BACK TO THE BUSH

We have arrived safely back to the west coast of Australia, after 10 days in England.  To be honest, I don't really feel much like writing the blog - but it feels like an important step in "getting back on the horse", so here goes.

I think I need to talk about Julie first.  It still seems incredible to me that she's not at the other end of the phone anymore.  How can you be texting about Christmas presents one minute and writing a eulogy the next?  I've never lost someone really close to me, and must admit I've often wondered how it was going to feel when the day finally came.  What has surprised me the most is the force that somehow makes life go on despite the grief.  Somehow we laughed and actually had fun on Christmas day.  Somehow Emma and Lucy got up and went to school this week.   It doesn't seem possible and yet it also seems impossible to stop the flow of life.

The other thing I've learned is how important every kind word and thought becomes at a time like this.  I've often written sympathy cards and thought how pointless and empty the words seemed.  Being on the other end of those sympathy cards I found every word important and was truly overwhelmed with the outpouring of support and affection that came from all over the place.  It made all the difference - so thank you for your generous words of support!

The funeral was packed - which is only fitting - and I felt that the service did Julie proud.  If you are interested in reading what was said you can click through to http://www.juliestribling.blogspot.com/ where we are posting all the words and pictures from the service.

So now we're back.  We got into Perth 2 days ago, spent one night in Freo and then headed straight to Prevally Beach in the Margaret River area.  We've changed our plans and will stay where we are for the next 10 days for some rest and recovery.  There's plenty of golf here for Dennis and I am hoping to do the Cape to Cape walk which runs 135kms from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin.  Plus, of course, we will be doing a bit of lunching at wineries!

At this point I need to back peddle a little bit to before Christmas, and fill in what happened after we left Kalgoorlie and Cave Rock.

Pretty much the whole of that time was spent in and around Perth.  Although we did have a brief stopover at Haydn to see Wave Rock - which unsurprisingly is a large rock in the shape of a wave.  The place is overdone from a tourist point of view, but we got up really early and went for a walk and under those circumstances the rock is pretty awe inspiring.

It needs to be acknowledged that Dennis' friends heaped on the hospitality while we were in Perth.  We were treated to dinner at Karen and Podgy's mansion, and had a fabulous Thai dinner while cruising the Swan River on Ray's boat.  Dennis was able to play golf at Royal Perth and Cottesloe Golf Clubs.  All in all we were treated like visiting royalty even though we looked liked the poor cousins in our increasingly filthy camping gear.

The other big news in Perth was the arrival of my Mum, who very bravely took up residence in a tent beside our camper near Fremantle (how many other 77 year olds do you know who would do that).  Just as we found when we started, this camping life took Mum a bit of getting used to, but she struggled on.  She had got over the bad back from getting in and out of the tent by the time we left.....but I don't think she ever got over the flies!

Speaking of flies.....one of the things we did manage to do in Perth was to hold our quarterly "best on tour" voting ceremony.  This is a big Dennis thing.  Whenever we take a trip we always vote on the best things  - ie/ best meal, best experience etc.  Now the reason that any of this relates to flies is that our fly nets were voted most useful thing brought on tour.  This is a huge statement, since the fly nets beat out the espresso coffee maker, my slippers and the air compressor.  So the word is, if planning a trip to outback Australia, don't leave home without your fly nets.

And the subject of flies also reminds me of the one really interesting tidbit of information that we've picked up since getting to the Margaret River region.  Apparently this part of the world was once a hotbed of flies.  So much so that most people wouldn't come here.  Then some bright young (while actually I'm not sure he was young) South African came up with a brilliant idea.  He introduced the dung beatle to the region.  The trusty dung beatle ate all the cow dung that had been attracting the flies and now there are hardly any flies.

OK, I'm back on the horse!  Feels good.  I'll try to make sure that our next blog is filled with fun, colour and adventure!!  And now it's over to the bearded one.....

Not sure where to begin now as the past month has been somewhat of a blur, certainly the shock of tragedy with Julie passing, the trip to the UK and now reality setting in. During this time Stephanie has been quite remarkable in her focus on other people and helping them in every concievable way, her involvement will continue. If you get the chance please read the Eulogy that Steph gave, you can find it in the link to Julie. People have been amazing with messages to us both and we are very grateful to all of you for your thoughts and wishes.

Our time in WA has been great since arriving in Bunbury having made the crossing from Coast to Coast through the centre of the Country.  We had the arrival of Jacquie from Canada and most of our time has been exploring Perth and surrounds, playing golf, eating and meeting great people. For the past couple of days we are in the Margaret River region taking it easy getting over jet lag and reflecting.


I will sign off now as this is probably getting to be a little long.

Before I go we spoke Bruce from Comeroo this morning (the camel station from the back of Burke) you may recall in earlier blogs that we spent a few days with he and Chris, I'd heard of the rains and flooding in NSW so called to see how they were, 3 inches on Christmas day and another 2 on New Years day, so life in that part of the bush should be good for a while after quite a long period of drought, great news and another insight into the lives of people in this country. 

One final word from Stephanie, about Julie. If you read my eulogy you will see that Julie was quite famous in our household for her weird and wonderful Christmas gifts. This year she outdid herself. When we got to our campground in Prevally her presents were here waiting for us. I knew they would be here and had been dreading having to open them, but actually it was a tonic, because it was such a perfect, creative Julie gift. As a bit of background, you need to know that whenever Julie and her girls went on a big trip they always bought “tour t-shirts” with the name of the tour on the back and the person’s name on the front. So Julie’s brilliant idea was to give me and Dennis our own tour t-shirts. She created her own “Words from the Bush” graphic – as depicted it’s a picture of a bush with word bubbles saying things from our blog. Then she labeled the front of each shirt quite appropriately. Dennis’s reads Caravan Professional “Real Man” and mine reads The Little Woman….no really! She even had one made for my Mum that reads Part Timer.  I had been feeling really guilty about recently throwing out the ridiculous cow vacuum cleaner that Julie had sent one year…..but now we have these special treasures that we’ll keep until well after they have fallen apart. Thank you Julie!