The Udder Life: Hopetoun (Day 18)

We are now well into the second half of our holiday, but I have to say that it doesn't feel like the time is flying. Which is good.

Today we tried our hand for the very first time at Geocaching. A good friend of mine, Mary Hoppen, spoke to me about this fun activity many years ago. I did look it up on the web once, but really didn't do anything about it. I mentioned it to Mark last night because of another trip we are planning on doing that happens to have this along the route. Mark had a bout of insomnia last night and looked it up on the web. He found a geocache near us and today, we all set off to find it.

I am no expert at it, so all I can really tell you is that is is all based on GPS co-ordinates and they direct you to a 'treasure' or a cache of stuff. The 'treasure' is usually a weatherproof container that holds a pad, a pen and some trinkets or business cards left by others. The trick is to find the cache without being spotted, write your name in the book, return it all to the same spot and then log your find (or log your non find if that is the case) on the geocache website. Very fun and quite addictive! The kids think it is great. Plus, it gets you out and about and looking at the great outdoors a bit more than you otherwise would.

On the hunt for our very first cache

Found it!

After our successful geocache, we headed even further south to a place called Hopetoun. We would have skipped this entirely and driven straight to Esperance, but we are still in Easter traffic, so we decided to not chance it and get a site where we could. The caravan park at Hopetoun is a very old beachy park. There are HEAPS of sites, but you can barely see them because they are all nestled in amongst scrub and teatrees. We picked a post that had easy access to the beach.

We thought we would go for a walk down the beach just to check it out. If it was any good, we would come back with our togs. The kids had other ideas in mind. Tom was the first in, and commenced to pull the other 2 girls in soon after. The water was quite cool, but once you were in, it was fine. The howling wind was another thing though....I'm glad it wasn't me that was in wet clothes having to walk back up the beach!

We met a "friend" along the way. This kelpie (who looked a lot like Blue and a bit like Trixie) was having a run on the beach. We stopped and chatted to the owner who was holidaying here from Bunbury. The dog had developed an adrenal tumour and after years of keeping it at bay, the time had come to put him down. This was the last holiday. I had a bit of a tear in my eye when I heard that. I know how hard it is to put such a loved animal down regardless of how good it is for them. Anyway, the dog had a great time playing with the kids in the water.