Back to work - both at work

For those who don't know yet I unexpectedly started to work again this week. It all went really fast. In late February, a friend of mine sent me a posting for a project manager at a company in Burnaby that makes power supplies. I actually applied with them last year in April for a similar position and didn't get it because I didn't have an engineering degree or PMP certification on my resume. So I looked at the posting and saw the requirement for an engineering degree right on top of the requirements list yet again. All the rest I could easily match up with my previous experiences. I thought there is no point in sending in a resume to their HR department without having the top most listed requirement on it. Incidentally, a former Kodak HR employee I knew from my olden days, although we never really worked together, is now the director of HR at that company. So I contacted her by personal email and asked about how much emphasis they are putting onto the engineering degree. She wasn't the the person in charge of hiring and not sure about how important it would be but we still connected by phone to chat about the Olympics and my trip to Australia and a little bit about what I'd be looking for in a job. She put me in contact with the HR person hiring. I sent my resume the next day and got a phone interview for the following Monday. All this happened while the water was dripping out of our kitchen sealing onto the floor (see previous posts)!!! So I wasn't as prepared for an interview as I wanted to be when the HR person called that Monday, expecting the demolition people to show up any minute again, but it went okay. The same afternoon I got a call to meet the hiring manager later that week. For some odd reason I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be for my first face to face interview in a long time - all the while thinking that they are really looking for an engineer and are just bringing me in because I knew the director of HR. The interview with the manager - his title was director of program management - went okay too - not a single engineering question. We more or less chatted about project management and gate processes etc. - it didn't feel like an interview. I didn't hear anything for the rest of the week and thought that was it. The next week I got invited to another round of interviews - 3hrs meeting 5 different people in groups of 2 and 2 and 1 - most of them had something engineering in their titles. So I figured they would finally ask all those tough engineering questions - and 3HRS of that!!! My brain hadn't been challenged to think for almost a year. So I practiced a bit by doing logic puzzles online. Ah what a waste - none of them ask a single technical question. But I felt better going into the 3hr session having done it, so maybe it wasn't a waste. Again I felt the interviews went okay. Everyone seemed very nice. The HR person called again the next day asking for references. I sent them my list by late Friday. Early Monday the HR person emailed me that if my reference would check out they would be making me an offer. The only gotcha - I had to start asap! I wasn't worried about my references and knew that's it. My wonderful easy life of sleeping in, working out and cooking dinner will come to an end. I am not going to do chemistry anymore. I am managing projects I totally won't have a clue about the product. Aaargh. I got the offer Monday afternoon, signed it that night (I know they say you should negotiate but it came in better than I expected) and started working on Wednesday! I needed Tuesday to do some clothes shopping since I hadn't bought any work clothes since I started at Creo in 2001. That was painful.
On day 1 my new boss, Douglas from South Africa who is a really nice person, told me he'll be leaving for 4 weeks and I would pick up all his projects. 5 of them, dealing with power supplies, I still don't know what the products look like, I can't even remember all the project names yet since they all start with CX - some more letter - some numbers- and kW at the end (for kilowatts, I managed to get that much) but I saw the project plans and schedules and met all the people in the last 3 days - good to go!!!???
Three tiring days and I am way behind on my training already. But the company does have a beautiful gym I can use and are located just 7 or so kilometers up the river - easy biking distance and no MORE hills!!!

Jeff is still working as well. Since I like putting pictures up here is a shot of him walking home last week. He either runs or walks to avoid traffic on Knight Street Bridge - for those not from Vancouver, every time you have to cross a bridge during rush hour (either to get over the Fraser River or Burrard Inlet) you have a 8 in 10 chance of sitting in traffic.
I was wondering who will do all the cooking and dishes from now on but we are sharing the work evenly. Only I have to do the shopping since its almost on my way home - back to buying stuff every day for dinner rather than planning ahead.

By the way our kitchen is still not fixed after that mini-flood and the fridge is sitting in the middle of the kitchen and all my cooking ingredients stored away in boxes!!!

