Renew and Restore

This article was written for the blog Assortment run by the wonderful Sarah Lou.

As a means of introductions, I'll skip the formalities and just go straight for photos, as the saying goes - they're worth a thousand words...

Just hanging around

Just saying hello

I feel that these two pictures summarise me fairly well. The first picture is me abseiling down a 40m rock face upside down. The second is me hungering for brains in the new John Butler Trio music video "Only One". 

Now, what do these have to do with renew and restore you ask? Well, everyone has a different idea of what renews and restores their well-being. For me, these are two prime examples of what makes me feel awesome: being outdoors, climbing rocks and being up high, and putting on a costume and make-up and generally making a bit of a fool out of myself in front of thousands of people (this is not the first time). Some of you may think I'm crazy that these kind of things relax me, but at the same time I kind of think the same thing about people who sit in front of the TV for hours, or facebook or just go for a drink to relax. The more I sit still, the less I do and generally the more I end up sleeping regularly, the more worn out I feel and the more antsy I get to get up and go run around in a circle.

And so, I have recently quit my job as a geologist in Western Australia, so I can satisfy my itchy feet and go and explore the world. I wasn't feeling particularly happy or satisfied with my job and was travelling for short times fairly often. I got the opportunity to travel to Puerto Rico for 3 weeks where I was able to spend my time being restored to my former self by doing so many things I love doing: photography, cinematography, SCUBA diving, climbing, hiking, exploring, eating and caving. The last of which, I don't get to do very often, but always love when I do. Below is a video I put together of my caving adventure so you can also enjoy it (from the safety of your own home for some or as inspiration for others).

I can wholeheartedly recommend taking the chance to go to Puerto Rico if it ever comes up. Ticket prices are not outrageous, it's cheap once you're over there and it's an easy mix of westernised and Caribbean culture. And if you do make it there and fancy a bit of adventure, the Aventuras Tierra Adentro who took me caving were absolutely amazing.

During my time over there I travelled all over the country by car: Fajardo - San Juan - Ponce - Arroyo - Humacao - Arecibo - Isabela - Rincon, and many other smaller stops along the way. But I will leave those stories for another time. For now, I will leave you with a hello, an introduction and a good luck to renew and restore in this new year!

Until the next time.

Tom

The New and Improved Family

And we're off!

This first week (and a bit) has gone rather quickly. We spent the first three days driving straight up the coast (with a day in Carnarvon - more on that later) to Exmouth, in order to meet a very good friend of mine and his girlfriend for a few days of sun, sand and shenanigans around the Ningaloo reef. 

The first day was rather short - setting off in the evening, picking up Zoe and then stopping by Kim's best friends place for a very civilised cheese and crackers and slightly less civilised game of cricket with a 5 year old and crawling around the floor with a 10 month old. After a slightly longer stop than planned, we high tailed it a whole 30 minutes to a camp site at Moore River. I did the obligatory group photo day 1 and had a little play with my camera which resulted in a picture I'm quite happy with:

Obligatory first day group shot - a "before" if you will permit me

Happy snappy night time shot

The next three days were rather uneventful with all the driving, so I will swiftly move on to the new introductions. First up, I will introduce you to Claire:

Yes, Claire is a car...

I've had this car for a little over a year now, but it was only on the drive up the coast last week that I finally named my trusty Rav 4. I decided to name my car Claire after a very good friend of mine for a multitude of reasons. I bought this car at about the same time the human Claire came into my life, they're both very strong and fully capable no matter what anyone else may say and despite their misleading demeanor and of course they're both gold (though my Rav 4 is slightly more on the beige/champagne side). So I've decided that Claire will help me get around Australia for the next couple months as human Claire has helped me this past year.

