Tuesday 10 December 2013 - Kalbarri

Tuesday 10 December 2013 - Kalbarri

Today was another magical day in paradise. After an impromptu social (drinking) session with the park managers last night, I hit the road for another 10km run. I went down the riverfront first and then along the cliffs, which was pretty awesome because there was a huge stormcloud further south, looming large and grey over the landscape. I could see lightning forking down the sky and it all looked pretty magnificent. 

I think Glenn felt that a cook-up would help fight the fuzzies because when I got back he suggested we go out for breakfast. We jumped in the car, drove down to the riverfront and found the place we were hoping to go wasn’t open for breakfast today (they start their season tomorrow!) so we drove back up to the resort two doors down from the caravan park and ate there instead. It was an awesome feed – $20 per adult for the buffet, under 3s are free and older kids just pay their age, so we fed all  four of us for $44! It was a great spread of cereal, toast, muesli, fruit, and then a well-stocked bain-marie of hot stuff (tomatoes, mushrooms, sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns, beans, croissants), plus juice and a tea and coffee station! The girls were quite well-behaved and certainly ate their $4 worth. Yasmin loved the rotating toaster dooby – she was quite pleased with her efforts of cooking her own toast, buttering and jamming it and then slicing it it into rough squares. She ate every last bit too!

As soon as we got back, Glenn was keen to get into his raking (the wind was down so it was a good chance to get on top of it) and I took the girls to the PCYC playgroup that a girl told me about last week. They had a ball, playing with toys (poor deprived children have hardly had any toys all year!) and I enjoyed chatting to some of the local mums. It was really well-organised with a neat little craft activity planned (which I think I enjoyed more than the girls!) and a fruit-sharing smoko session at the end. There were about 20 kids there and I guess half as many mums and it was really relaxed and friendly – I was welcomed instantly and we were invited to all of the subsequent sessions this year too. Kalbarri seems to have a really lovely family community.

After popping into the post office and the op shop, we returned for a cooling swim (it must have been about 35 degrees today) and then I took off to Blue Holes for a snorkel (crap) and Glenn had some quality girl time for about an hour. We all had a little snooze after lunch and then returned to the pool in the afternoon because the warm wind was still quite persistent. Now it’s a beautiful balmy evening, the wind has dropped and the kids are showered and happy after playing on the playground for the last hour or so. Yasmin’s quite pleased because she made friends with a girl from the ‘other side of the country’ (Europe) and told me she speaks another language. It’s pretty awesome how our kids are getting to know people from not only all of Australia but from all over the world as well. 

But back to our lovely evening, it’s just after 7pm and the last of the sun’s rays are shining through the trees, the birds are chirping and the kids are munching dinner quietly. Glenn’s got a goat curry on the cooker and our new little Christmas tree light is flashing merrily. I bought it for $4 at the op shop yesterday, along with a beautiful felt advent calendar ($4), a pair of sneakers for Sienna ($1), a singlet ($3), T-shirt ($3) and pair of shorts ($2) for me and a couple of little extras that Santa asked me to pick up for the girls. I love op shops! Yesterday I was tossing up between two pairs of white shorts and decided on the slightly longer pair. I was wearing them today and showing off all our purchases to Penny, one of the cleaners here. She thought they were cool, so I called into the shop again today and bought the other ones for me and gave her the first pair – $4 for two pairs of shorts, a win for everyone!