Australia Report - WA Part 4

Day 10/28 (Oct 29, 2009): Finally woken up by crows again at 5am. Breakfast was a bit of a bummer though since our bread got soak in the cooler. The ice bags don't last that long when it is this hot all day and hardly cools down at night. We used the early morning to explore the park a bit. First we headed to a lookout over Crossing Pool - part of the Fortescue River system. Most of the area is flat and dry except for close to the river. All sudden you see large eucalyptus trees as well as palm trees. The Millstream palm is actually native to this area. Great to see a bit more green after mostly red, yellow & brown. We hiked for a bit through eucalyptus forest, dry grasslands and areas full of palm trees - all in a couple kilometer radius. We visited the old date palm tree plantation (none native palm trees) near the Millstream Chichester Homestead with a nice little pond in the back yard and "wild" cows hidden in the long grass that scared the hell out of me - or I out of them. As the morning went on and the temperature rose we drove over to Crossing Pool for a quick dip in the water - that was nice. In theory we would be able to do a loop through the park taking in most of it's attractions in that little area but guess what - the road was blocked off due to maintenance. This area floods regularly in the spring and most of the roads will be covered by a couple meters of water, leaving behind some washed out road once it dries up. Once more we had to back track for a few tens of kilometers before hitting the hwy again which was still unpaved but in good conditions most of the way to Tom Price - another 350km or so away. Scenery on the drive was spectacular again: grass lands, red dirt, low mountains, puffy white clouds in the blue sky, endless roads. We stopped in Tom price for lunch and to stock up on food and other items we figured we need for our "real" 4x4 adventure still to come in a few days time. Clouds had been moving in constantly and it was pretty much overcast by now but stinking hot nonetheless. Tim Price is another mining town but has a bit more to over than Pannawonica. It actually had a pool and a large shopping centre as well as a library. Oh and every tree was covered in Corellas - a kind of cockatoo. We continued on into Karijini National Park - the drive in through a scenic Valley with low mountains on either side. We were going to spend the first night near Dale Gorge one of the two national park campsite. This site was quite a bit busier than others we stayed at but we found a good spot - probably lucky that we were setting up camp earlier than usual. Since we still had an hour daylight left we scooted over to Circular Pool to cool us down for the night - if possible. And what a sight that is. The pool is nestle at the bottom of a 50-75m deep gorge and is almost round. There is a 500m hike into it where you climb down the cliffs and follow the gorge to the end. A couple people were around, two of them a couple from Holland we talked to, but that didn't take away from us enjoying our swim. A beautiful spot with water trickling down the walls and ferns growing all over - and that in the middle of the semi-dessert. The sun was setting fast and we had to almost run back up since we didn't bring any flash lights. Needless to say, dinner was in the dark again. And although it was nearly dark, the flies were most annoying while cooking - fortunately they did disappear just before we were ready to eat (not sure about the fly count in the pot though - well it's all protein)!!! A few small bats were flying above our heads - maybe they scared the flies away.

