December Wrap-up and Signs (Part 2)

Following from last week's post, which you can read here:

Also participating in Tom's signs:

Friday 22nd - On a 35C day we started our 2 week Christmas holidays. Time to start preparing Christmas lunch and prepare our patio where we would be having it.

Monday 25th -  A very lively Christmas lunch at our place with about 20 adults and 6 kids. The kids had fun opening the gifts. Everyone brought food, so as usual plenty of food left over.

                      

Plenty of food and never ending desserts

Tuesday 26th - A public holiday, the start of the Boxing day sales. We don't usually bother with these, as there's not much we need to buy, but this time we were looking for a dual fridge/freezer for our camper, and we went searching in a couple of specialized shops, but what we liked was too big for the space, so modifications are needed first...

Late afternoon we went to our friends I & K's house for dinner and I discovered a new mural.

Wednesday 27th  - in the morning we packed our camper, and left home after lunch and drove to the "Tasman Serpentine Falls" camping park, about 1 hour away. Strangely enough we had never visited Serpentine falls!

Upon arrival we set up our camper, made the bed and realized we had forgotten our pillows, and our comfy beach chairs. Luckily we had 2 small throw pillows that had to do for our first night.

Then we set about investigating the park. It was small, nicely located, surrounded by mountains, and had a retirement village behind it, accessible by the same entrance. The kitchen and bathrooms were on the older side, but clean and functional and there was a lovely pool with some shade, and we still had time to enjoy a refreshing swim.

View from our camp stop. The pool is next to the building with the sun panels

The swimming pool

Lots of bunnies hopping around the park during the day and night

That night after eating the dinner we brought from home we went to bed early but were rudely woken up a few hours later by gusts of wind of 35km/h (force 5) that shook the camper, the sides and windows were just flapping like crazy! I thought we were going to topple any minute, pretty scary!

Wind warning outside the kitchen

After about half an hour of this, Jose was ready to drive home to sleep and return the next day. But we stayed....and even though the camp was in the vale surrounded by the mountains, the wind returned every night for the first 3 nights! We would just wake up and wait for it to get better a couple of hours later.

Thursday 28th  - at lunch time we drove 20min to meet up our friend C who lives in Tasmania and was over here to spend Christmas with her daughter in the suburb of Baldivis. We had lunch at Steel Tree@Settlers and spent a couple of hours catching up with news since our last meeting in December last year.

On the way home we stopped at the local Shopping Centre to buy pillows and beach chairs 🤣.

A funny sign on the road to Baldivis near a golf course

Friday 29th  - Drove to Boddington, stopping first a North Dandenup to photograph the beautiful mural on the water tower (from last post), then when we drove past Dwellingup, I spotted one mural, and then another... saw four of them,  then onto the bauxite and gold mining town of Boddington.

The pretty town of Boddington, is 120km south of Perth, and the closest mining town to Perth with a population of about 1900.

We stopped for coffee and cake before looking around.

A collector's paradise inside the coffee shop. The cake was plentiful

The red tailed black cockatoos that are plentiful in the town

We walked along the lovely Hotham river where you can swim. Next to it is a camping place. Then there is Hotham Park - a very modern park - voted WA Park of the Year in 2022,  where children can explore their wild sides with the flying fox, pump track and skate park, adults can play basketball on the half court, or try out some of the outdoor gym equipment, have a barbecue or picnic by the river, or sit at on the foreshore.

Hotham river and park

The Visitor centre/library/cafe, had an Interpretation room, sort of a small museum about the history of the town, with great info highs and lows of the town and some old machines.

Museum at the Visitor centre

Mosaic panel at the Visitor Centre

Another quirky characteristic of the town, is they holds a 3 day Rodeo on the first weekend of November, and it also holds a biannual sculpture competition which attracts artists from near and far, which is displayed to the public every second year in October. A public exhibition features lots of sculptures throughout the Boddington Town Centre with the winning entries, and you can get a sculpture trail map, from the Visitor centre.

Remember the owl statue from last week's mural at the Melville library. This is a very similar one, which I think might have been made by the same sculptor. This one was at the entry to the Visitor's Centre - https://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com/2024/01/monday-murals-everything-melville.html

From some outdated online information I thought we could visit the gold mining pit, but it had been closed to visitors a few years ago. This sign was on the road from the pit back into the town.

Late afternoon, upon our return to camp, we went to dinner at the pub at Mundijong, a small town just 7 min away.  We went to the IGA, an independent grocer, and it was the most beautiful shop I have been to, very surprising for such a tiny town, with loads of choice of ready make foods.

Sign at the IGA

This American police car from 1963 was in great nick and we spoke to the owner who restored it himself

Fish and chips at the pub was ok, but the place was a bit rough. The best part was the live music, as the musician was a good singer.

Fish and chips at the pub

Saturday 30th  - We drove to the historic town of Jarrahdale, Western Australia's first timber town. It was here that our group had our olive oil pressed in June last year, but I didn't have then the opportunity to drive around. 

Old cemetery

Millbrook Winery was closed for holidays

We drove to Serpentine Dam ;

A field of llamas before reaching the entrance to the Serpentine national park

    

                

Small church on the road to Serpentine Falls

And to Serpentine Falls, where we paid $15 pass for the car to enter the National Park. 

We parked the car, and walked to the falls, where we had a great time swimming around. The water was cold at first, but once inside it was divine! I stuck to the margins of the lake as the park ranger told us the depth in some areas was something like 40 metres!

At the bbq/picnic spot before reaching the fall, this young kangaroo was quietly resting surrounded by people

31st Sunday - Swam in the camp's pool in the morning. Late afternoon we drove to Mandurah to watch the 9pm fireworks on the foreshore.

A mural painted in 2017 by Tahnee Kelland  (https://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com/2020/08/monday-mural-swing.html)

At Mandurah waiting for the fireworks - the last sunset of the year

Christmas lights at the foreshore

Fireworks at the foreshore

Back to the car, it took us ages to leave the parking lot as we were parking almost up front and had to wait for the rows and rows of cars that came after us... but eventually we got back to the camping place at 11,30. Just called my parents and went to bed. We forgot the bubbly, so no toast to the New Year 😏.

Happy New Year to you all!