Meet the family...
Our visit to Perth gave us the opportunity to visit Doug Martin, Kairen's cousin, who lives near Freemantle. We stayed with Doug for a couple of days and the whole family could not have done more to make us feel welcome. It was a great few days
Doug lives on the left and Jean 'daughter number 3' lives next door.
Doug
Lucy (Jean's great dog)
Hillary Harbour in Freemantle
(on one of the hottest days on record for this time of year)
Hillary Harbour
Jean, Kairen and Doug
Cooling off by the Swan River at Peppermint Grove
Swan River
We were treated to a wonderful meal at the Fremantle Sailing Club where Wendy ('daughter number 1') and here husband David are members.
Looking for David & Wendy's boat in the marina
We found it!
Sunset over the marina
Jean and Wendy
Doug and David
The three wise monkeys ?
The following day we visited Susan ('daughter number 2') and Charlie
Their farm at Mandurah
(it was incredibly hot with 43oC
in the shade)
Charlie
(breeds and shows lowline cattle)
Susan
Susan & Murphy
Susan and Charlie's pride and joy, their Chamberlain C9 tractor.
They go on vast treks with their club (9 weeks) traveling the remote
stock roads of Australia.
Charlie's beautiful tractor
(capable of 50kmh, and self sufficient for the most remote parts of
the outback)
We then moved on to David and Wendy's house at Wandi where they breed and train horses with their daughter Liz
Wendy and her son-in-law Deano
David and Laurie in deep conversation
Red
David and Laurie hugging a Massey Fergusson (a boy thing)
Liz and Emma who gave birth to a filly whilst we were there.
(it still hasn't arrived at this point)
Monty who is Liz's dressage horse
David & Wendy's son...Tim
Jean's friend John with Wendy & Jean
A bandicoot in the stables stealing the cat's food
John and Jean
Deano was chef for the night
We had Crayfish which David and Deano had caught
Laurie shows the holiday pictures so far
(what you can't see is that we had to have fans blowing on us outside,
because it was so hot!)
We had a fantastic few days with people who had never seen us before, but who very quickly welcomed us into their family and homes to make us feel a part of them.
We have no doubt that we will be back and hopefully they will come to the UK to allow us to share in a similar way.