Day 11/29: This morning we decided to have breakfast in the tent to avoid the flies and it worked great. We started the hike at Fortescue Falls walking down Dale Gorge to Circular Pool once more. Although we were at the falls before 6am someone already beat us to it - but the couple didn't stick around. We had our first swim below the falls to cool us down before the hike - the night had been really hot. Walking through the canyon was relatively cool along water holes, through eucalyptus trees and head high grass. The canyon walls were glowing in all shades of red to brown in the early morning sun in nice contrast to the yellow grass or green bushes. Sometime you had to climb a bit along the canyon wall finding handhold in nooks and crannies. We thought nothing of it until we saw an Australian Red Back Spider sitting in its net covering one of those "convenient" hand holds. Afterwards we were a bit more careful about were to put our hands - the red back spider is the second most poisonous spider in Australia! We did see other spiders as well - bigger ones - but had no idea if they are poisonous or not. Given that we were in Australia, the assumption they would be isn't too far fetched I'd say. Other creatures hiding in those gorges are lizards of all sizes from 5cm to 2m long. Finally reaching Circular Pool again we had it all to ourselves. Still no sun down here to take good pictures! For the walk back to the truck we decided to follow along the canyon rim rather than retracing our steps down below in the gorge. Gosh, it was hot! Nevertheless we saw a very picture friendly lizard on the trail. He was posing for up to 3 photographers taking tons of pictures. I am sure he wanted to become a movie star the way he was posing on the rocks for us. As mentioned, Karijini NP isn't a secret in Western Australia and you have to be prepared to run into quite a few campers/hikers. Next we drove onwards to Kalamina Gorge. Similar to Dales Gorge but also different - the cliffs seemed to be closer together and straight up in beautiful layers of red rock. Lots of pools along the way to bathe in. The waterfall at the start of the gorge didn't have much water in it though - guess up here, north of the Tropic of Capricorn, it was the end of the dry season. Around noon we moved our camp over to the west side of the park into Weano Gorge. The campsite there was now private - twice as expensive for a similar spot but also fresh water and cold beer at the office. For them it was the end of the season and everything would be shutting down for the wet season to come in a week. The camping will stay open but no amenities whatsoever and the nearby wilderness lodge will be closed. Since we had our camp spot secured early we headed over to Oxer Lookout - one of the main attractions in the park. Here you have a view into an area where 5 gorges meet - all of them over 100m deep into the rock, so deep that no sunlight gets down to the bottom. Very cool!!! There were a couple of options for hikers to get into some of the gorges - to explore them in their entire length you need to be a proper trained climber and have abseiling experience. Jeff and I tackled Hancock Gorge first. It started out like any of the others we had seen so far but then narrowed dramatically until you can touch both walls with your hands at the same time. Actually the only way to get through was to walk like a spider since water was running along the bottom making it very slippery - hence it's called the spider walk. It opened up a bit into a small pool - Kermit Pool - where we stopped for a quick dip. Another couple was already enjoying the place. The walls were dwarfing us being close together and running ~80m straight up. No sunlight down here which made it nice and "cool" in comparison to the scorching temperatures up top. The gorge continued on but it turned into a class 6 hike where you needed proper equipment to get down a 2-3m drop to the next pool. Well, I guess down would not have been as much of a problem than coming back up. We enjoyed the scrambling through these very narrow canyons so much that we decided to do Weano Gorge as well with Handrail Pool as our destination before it also turned into a class 6. We went back the way we came, cross the parking lot and descended down into our last gorge for the day - just noticing the big tour bus in the lot wondering where all those people would be. This gorge also narrowed quite quickly. We saw about 20 pairs of shoes at the beginning of the narrow section which almost made us turned around on the spot - the tour bus!! Nevertheless we continued and after scrambling on came to a narrow gap which all sudden opens up into a large open cavern or pit of ~10-15m in diameter with straight walls going up for 60-70m and most of it filled with water - Handrail Pool. To get down to the water you had to use a handrail and rope - hence the name. There was a small ledge in one of the corners on which, I kid you not, 20 sour looking tourist were watching a family of 5 splashing around in the pool. I am not sure why they all looked so grim because the place was spectacular - maybe because they weren't told to bring a bathing suite? It didn't concern us a bit and Jeff and I jumped into the water - what a treat again in that heat - and bonded right away with the family of 5 already in the water. On the opposite side the gorge actually continued on and although it was supposed to be the start of the class 6 I had to see how far one could go. So did the 3 kids and their mom - the guys, Jeff and Dad stayed behind. It was eerie since it was almost completely dark with the walls being even narrower on the top than the bottom. The bottom was filled with water up to your neck or deeper so that one had to wade and swim at times. Then the bottom rose up again and reduce the water flow to a small rivulet before dropping about 5m straight down into the next pool. Needless to say that was the end of the line for us. When we got back to handrail pool only 10 min later the grumpy group of tourists was gone. Jeff and I spent some time talking to the family while warming up on the rocks - the water was actually cold. Those guys were from Kangaroo Island in South Australia. He was a doctor and after spending years and years of hard work and lots of overtime he got the chance to take some time off. So they decided to travel around their own country for almost one year, taking their 3 boys out of school. When we met them they were 8 month into their trip, traveling in a truck just like ours towing a small trailer full off equipment. The stories they had to tell were phenomenal: following old trekking trails through some of the most remote areas in central Queensland; breaking the axle on their truck in the middle of nowhere; helping a farmer driving his cows across the country; staying on remote homesteads in the Kimberley region, etc. Wow, I am not sure if I would be up for all the abuse and hardship they went through and they had 3 kids between 10 and 15. They home-schooled them 3 times a week but honestly just the experiences they gather by traveling around like this will be priceless education. Eventually we had to leave to explore more of the upper gorge on the way back. We saw some pretty, greenish lorikeets as well as a large iguana. And the setting sun set the red canyon walls on fire once more. Beautiful!!! We made it back to camp in time to enjoy dinner with sunset. Although it had clouded over a bit it was still hot. I woke up in the middle of the night hearing a group of dingos howling what sounded like right next to our tent. Karijini NP is known for it's healthy dingo population. Apparently the family from SA saw one coming right up to them in their camp. We never got to see them only hear them at night which was scary enough.

