks and 1000’s of nails to ensure it wouldn’t happen again. He became so ill in that cell, that the Doctor ordered him to have time out in the fresh air where he escaped once again!

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Next stop was Fremantle town (or ‘Freo’ to all locals) and it was now lunchtime, so with stomachs grumbling, we headed to the obligatory fish and chip shop for a feed but this unique establishment had wall to wall tropical aquariums around the restaurant. There were even aquariums in the loos, which was very exciting.

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Tummy’s full, next stop the Ship Wreck museum and with only a gold-coin donation entry, it’s a great place to spend a few hours. As it was the school holidays, there were quiz sheets for the kids to keep them entertained and go exploring around the museum to learn more about the expeditions. The Batavia is one of the most prominent features, a spice ship, wrecked off the Abrolhos Islands. In the era, spices were more valuable than gold, a bag of nutmeg could buy you a house in Amsterdam or the UK, pepper showed wealth and cinnamon was assumed to stop the plague. There were lots of artefacts to show the kids and harrowing accounts of how mercenaries who were part of the crew mutinied after the Captain and 45 men & women left to sail the long-boat (which wasn’t much bigger than Minty!!) all the way to Jakarta on a 30 day voyage for help. Whilst alone on the desolate islands, the mutineers murdered many of the other passengers and crew. The Captain returned with help (mainly to salvage the gold wrecked with the ship!) but caught the mutineers who were tried and executed, bah 2 who were left on the mainland never to be seen or heard of again. Treacherous times both on and off the water more akin to a Hollywood blockbuster. Tick – history school lesson done for the day!

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At one point in the week Lexi and I snuck off for a mani and pedi and I even managed an hour to myself to get a hair cut! At the end of our stay we’d timed it perfectly to celebrate Alex’s birthday, so we booked a restaurant on the waters edge a stone’s throw from the house. We managed to scrub up well enough to be allowed in to the restaurant and started the night with a bottle of champers on the beach and a sticky, fizzy orange treat for the kids while we watched the sun set. After enjoying a cocktail when we arrived at the restaurant, we followed with a few oysters then on to a scrumptious main of salmon for Alex and Kangeroo for me. Lexi & Reo enjoyed the staple kids meals of chicken and chips and fish and chips! They were quite content washing it down with some ice cream at the end of the night and birthday boy got his own special dessert with a sparkler 😊 It was a lovely night and marked the end of our “normal house life” as Castile’s parents were due back the next day.

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We’d had 10 days here and big plans to get items off the ‘to do’ list but catching up with friends, giving Castile lots of cuddles and walks, fun and Netflix got in the way of some of those! We’d still managed to complete many, although after saying our goodbyes to Castile, Ryan and Camile, we left with fridges empty and heading to Woolies to stock up!! We had no idea where we would stay that night (WikiCamps to the rescue again) but safe to say it had been a nice little holiday, yet our feet were twitching and it was certainly time to hit the road once more. It was time to seek warmer weather and chase the great annual Grey Nomad’s migration and follow them north…