Sienna Lodge

We went for a short trip down to Yallingup for a couple of nights last weekend and it was fantastic. We stayed at the Sienna Lodge, situated at the corner of Cave Road and Canal Rock Road, nestled amongst the wine growing region of Margaret River. The accommodation was surprisingly good and, I might add, different but in a good way. It was so rustic and beautiful! Talking about good taste, the room even came with a bottle of complimentary wine produced right here at the Sienna Estate. That Momentum Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 07 by the way was pretty easy to drink and very fruity, great for novice wine drinkers like us :)

Unfortunately, both Sienna Restaurant and Cellar were closed until further notice (I really hope they will reopen again), and it's a fairly long drive to basically anyway, I strongly recommend anyone who decided to stay at the lodge to prepare plenty of food before hand or load yourself with tons of instant cup noodle, like us just in case you feel like munching away in the middle of night lol! Apart from that, it's a great place to relax even for a weekend and it's only a short drive to Canal Rock where you can enjoy spectacular sunset every evening!

I will post more photos at my PhotoBlog.

Short journey to the East

It was a great break from our regular routine and although it was just a short trip, we felt truely relaxed and readied to face the world again! The main reason for the unexpected trip was a fine example of a bureauocratic red tape - the renewal of Jin's Korean passport. Because there is no Korean consulate here in Perth (apparently there was one before??) and also, according to Korean embassy - for security reason, she was not allowed to post her old passport to either Canberra or Sydney, so the only way to renew her existing passport was to go to there herself.

However, my reason to tag along was purely to get away from my otherwise, boring work-eat-sleep routine! In the next few weeks or even months, I will start to post more and more photos from our trip either here or on my Flickr page. We brought 2 slr cameras with us this time, one for me and of course, another for Jin to train up so we are ready for our next round of big holiday photo shoot :) We have between us, 26Gb in total of raw files to sieve through and that will keep me busy for a long time. Jin has been busy posting heaps of shots on her blog too, you can visit her blog here but unfortunately, it's only available in Korean :)

(Thank you Derrick for the email)

Heading off for a break!

I am having a couple of weeks off starting today! Couldn't believe the last time I had a holiday was back in January last year and that's just way too long... Although we have a fairly good holiday planned for later this year but don't really think I can survive that long though... so see you guys in a week and a bit :)

A long day

We headed to Mandurah at about 4am this morning, the plan was to catch as many crabs as possible at the estuary and have them for lunch. Well, at least that's our plan but I was also hoping to snap some good sunrise shots while I was at it. Despite a gloomy forecast by the weather bureau, the weather actually wasn't too bad as it turned out.

Unfortunately, after a long day of hard work, we were only managed to net 6 crabs that were not actually undersized. Nevertheless, it was still a great day out, even though a tired one.

By the way, we had instant noodle for lunch :) As you can see in the second shot, the weather was very overcast.

Lake Monger Reserve

Today was just another typical non-eventful day, having to work yesterday and again tomorrow, the weekend just wasn't long enough by any standard. Jin was struggling with curtain in the morning (yes, she is making new curtains for our lounge room) while I was trying to filter through news from the rotten financial markets around the globe to find any sign of reprieve. While all this is bad news for those average investors stubborn enough to hold on to their investment portfolio they started some 6 years ago, subsequent drops in interest rates from our reserved bank is much welcomed by most of us mortgage holders. Which means that at last, we can breath a little easier and I might not have to wait too long for my next camera upgrade...I am looking at may be a 50D next year sometime :))

Anyhow, we decided to go out for a walk in the afternoon. After all, today's weather was too nice for us to be locked up at home anyway. After I dropped something to my brother in Wembly Down, we went to the nearby Lake Monger Reserve. I haven't been to the reserve since I finished my college and I was totally stunned by how tranquil and beautiful the surrounding areas are. Luscious greens with scores of wild birds and black swams, it is just awesome!

Back to Rottnest

With only less than 2 weeks to go before Yeong heads back to Korea, we thought it would only be fair enough that we showed her to our only island escape paradise in Perth, the Rottnest Island :)

We went there on last Saturday by catching the Rottness Express ferry off C Shed at Fremantle Port. The day started really cloudy and managed to spit a little, but as the day progressed, it turned out to be a fantastic day on the island with really mild temperature and plenty of refreshing sea breeze.

However it's not all fun and games, Yeong somehow managed to drop her prescription glasses into the ocean and lost them! So the rest of the day, she would just have to be content with her non-prescription sunnies :)

Of course, there are only a few ways you can get around to explore the island and in my opinion, the best way will be on the bikes. So we rented a bike each as soon as we arrived on the island in the morning. However, the only down side of riding these rental bikes is the "pain in the arse" at the end of the day - for those who have been there and done that would know exactly what I meant LOL! For me, it was the fifth time I have been through this and every single time it nearly killed me :)

A weekend at Guilderton

A weekend camping at Guilderton and everything seems so refreshed! Yes, I survived the camp in the small town of Guilderton about 95km north of Perth. Guys, if any of you ever feel like taking a short break from reality, your soul will thank you for having a short stay at the Guilderton Caravan Park. The holiday park is situated right on the mouth of the Moore River overlooking Indian Ocean. From the look of it, the park itself is the town center and there is only one cafe/restaurant/general store. Everything is so "natural" and tranquil...well...except for the weather of course :)

I brought my trusty Canon with me but because of the lousy weather, I didn't have much luck with it. Lets hope Lisa and Dao have better luck with their Nikons so I can grab some photos off them...and of course, with me in the photos hopefully :P

As you can see in the picture, the Moore River mouth was largely block by a stretch of long sandy bar with the water level in the river seems a lot higher than the sea level. Basically, you can walk from one side of the river to the other on that stretch of sand and the view of the river from there is amazing. I could only wish the weather was nice enough for me to see the full sunset from the beach!

We have 2 tents set up and me and Jin stayed in the smaller one. Yes, food and food and food and of course, beer and beer and beer and I mean lots of them! Well, that's basically what we did most of the time and strange enough, the heavy downpour and strong wind brought by the storm added to the "cosiness" in the tent! There you have it, that was my first experience at camping and it was fantastic :)

Fishing is one of the favourite activities in Moore River and indeed there are lots of river bream in the river. Unfortunately, most of the bream we cought on Saturday afternoon were undersize so we ended up releasing all of them back to the river. Before we could try our luck on a different fishing spot, the rain just sent us straight back to our tent again :(

No doubt we will be back to Guilderton again in the very near future, probably bringing our tent again to camp there. Hopefully then we will have better luck at fishing!