Day 12/30: Today we got ready to leave the park but not until we visited a couple more of the sights. First stop was Knox Gorge - hiking along the canyon floor until we hit the class 6 sign again after which it continues on into Red Gorge as all the others we visited the day before. I was very tempted to try to go on but Jeff wanted to get back. He had by now enough of Gorges and I am sure so do you as the reader. The nice thing about Knox Gorge though, it seemed to be a less popular destination and the trail was more like a trail and not a tourist highway with ladders and steps. Here you get loose rock and muddy trails. We skipped our last hike but had a quick look at Joffre Falls from the top - again no falling water here either although the pools on the bottom looked fine. The flies seemed to be a bit worse today too - time to move on. After we got back to the main highway we made one more stop on the south side of i to have a look at the Mt Bruce (2nd highest mountain in WA) and Marandoo Mine. This area is know for it's high iron content in the rock. Although all of The Pilbara is red rock because of iron minerals in it, most of it does not contain enough to make mining worthwhile. But there are a few areas that do - and therefore open pit mines are not uncommon. Since Marandoo Mine is in a National Park they apparently save the top soil and try to recover the area once the iron ore is depleted. The lookout didn't really get you close to the mine and it didn't look too bad from afar. The same lookout also gave you a great view over the northern part of the park - the part we just left - with the high plateau rising from the flood plains. I could have stayed here forever!!! Nevertheless we had to move on - tomorrow was supposed to be the start of our REAL outback adventure although everything we saw so far already felt pretty real. We hit the highway again driving for hours and hours going east a bit and than south again. Stopped in Newman - another mining town but also the largest city in the area - for lunch and stocking up on supplies for our 2-3 days in nowhere land. So this next adventure was again something I found on ExplorerOZ - Carnarvon Range & part of the Canning Stock Route. A really remote place - 300km of rough track through the Australian Outback -where you have to be completely self sufficient: bring all your fuel, water and food (which we had), be able to navigate by map and GPS (which we had), have at least 2 spare tires (of which we had one and a repair kit), be able to fix anything that goes wrong with your car (of which we had nothing), ALWAYS travel in groups (we were alone), etc. Bad weather can turn the tracks into big mud holes and make them impassible for days. The only way to get help would be via satellite phone (which we didn't have) or wait for weeks or month for a framer or other adventurer to come along (we only had supplies for a week max). Some of the route is on private land and we still needed to get permission - so we stopped in at Kumarina Roadhouse, the only gas station/pub/restaurant along the highway for hundreds of kilometers. Those guys were really friendly but looked at us funny when we told them about our plan: "Why the hell would you want to go there?". I think Jeff was wondering the same thing the whole time but for me this was the ultimate challenge AND I was scared of it. Nevertheless we found out about the owner of the land we were supposed to cross and told how to get there and what to do. Filling up on water and diesel one last time we continued on. To the east of the highway - the way we would be going - we saw huge storm clouds build up. No rain yet. The drive to the homestead we had to go to took longer than expected and we didn't want o walk in on them in the middle of the night. My resolve started to crumbled. My homemade travel guide had another 10 days of sight seeing listed mostly in the southwest of WA and we didn't have any day to spare to get stuck. So finally I gave into my fears or Jeff said common sense and we decided to skip this part of the trip. It was hard for me since I had done so much research on it and the likelyhood of something going seriously wrong was small - but I guess in the Australian Outback even a small risk is a high risk. And really, we haven't done that much 4x4 driving in Canada - logging roads in the temperate rainforest are not the same challenge as semi-dessert tracks in Western Australia. I still want to do it one day though - but I would bring a satellite phone along!!! So instead of turning of east into the unknown we continued on along the highway until we found one of those roadside rest stops where we could pull off a little deeper into the bush. We set up camp hidden from the road - you could still hear the truck driving by every so often but it was a nice enough spot. After we crawled into the tent we heard a semi-truck pull into the rest area. And this id... had his compressor running all night long with few interuptions. Not a very restfull night under the full moon in the outback of Western Australia - not what I had hoped for at least.

I am NEVER ever going to do renovations

You might have read my post about the little flood we had last Thursday. Since then I just had about enough of contractors coming or not coming, doing stuff or not....

When the plumber left last Thursday he said he would be back the next morning to shut off the water to the whole complex to fix the leak. He didn't need access to our townhouse but was hoping I could be home to open all faucets to prevent pressure build up when they reconnect to the city water supply. That meant I had to miss my spinning class too. He mentioned he would call that evening to let me know an approximate time. Of course nobody called that evening - or at least didn't leave a message while Jeff and I had a nice dinner at Simbas. The kitchen was still a mess.