Next up, is George. Or George Aslan II to be precise:

A refined name for a slightly less than refined trailer

This little(ish) bugger is the reason we got stuck in Carnarvon for a day after only two hours of driving. We very quickly realised that we weren't going to have quite enough space in the car as Zoe was already cuddling a lot of the gear in the back and we were going to have a fourth permanent person on this trip when Sam joins us in a couple weeks, let alone two extra temporary family members for the next week or so when we meet up with Will and Sam (different Sam). So we hit the internet to find out the best option for extra storage space, between a roof rack and a trailer. We managed to pick up George here for a mere $100 (down from an advertised $800!), but then had the very fun job of getting him road worthy as he was currently unregistered - and so it begins... First up, poor old George has been sitting in a back garden unloved and unused for a few years - so he needs a new plug, so we head to the local garage who promise to call us back within an hour when it's done - 2.5 hours later, I give them a call - oh yes, it's been done for ages... Alrighty, so next up we go to the post office to try and organise a change of registration - they send us to the bigger Department of Transport office down the road. Drive on down there: yep, here's a form to fill out with all yours and the sellers details on, and by the way, you need to have it inspected, but not at the normal garage, at the registered Toyota dealership just out of town. Back to the previous owner's house for a bit of a sit down form filling session and then off to the Toyota dealer. 

"Yep, we can inspect it, have you got a weight certificate?"

"A what now?" - Apparently, trailers are registered and taxed by weight in WA, but this garage and the other one don't have a vehicle scales, the RAC a bit more out of town does... So down the road we go. Something else was on the scales and unmoveable at that time, so a couple hours and $35 later (yes, $35 to put a trailer on a scale and print out a piece of paper) - back we go to the Toyota dealer. Inspection takes about 10 minutes, for which my assistance was required and involved a couple tape measurements. 

"Great, come back tomorrow to pick up the documentation."

"What!?" Apparently the documents need to be faxed to Perth, checked and returned, and apparently, at 1530, the people required to make this happen have already left the office... But at least it should be done by 0900. So 1100 rolls around - no phone call. I call them up, and once again, apparently they've had the documents back for a couple hours... great. Another $40 down the drain for another bit of paper and 10 minutes of someone's time to take some measurements. Back to the DoT. Finally after about 24 hours, I finally drive away with a legally registered and slightly cleaner trailer. I'm pretty sure it would have been cheaper and easier to not do the right thing and just pay the fine for an unregistered trailer...

So we load up George and off we head for Exmouth, and 6.5 hours later we arrived in time to set up the tents, chilled out in the pool for a bit and had dinner with a cider that didn't feel quite as well deserved after the debacle with Goerge and then to bed to get up very early to head to the airport to pick up Will and Sam.

Which segues perfectly onto the introduction to the two new temporary family members:

The intrepid explorers

Will is a very good friend of mine back in the UK and Sam is his girlfriend. We spent a few days in the National Park on Ningaloo reef enjoying the amazing snorkelling and relaxing before they had to head back to Perth for Sam to get back to work. More on those few days in another post!

Which brings us to the final new member of the gang: John. He's a bit sensitive and is currently head deep in a tub of guacamole so I can't currently upload you a photo of him. But I will paint a picture - John is a lit bit twisted (literally), and a little bit hairy as he tends to catch a lot of fluff on his head, he's also a spoon (literally), and Zoe found him in the middle of a dirt track on one of her jogs. She felt inspired by her older brother to name it John.

There was one other very temporary family member:

I have no idea what it is, and it didn't survive long enough to name, but it looks like a giant flea. If anyone has any insight - do let me know!

And so that sums up the new editions to the travelling family. I'll close with a cheesy silhouette photo!

And so it begins

It's the first night of the adventure!

I finished at Fringe festival last night :( and have some wicked posts about that to come. And today I set off with Zoe and Kim a whole 90 minutes outside of Perth! This was planned however, as for the next 3 days, we'll be making a blitz all the way up the coast to Exmouth to meet some friends there, before slowly working our way back down the coast.

So I'm going to sign off here for the night, as need some sleep after only 3 hours last night and get some better posts and photos up soon!