Monday, January 28, 2013

Post Australia Day

Heya Chia!

Awwww your drawings are so beautiful! I especially like your Rodent and Christina's lion! There is something about coloured pencils that is so beautiful.  I think I really like how the texture of the paper comes through. I also love how adding water can change a drawing completely! It really changes the colours and the picture to something completely different! I can't wait to see what you guys complete this coming Wednesday!

As for your long weekend, it looks like you had a lot of fun! The bushwalk looked quite adventurous! How was the weather? Were you guys out for the whole day?

My Australia Day was pretty full on. In the morning I did my run and house chores and then met up with Kev to head to Anaconda to buy... wait for it... $5 boogieboards! I saw them in the brochure and knew that I had to get some because when we went to Mullaloo with Clem the last time, we all were thinking 'damn, we so should get some cheap boards if possible!'  We also got Clem a board but he opted for a $50 which was of a superior quality by far! Our cheapy boards were made of foam with a crab drawn on it! I unfortunately do not have a photo of it, but it's quite a funny board.

After that, Kev and I went to an Australia Day party/housewarming party where by we pretty much just chilled out, drank cider, beer, vodka jelly shots and ate. It was a pretty relaxed night!

The next day, Kev and I took it easy and went shopping at Mountain Designs where I bought a winter jacket which I can compress into a small ball and is super light! But I will do a separate post about that! :)

After shopping, we called up Clem and went to Mullaloo Beach to RIDE THE WAVES! It was sooooo much fun! We had such an exhilarating time on our boards; reading the waves and then hopping onto our boards into the barrel when the time was right! Kev and I were super proud about our $5 rides! However, by the end of our long session (almost 2 hours of boarding) Kev cracked his board.  Clem's board definitely stood the test of the waves.  Perhaps if Kev and I board more we will look into getting better quality ones.  But for the time being, we will be rocking our crab boards (even if we do share the same boards as the majority of the kids at Mullaloo beach).

After boarding we went to Hillary's and had some awesome fish and chips! YUM!

Today

Today I woke up and went out for a run. It was a little cooler than expected and there was quite a breezy easterly wind. As I made my way down the usual route I was greeted by the brilliant turquoise ocean ahead of me. I took a detour to the beach entry and this is what I saw:

Breathtaking!

I got super excited and called up Kev (accidentally waking him up!) and told him to come down ASAP as the water is so good that he had to try!  Previously, I had told Kev that I wasn't ready to take him out to snorkel near my place as the water was a little difficult and the reef made it hard to manouvre safely. As such, I wanted to be confident about the area (and in my knowledge and skill) before showing him around. So you can imagine how wonderful the water was if I was willing to forget all of that!

Unfortunately Kev had things to do, so he told me that he wouldn't be able to make it.  As I ran back to my house to get changed I messaged him the above photo in hope that I would change his mind.

When I returned, that man that you see standing in the water with the black pants in the photo, was still standing there! I got my gear ready, waded in and asked him if he had swam beyond the reef yet. He told me that he had not, and I said 'well, perhaps you should give it a go!' As I climbed onto the reef he followed me, which was a little encouraging because there was a part of me that was a little scared about what had happened the last time I tried snorkeling beyond the reef.  However, once we jumped into the water, it was beautiful! It was so blue blue blue and so clear and the water was perfectly cool. I felt like I was in another country!

Me in the middle of nowhere! I love the sail boat!


It was such a wonderful day Chia! I can't express how happy I was! As I was exploring the reef I was able to find a few little marine friends:

Recognise this guy from a previous post? It's a Red Lipped Morwong!

Jellyfish. I don't like these guys. I actually got stung by one on my arm which has left a little red scar. 

When I had a little break I saw that there was someone waving at me on the stairs up on the shore. It was my mom! She had come down to see what I was getting up to (as she is frequently witnessing me rushing back home in a flurry after a run, changing into bathers, bringing my snorkel gear and running off again).  I decided that after snorkeling for about 30 minutes with visability decreasing, that I should call it a day.

However, when I came upon shore and talked to mom I saw a familiar person approach behind mom!

Hi Kev !
Kev said that he was convinced after seeing my photo! Ah-HAH! It worked!

After that, I was re-energised and knew that I had to show Kev all the things I saw! Not only that, as we were getting back into the water we saw the biggest Stingray! He was flapping his wings at the top of the water as he was getting caught up in the shallow pools in and around the reef.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a photo :(

Here are some shots of what we saw:


Interesting limestone formation

I'm riding a dinosaur!

Big fish - I need to classify this in the future
Recognise this fish too? The Angel fish from a previous post!

Lots and lots of fishes!

This fish seemed a little trapped in this limestone formation

For me to classify later!

Here's a video of the fish we saw:


When Kev and I finally left, we spoke to a couple who were also leaving. I asked them if they saw the Stingray, and they said 'Yes!'

I also told them of a little incident that happened earlier with the man who I had convinced to go beyond the reef.  After I had been snorkeling for a while, the man called out to me saying that there was something large in the reef. I swam over to him as he had gotten out of the water and was standing on the reef pointing to an area ahead of him. He said he saw something swimming around that was grey and large. I asked him if it had fins and he said he replied saying that he wasn't sure. I was curious so I had a little look around but slowly my own mind started to freak me out (was it a shark?).  It was then that as I looked around I saw Mom waving to me and so I decided to head back.

However, after telling this story to the couple, they said 'No! It was a dolphin! There were two!' I was flabbergasted! I can't believe I missed out on swimming up to it!

It was an amazing day for snorkeling at my beach! I was invigorated and excited for hours after!

Anywho, that concludes my long weekend. Back to work tomorrow!

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