Friday morning I picked up the phone and called the plumber. His response "Oh, we rather not do such a big job on Fridays in case things go wrong and the units would be without water over the weekend". He promised me the temporary fix would last over the weekend no problem. @#$% Did he not know yesterday that the next day was a Friday!!!??? But I was smart and had called early enough to still make it to my spinning class at 9:20am. I left the house in a rush and went to my class followed by a 12km paddle on the lake. It felt great and life seemed to be in order again. I was just about to leave the lake when Jeff called. Apparently our strata manager was in a panic because he couldn't get a hold of anyone. Apparently he called home, Jeff's parents and Jeff's work. Someone wanted to get into our unit to look at the water damage. They didn't seem as desperate when I called in the leak on Thursday to get a plumber in as they were for someone to look at the damage - seemed a bit odd to me. Anyhow, I rushed home, called the guy, Jim, who was to look at our place only to learn that he had to call someone else, Chris, to have a look. 20min later Jim was standing at our door. Fine by me. Jim looked at all the walls, checked for water damage, marked a couple spots, told me this and that had to be moved so that they could get at the wall behind it. But he still wanted Chris to have a look as well. Whatever, I had done my workouts for the day and was content to spend the afternoon at home. Halfway through the afternoon someone else, James, from the same company called asking if he could send the DEMOLITION guys out on Monday to start working. They were supposed to show up 8-8:30am. Okay, sounded like things were going to move along just fine.

Saturday morning water started leaking out of our ceiling again. Saturday afternoon Chris left a message while we were watching the curling games with Jeff's parents and asked for a time he could come by to check out the unit. I figured we call him back on Monday.

Sunday morning the leak got a bit worse again. Nothing a couple buckets could fix though. Jeff emailed the strata guy and he responded with having the plumber back on Monday. Sunday night I cleaned out the garage and kitchen while Jeff was watching TV.

Monday morning 8:30am I called Chris and he said he would be there in 20min. Shortly after I called the demolition guys showed up. Since Chris hadn't been here yet, they weren't sure what to do and went up to the other unit - the one with the actual broken pipe - to start working on those walls. Around 9am Chris showed up and did the same thing Jim had done Friday. He left saying he'll be back at 11am with the demolition guys. At 10am I had a phone interview scheduled which didn't start till 10:30am. But we finished in time for 11am. Now I was waiting for the demolition guys to come back. I could hear a lot of noise from upstairs which must be the plumbers fixing the leak finally. Nobody showed up. At 3pm I got a call again from James saying his guys got tied up in the other unit and wouldn't be able to do anything in ours. We arrange for them to come back the next morning. Unfortunately it was too late now to go for my swim workout - another missed workout because of this mess. And a day wasted for nothing. Another person called about getting access to the unit - this time it was Laura, the insurance person. She was available between 9-10am every day a week. I called her back that evening to say she could come the next morning with the demolition people.

Tuesday - the demolition guys showed up in time and cut big holes into a number of walls, pulled out wet insulation and installed some large blowers and dehumidifiers in the kitchen and garage. One of the walls in the garage seemed to be worse and they wanted to follow up with Chris/Jim about any additional work that needed to be done. In the meantime the blowers were to run day and night - and those things aren't quite. I had to prepare for an interview the next morning at 10am but couldn't even hear myself think . So I went for a swim instead since I missed out on it the day before. Laura didn't show up, she though we would meet Wednesday morning but that wasn't going to work. We rescheduled for Thursday at 10:30 after my morning workout.

Wednesday - I was just about ready to leave for my interview when the door bell rang. The demolition guys were back and wanted to do more work in our garage: "Eh, we thought the office had called you yesterday" but nobody had. So I sent them away - wasn't really about to miss my interview for this now was I - telling them to be back the next morning after 10:30am (after my morning workout, same time as the insurance person). Interview went okay - was only an hour. I barely made it home and Chris rings the bell. He just wanted to quickly check the drying progress. Do those people ever call ahead to make sure you are home?

Thursday - I rushed back from my morning workout to have Laura already waiting for me. It took her about 15min to take a couple pictures and FINALLY explaining what the next steps will be. So far I only had tons of people calling but nobody to give us the whole picture. I was pleased with her explanation and didn't ask about who is going to pay for our electrical bill this month (all those blowers and dehumidifiers must make a difference) or the pain killers for my head (I should record the sound and post it). The demolition guys never showed though. I called Jim who thought the guys should have been here. So he called the office (James) to find out what's going on. Shortly after James called me to tell me that Chris was supposed to check the drying status first before sending the demolition guys on site again but was called on an emergency. Okay, "but", I asked, "what are the next steps" - I wasn't about to sit here for the next 2 days waiting for someone to maybe show up. James said he had to talk to Jim to see what he would suggest. And it only took 10min for James to call me back saying the guys will be on site by 1pm today to finish off the demolition part. And I am waiting again, just about ready for another pill for my head.

WHY could this not have happened when Jeff was still at home all day? I would have gladly gone to work to leave him with the mess and noise. No wonder he seems a bit more cheerful these mornings when leaving the house.

I am sure there will be at least one more post on this.

