Tragedy

It's been a while since I've had fingers to keyboard at LunaRover. No excuses...
The girls and I are in Perth at the moment but our thoughts are with friends and colleagues in Tom Price, who this week have had to deal with the terrible consequences of a tragic accident which occurred in Karijini National Park.
This afternoon I start a Remote Emergency Care course to learn and refresh essential skills that in the light of this week's tragedy are all the more pertinent.

Gregory Gorge

Spring has always been one of my favourite West Australian seasons (along with Autumn: in Perth they are climatically identical). Happily Spring continues to delight in the Pilbara, LAFE needed to get out and enjoy it. An opportunity to do just that came last weekend...

Dear Neighbour/Colleague/Friend and her children, A to Z, have forsaken the Pilbara for the bright lights of Perth. They are away for 6 weeks and we miss them a lot as, no doubt, does J.F. (husband and father). J.F. has been filling his time by working hard but last weekend it was time for him to cut loose and bust out of Tompers and LAFE were his willing accomplices.

Our destination was Gregory Gorge, a popular camping area just outside of Millstream-Chichester National Park and about half way between TP and Karratha. Gregory Gorge channels the Fortescue River. There is no camp kitchen, no playground, no powered sites, no toilets, showers or shop; what there is are the most beautiful gum trees and native millstream palms around clear, flowing waters, a rope swing, some great 4-wheel-driving, and some excellent camping companions. Our camping buddies were a family of ex-TP/current Karratha residents whom we hadn't met before but had heard all about (because they are excellent value and Tam is sorely missed at TP hospital). The Karratha crew were augmented by their own N/C/Fs who were just as delightful as ours. 

We only stayed one night but left with plans to go back.

Waiting for the Karratha crew

We were entirely respectful, but I was disappointed to see other visitors had littered. Grrr, littering :(

Collecting firewood on the way in

Finally there...Gregory Gorge! It is (sorry) gorgeous.

Freya holds on for dear life; heaven help the little poppet if her feet got wet

Floating down the lazy river in inner tubes

Esther: Splash down!

Safe landing

Riding the 'rapids'

Twisted fire-starters

I think this is the discussion about whether there'd be enough chips to last the afternoon

Camp Gregory

Love a campfire: Ging Gang Goolie!

Karratha N/C/Fs

Happy campers

Jonkers in the pink

Wandering back to camp after crazy rope-swinging

Landy gets a work out

The usual suspects (and a LandRover)

I'm sure Tam didn't intentionally snap this pic of Ade peeing on a tree...

LPK

Jen* is one of my absolute besties but she is not my facebook friend. This is because Jen does not believe in facebook. She doesn't believe in blogs either and was scathing when I told her that I was blogging. She did look at LunaRover once (I insisted) and then texted me: "Right. I've scanned ur fecking blog now and wholeheartedly prefer a phonecall. Now don't ask again!". She's so 2003.
Me? I thoroughly enjoy reading other people's blogs. I have a long list bookmarked and check in with my absolute faves every day or two. I like recommendations so I'm going to try and find some time to sit down with Blogger and work out how to make LunaRover really specky and perhaps put on a blog-roll (ooohh!). Blogger and I have never really seen eye to eye so this will probably take me the best part of the next 6 months. In the meantime, I have attempted to tszuj up my own little blog by changing the font (yeah, weak, I know).
Anyhoo, the real point of this post was to give props to the delicious and talented Mary Mary who will be opening her Little Pilbara Kitchen very shortly. The good folk of Tompers are beside themselves at the prospect of a quality culinary establishment. Do have a gander at Mary's page and I'll be sure to book us the only best table in the house when you visit!

*This is her real name, I can use it because she won't ever read this and know I've been talking about her on the interweb.

Sports Days

Both girls had their sports carnivals last week. Esther took part in the kindy/pre-primary meet where the kids balanced eggs on spoons, had a dress-up relay and everyone got a certificate of participation. Freya competed with the rest of the school where the stakes were much higher; there were ribbons on the line! Happily Freya scooped a bunch of ribbons and the girls were stoked because Miaree (green faction) were overall winners.

Freya 3rd in the long jump!

