the hills

yes, perth has hills. no, it is nothing like the reality show of the same name (not that i really know though, i don't watch it) and last weekend, my friend gill, her friend steve, and i went hiking in "the hills". more accurately, we headed to kalamunda.

it was a gorgeous spring day. warm and sunny, but not too hot. we gathered our things and drove about 40 mins due east from the city. john and i have been to kalamunda before, but neither gill nor steve had. it's quite a quaint little town up in the hills. trendy enough to have cafes, nice restaurants and hotels, but small enough to be cute. in fact, if i didn't live in australia, i could live in a place like kalamunda (but since i'm in australia, i live near the beach).

the hike we chose was a short, 5km jaunt. it claimed to be a "level 5" hike in the guide book, which meant steep inclines and hard going. we were stoked. you don't often get hard going trails in perth. often times, hiking in WA is often a bit of a misnomer. as a canadian, i would describe it more as "trail walking" or "bush walking" at best. this short hike should maybe have been classified as a level 3 (4 at best). yes, it had steep climbs, even steeper descents on what looked to be a dry river bed of soft, loose ground. (one false slip would've sent you sliding down the mountain)  but they were all pretty short in duration. and it was only 5km. (we all thought that with some snow cover, it would be a sweet toboggan trail). we ran into a few other hikers, mostly at the cross points on the trail. naturally, this trail was poorly signed (it is australia, after all. why would you want to know where you're going?) but we managed to find our way quite well.

the guide book told us to plan for a 2-2.5 hour hike. i'd like to know how they time this! do they follow the slowest people on the trail? or do they get some very old, seriously out of shape people who are also intense bird watchers? it took us 1.15 hours at best. and that was including a few stops while steve answered work calls (yes, on the trail. i'm amazed he even had reception!)

sadly, we saw no 'roos. not a one. this country is apparently over-run with 'roos. farmers get a quota that they have to kill every year. but nope. not a one. stupid 'roos! 

overall, it was a nice afternoon. the guide book has about 50 "walks" in the region. hopefully john and i will start to chip away at them. we'll keep you posted (pun intended)

xo

wonderful weekend

this past weekend, john and i were able to enjoy a luxurious 4 day weekend. i don't usually even get a 2 day weekend, so to have 4 days was pretty awesome. the reason? my birthday and our wedding anniversary (2 yrs! oh my!) happen to fall on a long weekend (the queen's birthday. though it's debatable because it's not celebrate on the same weekend across the country). so natch, i took the friday and well, the saturday off of work. 

john planned a weekend away for us, which he kept a surprise until we almost got there (though i had my suspicions early on). when we got to gracetown, i was pretty stoked. a holiday house (the one from christmas) to ourselves, with nothing to do but lounge and laze. ahhhhhh!

we've been to gracetown before but it felt different this time because a - we were alone and b- it's winter. lucky for us, the house had a nice fireplace. and john is ever the good fire-maker. we essentially sat by the fire and relaxed most of the time. quite nice, actually. 

the weather was pretty rotten on saturday, so as i said, we took full advantage of staying in. though i did muster up a bit of energy to go to the eco spa and have a massage and scrub (my gift to myself). i came out thoroughly relaxed, soft as can be and somewhat hippy-smelling. (you know what i mean...)

sunday proved to be quite nice: sunny but cool and windy.  a smattering of rain as well, but tolerable. we decided to go for a nice hike. i use the term "hike" loosely... mostly it was trail walking along the coast, with some slight inclines but nothing major. most of the "hikes" in WA appear to be of this nature, though i'm told some do actually get challenging.  that afternoon, we headed to a few vineyards to explore the offerings. then made our way into margaret river for an anniversary dinner at the somewhat-hippy-ish-vegan-restaurant. delish!

we left monday and stopped in dunsborough on the way back. we stumbled across a gorgeous beach with turquoise water (a surprise at this time of year). we'll add it to "our places to visit in WA".

an interesting tidbit WA- it is currently wildflower season. truly beautiful flowers blah blah blah. oddly, one of the most common wildflowers has a remarkable scent: that of urine. stale urine. stale cat's urine. it is foul and pungent (and burns your nostrils). and it's EVERYWHERE! i have been looking online to find more info but surprisingly enough "plant that smells of urine" or "plant, cat pee, stink, WA" isn't pulling up any winners. so you'll just have to take my word for it. it is rank.

a truly fascinating fact to finish on...

xo