Australia Report - WA Part 3

Continuing on with our journey through Western Australia trying to not hear the water still leaking out of the ceiling in our kitchen, waiting for the demolition crew to start ripping things apart - sigh.

Day 6/24 (Oct 25, 2009): Today started with driving - we almost slept in getting up at 5:30am. Around noon we reached Carol Bay, the start of our next 4x4 adventure along Ningaloo Reef into Cape Range National Park. Ningaloo Reef isn't as well know as the Great Barrier Reef and people say it is a bit less diverse BUT it has the huge advantage that most of it is within easy reach from shore - swimming distance. Since we needed to make some more miles today we didn't stick around town for too long except for buying a pressure gauge and a small electrical compressor to be able to deflate/inflate our tires. The next 120km of track were mostly on soft sand. We learned later - TOO late - that we should have spent a day in town to go snorkeling with the Manta Rays!!!! Apparently they have a manta ray nursery in a bay just north of town and you are almost guaranteed to see some. Anyhow, we didn't know and continued on on deflated tires (20psi) through some vast areas of grasslands and huge sand dunes. Seeing an Australian Bustard as well as emus and kangaroos along the way. We stopped for a short break at some deserted beach to go for a quick snorkel. Most of the coast was very rugged with sharp dead coral along the edges but if there was a beach it was just beautiful. I was already in the water snorkeling away while Jeff still fit his mask on in the shallows. A shark swam up to him and nosed him on the leg - just checking out if he'd be ripe enough to eat but I guess his legs were too skinny for the shark's taste. He moved on. Now Jeff was in a dilemma - should he follow me knowing there will be more sharks or stay safe on the beach. Well, he followed. We didn't get to see another shark, neither anything else of interest. It was a bit, no make that VERY, windy again and the visibility wasn't great. The reef itself was too far out at this spot and got pounded by ocean waves. Oh well there'll be better places up north. Following the track winding its way along through the grasslands and dune we came through Ningaloo Station - most of this area is actually private property but the owner allows people to drive through and even offers some nice camping in secluded bays etc. for a small fee - no facilities whatsoever and you are supposed to bring your own toilet. We continued on and I was hoping to make it all the way to Cape Range NP. But Jeff was tired of driving along the sandy track and we called it a day early. We stopped at Lefroy Bay, a beautiful wide bay with a nice white beach and turquoise water. Good camping spots in the dunes along the beach - but also very soft sand and I was a bit worried we won't make it back out the next morning but we lowered the tire pressure even more. I am sure we were still on private property but nobody came by to collect any money :-) We seemed to have the bay all to ourselves - in the far off distance one could see the top of a big trailer but not a sole was around. We tried out snorkeling once more but again nothing great to see within easy reach. Also, the wind had picked up even more and it started to seriously cloud over. I did some beach combing along the beach before dinner. We were now a day behind my schedule - being behind doesn't make a project manager happy.