Esther (in green zinc), wearing her competitive face

Esther (unplaced in this race but came 2nd in the pre-primary girls running race held during the big kids' carnival- so she got a ribbon as well!)

About to lose her egg

Freya shows off her ribbons :)

Freya in the process of winning another "1st" in the 'diagonal throw' (or something) race

Millstream-Chichester National Park

Posing in the camp

Last weekend it was fathers' day and I was on nights (quel surprise!). So Ade took the girls on an overnight camping trip. They drove to Millstream Chichester National Park (about 2 hours away from TP). Millstream covers about 200,000 hectares around the Fortescue River which carries the run-off from the Hamersley Ranges into an underground aquifer which subsequently feeds the waters of the park's gorges and pools. Early European settlers were attracted by the bounty of water and established an active pastoral station here; the original Homestead still stands housing the visitor centre.
Well, they all had a very jolly time but there were flushing toilets so it wasn't proper bush camping, we're doing that tomorrow night (watch this space...).
This post contains a selection of photos taken before Freya dropped the camera and busted the lens- doh!

Gangsta

Millstream Homestead

Walking through the Fortescue River crossing

Python Pool

Yeah, they love each other all the time

Deep Reach Pool

View as you drive into Deep Reach

Python Pool

Creek bed/ path to Python Pool

Fortescue River

Python Pool

Back to school

Did I mention that I am only working 8 days a fortnight now? Thought so...but it really is worth mentioning regularly. It means that I have the time to hang out at school with the girls and I did a fair amount of that last week. On Wednesday Freya's class did a theatrical adaptation of 'Pete the Sheep' by Jackie French for the whole school assembly. They hosted a morning tea for the parents afterwards where we got to look at all the work they've been up to this term. Freya (gifted and talented, you know!) has been doing fabulously in everything!

Freya is the middle sheep-dog

Then it was over to Esther's pre-primary class to do some parent-helping. They were building a newspaper tower to take on the rest of the school. The p-ps took 5 minutes to create their edifice, the other classes had been working on their cloud-busters for days. It was a jolly gathering in the undercover area:

It took 5 minutes to build, can you tell?



Back to class to construct another skyscraper!

Friday was the last day of Literacy Week and "dress up as your favourite book character" day. Freya wanted to be Harry Potter so she borrowed a cloak, picked up a stick-wand, fashioned a pair of glasses from 3 black pipe cleaners and I drew a scar on her forehead with purple eyeliner. Esther was the Worst Witch/ Professor McGonegall/ Room on a Broom. We utilised the cute witch outfit that Grandma and G sent her 2 years ago. Some of the parents kids had done a great job, there was a fantastic Pippi Longstocking and an uber-cute Where's Wally? I do wonder whether clonetroopers and Buzz Lightyear are characters from literature...

There were a few witches!

TP campdraft

The sign said "Tom Price Campdraft 29th and 30th August". I turned to Wiki for the gen:

Campdrafting is a unique and very popular Australian sport involving a horse and rider working cattle. The riding style is like that of Western riding and the event is somewhat related to the American events such as cutting, working cow horse, team penning, and ranch sorting.
In the competition, a rider on horseback must "cut out" one beast from the mob of cattle in the yard or "camp" and block and turn that beast at least two or three times to prove to the judge that they have the beast under control; then take it out of the yard and through a course around pegs involving right and left hand turns in a figure eight, before guiding it through two pegs known as "the gate". The outside course must be completed in less than 40 seconds.
Up to a total of 100 points are scored by horse and rider: "Cut out" is worth a total of 26 points; horse work up to a further 70 points; and 4 points for the course. Most disqualifications (signalled by a crack of the judge's stockwhip) occur when a competitor loses his beast more than twice on the camp; losing control of the beast in the arena or running a beast onto the arena fence. A “tail turn” executed by a horse in the opposite direction of the beast's line of travel also incurs disqualification at any stage of the draft.
The sport requires consummate skill and horsemanship, and the skill in selecting a beast from the mob that will run well, but is not too fast for that particular horse. Great prestige is bestowed on the winning horse and rider of the competition.

The girls and I stayed and watched for an hour or so. It was brilliant.