the rest of the pics

Well we are waiting for our plane back to the bay. its been a very busy 9 days. We tasted wine and beer and cheeze and been in caves, and atop a bell tower. 

This picture was an art shot done while we were at lunch at a beautiful wine estate Leeuwin.  We had lunch at Vasse Felix, Leeuwin. Laureance, Wills Domaine and Amberley. We tasted wine at 18 cellar doors. 

We started seeing caves in the morning before the cellar doors opened. the first was Mamoth Cave and well we were there we heard

about the other caves but until we ran into Jules at Xanadu and he was so passionate about Lake cave and how it was  living cave, we hadn't set on it. 

the next morning before the tastings of the day we went down down down into it. It was beautiful. here's a shot of the light show in the cave. very special.  Here are the long thin "straws" hanging from the roof they grow about one inch every 25 years. 

Newbie  in the stocks at the round house goal in Freemantle. It was the first prison but only 8 cells. Right on the harbour. 

This is the Swan Bells tower we lucked out and arrived just ast they started and hour of ringing all sorts of different changes. I was very cool. It had been purpose built to allow visitors to see the ringers and the bells on different levels. they even have closed ciruit TV so if you are on the bell level you can see the ringers and vice versa. way cool. They had a deck above all that had great veiws and you can see that there was a open, glass sided gantry around the bell tower side (facing us in the picture) and Guess what the whole building moved with the wight of the bells swinging. It was very un-nerving but really fun.

more late Chris

Margaret River, WA

Well ...we're at Margaret River in Western Australia for a week and we have been tasting wine and eating like a house on fire. Since I'm not drinking so much still, I get to be the DD and Bluey and Newbie are the Designated Drinkers and they are taking their job seriously. So for two days I've been getting "Its only 20 mins to 5:00 pm we can fit another one in before they close". I exaggerate for effect of course but we are having fun discovering little out of the way small wineries and other points of interest

We are going to move to another little boutique hotel tomorrow and then into Perth, Freemantle actually, for the weekend and then back home to HB. It’s School Holidays and that's how I can get away.

I have been having a great time back at work. The school has more students then ever and a lot of stuff got built, added and improved in the year I was away. They still like me, I don't get as much time with individual students as I like. It’s more administration now but that's okay too. I'm getting to be a serious multitasker! I do love it though, especially when I get to work with the kids.

I've been having some time off for tests lately. I went down over Easter and had my annual bone marrow aspiration on Good Friday! There I am spread eagled in a loose toga with the doc poking me with a sword in the side. I thought I was in an Easter pageant! I won't get my results for a few weeks but the doc said my blood tests that morning were "excellent". I also had all the other tests the following Tuesday so we stayed in Brisbane for the week end and did tourist stuff. Those test results are not in yet but the lung test guy showed me the results and they were up to my usual best and a tiny bit higher then when I started out over a year ago. I was stoked.

All this means that our plans for a trip to Canada are going ahead and we have booked tickets!

We leave on the 23rd of May and get back on June 13th. I haven't worked out the exact internal stuff but we are going straight to Calgary and stopping in Victoria on the way back. We also have plans for the 31st of May in Calgary Regan's wedding and the 26th of May in Calgary ...we want to celebrate JC's Birthday! Any suggestions? Other than that we are still filling in the blanks.

Anyway that is our big news.

More later
Chris