Day 7/26: The wind was howling all night blasting our tent with sand. I didn't sleep well. There weren't any birds around to wake us up but instead we had rain. Not much and it stopped shortly after. The sky was grey though when we got up with no sunrise to enjoy. The wind was still blowing. On the bright side we had kangaroos watching us having breakfast and navigate the car out of the soft sand - no problems. Before continuing on we wanted to get some pressure back into the tires. We got exactly ONE tire done before the piece of junk died on us. Great!!! Oh well, we still had enough air to continue on and it would still be a while before we hit a surfaced road again and the next gas station in Exmouth. Less than a couple hours and hundreds of cute looking Wallaroos later we entered Cape Range National Park and approach the crossing through Yardie Creek. One should only attempt the crossing at low tide but off course we didn't have a tide table. Luckily we hit it just right. Small problem was only the rental RV which was stuck in the soft sand on our side of the creek going south - blocking us from traveling north. We helped them with digging it out and deflating the tires enough so they could continue. The couple was from Holland and had started out from Darwin 3 weeks ago on their way to Perth and then Sydney. Lucky for us that we never managed to inflate our tires this morning. Crossing the creek wasn't a problem at all and we stopped on the other side to hike up Yardie Creek Gorge (1.5km) - the only permanently filled fresh water creek draining most of the Cape Ranges into the Indian Ocean. Apparently the creek sustains a lot of rare water birds as well as a group of the very rare Black-footed Rock Wallabies. We saw neither but an emu with her chick. It was still a nice hike up along the canyon edge maybe 30m above the creek overlooking the ocean and open plains of the Cape Ranges (which aren't very high mountains). By now the sun actually came out and it warmed up hugely. Finally, it was time to go snorkeling. Cape Range National Park has several nice beaches with good snorkeling so the travel guides say. And they were right. We hit the "Oyster Stacks" first. Access wasn't as nice -navigating over sharp dead coral in your fins but the snorkeling was great!!! HUGE coral, tons of fishies, a couple turtles, no sharks and all that right off the beach, protected by the outer reef from any ocean swell. Only problem, the water wasn't really that warm and without wet suits we didn't last more than ~20min, warming up on the beach in between runs. There were a few other people on the beach as well - this part of the park, north of Yardie Creek, is accessible by paved road from Exmouth further in the north. After a couple snorkeling runs we continued on by car for 10min to the next site - Turquoise Bay and the "famous" drift loop. Here you had a beautiful white beach right up to the ocean and the coral starting 10m or so out from shore. Unfortunately, this site isn't a secret either and we had a full bus load of German tourists exploring the beach and snorkeling sites when we first got there. Plenty of room for all of us and the snorkeling was worth it - you walk down to the south end of the beach, enter the water and than just drift back over the coral pushed by the current and get out at the other end. What a nice way to spend the day - lie on the beach and hop into the ocean to cool down and see some colorful fish and coral. Eventually we had enough of the sun and started looking for a campsite for the night. As mentioned, Cape Range NP isn't a secret and although it wasn't busy by most standards even a single neighbour seemed too much to us right now. Fortunately the park has a lot of campsite, all of them somewhere along the coast. Unfortunately it was still off season and most of them were closed for maintenance. All the spots we drove into were already occupied by a few or more campers - so not really what we were looking for. At the end we decided to cross over Yardie Creek once more and check out the 4x4 only accessible campsites south of the Creek. There we found what we were looking for - campsite in the dunes, nobody there, rocky beach full of fossilized corals and shells to explore on one side and red bush and termite mounts on the other. Apparently Cape Range was pushed up from the ocean floor some hundred thousand years ago and you can find proof of coral all over the range still. Rugged shorelines are not so good for washing dishes though - especially in the dark with crabs running across your feet and water crashing on the rocks. Nobody came by again to collect any camping fees - usually camping in NP's cost you $7 per person per night. Only living sole we saw besides the crabs were an emu who walk right past our tent while we prepared dinner. Soo cool!!!! I could have just spent the rest of our vacation right here.

Day 8/26: Again a relatively late start for us at 5:45am - possibly because there were neither birds nor rain to wake us up. We crossed Yardie Creek yet again for the third time - without getting stuck and drove to Mandu Mandu Gorge. The morning started off overcast again. We saw ton's of western grey kangaroos and/or common wallaroos on the short drive to the gorge. Those animals are really tame and you can stop almost right beside them - good for pictures. Mandu Mandu Canyon is similar to Yardie Creek except for no water - so the 3km hike first goes along the canyon floor before circling back along the top. While walking along the canyon floor we noticed some movement in the steep canyon walls - and there they were - those very rare, extremely shy Black-footed Rock Wallabies, 6 or 8 of them. Jumping around in the cliffs or watching us watching them. Since it was still early we were the only humans there enjoying those very agile and pretty looking roos. They were curious about us but didn't seem to care. I am sure as the day gets hotter they start hiding in the rocks out of the sun and you won't see them again. We felt a bit special seeing them do their thing - even saw mama and little joey in her pouch. By the time we finished the hike/watching rock wallabies around 9:30am the sun had burned away all the clouds and it started to get hot again. Time for snorkeling. Next spot to try out was Mandu Mandu South - oh and that was by far the most beautiful beach to date. Not a sole in site, white sand, turquoise water and corals starting 5m of the beach. Unfortunately the tide was still too low and we couldn't get on top of the coral much. It still was great and we spent quite some time "frying" on the beach enjoying the solitude. While snorkeling, I saw an octopus swim away from me - not quite the same size as the Pacific Northwest version mind you. Some time later our paradise was invaded by another family and we headed on towards Exmouth stopping in at the Visitor Centre and Jurabi Turtle Centre - neither of them that exciting - until we finally arrived back in civilization. We meant to book a snorkeling/diving trip in Exmouth to see more of the reef but due to it being off-season those weren't going regularly and we would have had to wait a couple days to get on one. That would have killed my schedule completely and we decided against waiting (I still think it was the right decision but we also have to go back to Cape Range National Park some day!!!). Here we also learned that Manta Rays are best to be seen in Coral Bay - where we started 2 days ago. We set up camp at a private campground this evening with hot showers!!! Washing off all the salt and sand from the last few days should be good - except that the shower water was actually slightly salty as well, no wonder they have signs in the washroom "No Drinking Water". After an early dinner - not in the dark for a change - we went up to the "famous" Cape Range Lighthouse (not sure what's it famous for) to watch the sunset and then back to the Jarubi Turtle Centre to catch some sea turtles lying their eggs on the beach. Each spring between Oct and Dec Green Sea Turtles and Loggerhead Turtles come up the beaches in the park to lay their eggs in the sand under the cover of darkness. If you sit very still and make no noise you might be able to see them. It was dark by 7pm and we got tired by 7:45pm so needless to say we didn't get to see any turtles :-) I wish though we had stayed a bit longer on the beach. We just managed to crawl into our tent at the campground when the neighbours showed up making a lot of noise for the next 2 hrs not even trying to keep it quiet. Guess what nationality they were !!! The other neighbours from Australia were already in bed and trying to sleep the same as Jeff and I. Darn Germans.

