Long weekend in Margaret River
Dad and I went 'down south' this long weekend, which is short hand in our family for heading for Margaret River, to the house that my parents built on a bush block. It was a wonderfully peaceful weekend. Photos below the cut!
An appropriate licence plate spotted on the way down.
I had grand plans of spending many hours knitting here (note the wonderful pattern by
meghanc, but got beset by waves of tired all weekend. I did get the toe done, though, so it's completely ready for train knitting. Anyway, that's the view from the house's porch. There's a birdbath just below the line of sight, and little birds come and hang out around it in the evenings and early mornings.
The windchimes above the table that sent gently resonating, single notes out into the air.
This photo sadly doesn't capture anywhere near the gorgeousness of the evening, but it's something.
Possum! She lives in the wall of one side of the house, I think, although Dad's possum-proofed the rest of it, and given her a nesting box. She'll sit on your lap, and is remarkably lighter than a cat, although I was too unnerved by the biting-after-you-ran-out-of-food to let her do it for long. Hello, wild animal...
This is pale, pale attempt to capture the amazing number of stars in the sky. I'd forgotten how amazing the 'true' night sky is without light pollution, my god. This was a 60 second exposure, lying my camera on a flat surface and using the 'starry night' setting.
The next morning, we went out to Prevelly (sp?) beach for a coffee and a swim in Dad's case, and a mocha and a wade for me. This was our view from our cafe seats.
There was what turned out to be an uncle giving his niece and nephew a surfing lesson. They paddled up and down the beach, and then got the standing up lesson on the sand, and then back out for the standing-for-reals-on-the-water, and they both managed it. They were *adorable*.
Beautiful water patterns in the sun.
Then post beach, we went shopping for various things (new sheets! whee!) including sandpaper and extra brushes, came back and sanded and varnished the picnic bench that friends had given Mum & Dad for their 40th birthday. After knitting and tugging a ball of yarn over such a rough surface, plus remembering how awesome it was to varnish my floorboards, I wanted to give it a go.
Before
During
After!
On Sunday, we went out to the Karri forest, which is so pretty you get two photos of the trees:
This is so cool, I'm placing it outside the cut so that people who aren't interested in my holiday can still see the omg! HART!
This is one of the signs along that stretch of road, warning drivers that people are likely to be crossing the road to admire the gorgeous trees. An example of the standard sign is here (insert gender role and representation snarl here. Plus, 'aged people'? says who?) Anyway, this is the magic someone/s performed on one of the signs:
I really, really want to meet these person/people and buy them a drink, and learn what else they've done.
They showed (all?) 16 short films over a few hours at a winery, with a decent cover band before things kicked off at 8pm. I'm... glad I went, and they were all technically ranging from solid to really good, but I was left wondering if it was possible to do a short film that was uplifting or kind or life-affirming, because a few came close, but many of them were grim and one or two were downright nasty. (My favourites were Flight(?) and Things To Do).
And then Monday we drove back. We left at noon, which was a Mistake -- we were stop-starting bumper to bumper in several places. Next time, leaving to go home at 9am, as well as leaving-to-get-down-there at 9am.
An appropriate licence plate spotted on the way down.
I had grand plans of spending many hours knitting here (note the wonderful pattern by
meghanc, but got beset by waves of tired all weekend. I did get the toe done, though, so it's completely ready for train knitting. Anyway, that's the view from the house's porch. There's a birdbath just below the line of sight, and little birds come and hang out around it in the evenings and early mornings.
The windchimes above the table that sent gently resonating, single notes out into the air.
This photo sadly doesn't capture anywhere near the gorgeousness of the evening, but it's something.
Possum! She lives in the wall of one side of the house, I think, although Dad's possum-proofed the rest of it, and given her a nesting box. She'll sit on your lap, and is remarkably lighter than a cat, although I was too unnerved by the biting-after-you-ran-out-of-food to let her do it for long. Hello, wild animal...
This is pale, pale attempt to capture the amazing number of stars in the sky. I'd forgotten how amazing the 'true' night sky is without light pollution, my god. This was a 60 second exposure, lying my camera on a flat surface and using the 'starry night' setting.
The next morning, we went out to Prevelly (sp?) beach for a coffee and a swim in Dad's case, and a mocha and a wade for me. This was our view from our cafe seats.
There was what turned out to be an uncle giving his niece and nephew a surfing lesson. They paddled up and down the beach, and then got the standing up lesson on the sand, and then back out for the standing-for-reals-on-the-water, and they both managed it. They were *adorable*.
Beautiful water patterns in the sun.
Then post beach, we went shopping for various things (new sheets! whee!) including sandpaper and extra brushes, came back and sanded and varnished the picnic bench that friends had given Mum & Dad for their 40th birthday. After knitting and tugging a ball of yarn over such a rough surface, plus remembering how awesome it was to varnish my floorboards, I wanted to give it a go.
Before
During
After!
On Sunday, we went out to the Karri forest, which is so pretty you get two photos of the trees:
This is so cool, I'm placing it outside the cut so that people who aren't interested in my holiday can still see the omg! HART!
This is one of the signs along that stretch of road, warning drivers that people are likely to be crossing the road to admire the gorgeous trees. An example of the standard sign is here (insert gender role and representation snarl here. Plus, 'aged people'? says who?) Anyway, this is the magic someone/s performed on one of the signs:
I really, really want to meet these person/people and buy them a drink, and learn what else they've done.
They showed (all?) 16 short films over a few hours at a winery, with a decent cover band before things kicked off at 8pm. I'm... glad I went, and they were all technically ranging from solid to really good, but I was left wondering if it was possible to do a short film that was uplifting or kind or life-affirming, because a few came close, but many of them were grim and one or two were downright nasty. (My favourites were Flight(?) and Things To Do).
And then Monday we drove back. We left at noon, which was a Mistake -- we were stop-starting bumper to bumper in several places. Next time, leaving to go home at 9am, as well as leaving-to-get-down-there at 9am.