Fixing the van

Another go at school work this morning.  We have been doing less and less of it each day, but I think we will get the hang of it eventually, maybe after about six weeks or so.

I think it's made a bit harder because children in western Australia are on holidays at the moment.  the people camped behind us last night said if we timed it right we could follow the school holidays around australia and minimize the amount of school time we had to do...  

They were a funny pair, a guy and his uncle, traveling around Australia from Sydney.  They left on 1 September, and will be home for Christmas.  the uncle was fairly old and originally came as an immigrant from Yugoslavia after the war.  he started as a ballet dancer, but he was the only 'artist' who arrived in the refugee group and they told him they didn't know what he would do because there were no theaters here.  he said they put him in a town, told him the grape picking season was nearly there, and to pick grapes until he had enough money to move on.  He said it worked for him and he had no patience for people who came to Australia and then lived off welfare.  No arguments from me.

his nephew, who had bought their winebago I understood, works for the Sydney Opera house as a technician.  he used to be a stage manager in England, but got sick of being the meat in the sandwich between the actors, directors, producers etc.  he was very interesting to talk to as well.  According to them, the Sydney opera house is really the Sydney Concert Hall, because it just doesn't have enough stage space.  while the refurbished convent garden in London has the equivalent of three extra stages behind the wings where you don't see them, so they can leave changes of sets there for quick scene changes or switching between shows for a matinee and evening performance, the Sydney Opera House has an extra three quarters of a stage.  Barely any space in the wings means for ballets, where the ballerina is leaping or pirouetting or whatever off the stage, they have to have spare ballerinas, about to make their entrance, waiting in the wings with padded mats to catch the ones coming off so they don't smash into a wall.  Being a former ballerina (he went into musical theatre after coming to Australia) the uncle finds this situation horrific!  We had a nice chat.

Grant swapped the the tyres on the van around, because he noticed an unusual wear pattern on one of the treads.  he also let the pressure down a bit.  he had them at 45 psi, now they are 35psi when cold.  it was hard to keep Dominic on his maths while the van was being jacked up and wheels removed...not sure which was a better learning exercise. 

After persisting for a few hours, we gave up and went for a swim.  We leave tomorrow and who knows when we'll have such a nice pool again. 

It was a bit of an effort, but with the incentive of St Vincent de Paul for Joseph, (he wants a jacket and a hat for dressing up) we got everyone out of the pool eventually and into the car.  We headed over to the deep water wharf again to see it in the daylight and at high tide.  

Getting out the car, Cooper ran across the road after Joseph and Dominic, right into the path of a big, blue landcruiser.  it was only that the car was still a  distance away and moving slowly around the parked cars that meant he was safe.  Praise the Lord.  needless to say, we held onto him very tightly on the wharf.

The water is a beautiful light blue, and the current of the tide going out was very fast.  around the legs of the jetty the water was swirling, and we saw loads of brown jelly fish float by.  We also saw a big turtle stick his barnacle covered head out of the water and despite the water looking so clear, he didn't take long to disappear when he dived down again.

There were a lot of people fishing off the wharf, but no luck today.

Next we stopped at the Kleen gas depot and Grant finally got the refill for the gas that we needed.

after promising to go for a few days, it was a bit disappointing for Joseph to arrive at St vinnies (the second hand store) and find they'd closed at 12pm, half an hour before.  tomorrow on our way out, then.

on we went to the post office to collect the final two parcels we'd been waiting for.  Parts for Grant to hopefully fix the fridge, and Joseph's school English reading book (and a few other books he doesn't know about).  He had the  book read by 5pm.  He's back to the creation magazines again.  There's a whole line-up-lane in the post office for people collecting mail delivered to the post office.

Back to the shopping centre to return things to target, buy some snorkels (which took a great deal of thought), and get some groceries.  
We were well and truly ready for home.

As soon as we got back, everyone headed off to the pool to try out the snorkels while Grant dismantled the fridge to try to install the new fan.   It was pretty funny our four children floating around the pool in weird masks, every now and then blowing water from their snorkels.  Nadine could have stayed in all night.  someone commented to me that they must be seeing some lovely fish down there!  More like floating bandaids.

While preparing dinner around Grant and my dismantled fridge, we realized tonight was the only night to go and watch the moon rise over the mud flats.  this is called 'the staircase to the moon'.  it only works on the low tide, when the mud flats are exposed, and on a full moon.  The rising moon reflects in a ripple effect on the mud flats, creating a shining 'staircase' leading to the moon.

Because Broome is on a small  peninsula, at Cable beach where we are staying, you can watch the sun set into the sea, while on the other side of the peninsula, at Town Beach, you can watch the moon rise above the Indian Ocean.  the brochure was very specific, the moon would rise on the 13th October, at 6.51pm, so we had to rush.  

When we turned up, it was a regular carnival.  The same stalls as at the Saturday markets were out again.  The beach comber selling beach debris necklaces and playing his clay flutes, the pearl sellers with necklaces and earrings layed out on velvet cloths, the flame juggler with dreadlocks, tattoos and baggy trousers, plus a lot of food stalls this time.  But just past all the stalls and away from the light and noise, about 1000 people were gathered in the darkness on the rise overlooking the beach, shadows waiting quietly to watch the big, round, red moon slip silently above the horizon and light up the mud ripples, in a stairway, just as the brochure said!  It was lovely to watch, but the big, full red moon is lovely to watch rising anywhere here in Western Australia.  I took a few photos, but they didn't really work out.  a flash can only reach so far! The couple standing beside me kept arguing aout how to take the best photo of the moon, and the moon quite unconcernedly kept rising, and rising, until it was too far away from the mud flats to make a stair case, and the question of best practice for moon photography became moot.  (got no idea if that is correct English or not!)

In any case, it was a lovely thing to do, and we made it home before anyone fell asleep in the car, and they all managed to eat their dinner before it became too much like a zoo.  It puts the pressure on when the neighbor  tells you that she hasn't ever met such well behaved kids - might have stretched that one a bit tonight.  But nice to hear anyway.

I seem to be washing up later and later each night.  Not really any different from home I guess.  

Tomorrow we pack up and head south.  It's a bit scary being nomads.  So much easier to stay in the one place with what we know.

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Vicki