Day 9/27: Today we said goodbye to the Indian Ocean and Cape Range National Park to head inland. But not until we saw some of the high country in the park which is only accessible from the east side. First stop was Shothole Canyon - a much bigger and deeper canyon than Mandu Mandu or Yardie Creek on the west side. The road followed along the dry canyon floor all the way to the end. We parked the car and found a little trail (climbing over the chain with the sign "trail closed") to head up to the top of the range. The map I had showed a lookout on top of the range but not the trail how to access it. The one we found seemed to lead into the right direction - up. Once we scaled the canyon wall - bit corroded in places but mostly a really good trail it flattened out into a high plateau with spinifix grass and some low eucalyptus and cottonwood bushed in small depressions. We followed the visible trail for a while and eventually even saw a sign pointing us towards the lookout. It still took quite a while to actually get there and it wasn't that high of a lookout either. The most annoying thing - there was a paved parking lot on the other side of that lookout, we could have driven here instead of hiking for 1.25hrs one way. Oh well, it was a great hike and we kept scanning the area for "Thorny Devils", a small spiky looking lizard which apparently is quite common in this park. Obviously, they are also very well camouflaged and we didn't see one. Back at the car we returned to the main road only to turn off into Charles Knife Canyon were the road followed along the canyon rim - quite an impressive canyon. I am sure the road would continue on to THAT lookout we hiked into but we didn't bother to find out. It was about lunch time by now and we headed back to the coast for some fresh Tiger Prawns from the Exmouth Fishing Company. With our bellies nicely filled we hit the hwy again for the long drive to Karijini National Park via Millstream Chichester National Park. The later promised some nice water holes to FINALLY wash off the salt from our skins and it was only a couple hundred kilometer detour. We followed Brand Hwy for couple hundred kilometers before turning off towards Pannawonica. The scenery was spectacular with red sand, green bushes, yellow grass, flood plains and table mountain ect. - just as you would imagine Australia's semi dessert - we now are entering the Pilbara Country (eventually I'll get some more pics loaded up onto Picasa). We intended to gas up in Pannawonica, a small mining town at the end of the paved road before traveling through nowhere land for another few more hundreds of kilometers. Unfortunately we got delayed by a nasty accident on Brand Hwy and didn't get to town until 1 minute to 5pm. We rushed into the gas station just as another customer was leaving the premises. Most gas stations we encountered so far were open late but they also were on more of a busy route and not at the beginning of nowhere. Needless to say these guys closed at 5pm - SHARP. I am not sure how they managed to lock everything up in between the customer leaving and us arriving but they had. So I put on my broadest smile and drooping look begging them to PLEASE give us some gas (otherwise we would have been stuck in town over night - although I didn't say that). The old bitch behind the counter wasn't moved by my performance but luckily the old guy was - I seem to have a "thing" with old men. So he opened up the pump again and we gave him a good tip. Not that we really had to because we did arrive before 5pm!!!! After a quick stop at a grocery store for food and ice - which was open "late", guess mining people get off shift at different times of the day - we left the "friendly" town and headed off into nowhere. From here on it was dirt road all the way to Millstream Chichester NP - about 100km away and the sun started dropping towards the horizon quickly. Remember what I said about dark roads and kangaroos? The road was in good condition though and we could go at a good pace. Nevertheless it was dark by the time we reached our destination. Finding a campsite was also challenging. Remember the "off season" issues I mentioned before. Well, here they seemed to have closed most of everything down - not closing in a physical sense but by removing all the signs at turn offs etc. So really hard to find an even smaller track heading off the small track that goes through the park in the pitch dark. At the end we managed - and although we were alone when we arrived at the Stargazer Campsite, another couple with a tent trailer pulled in shortly after us - also complaining about the missing signs. They were Australians and we all hit the tents shortly after arrival. Lying in our tent with no cover on we were watching the stars above us listening to the night desert concert for a while.