E=MC2

Monday 21st March

When Einstein initially laid down the foundations for his idea of
 Having said that perhaps Schrodinger could have potentially used one to outline his famous paradox instead of his poxy cat in order to demonstrate the possibility that multiple states can coexist in a box at a single time.

In order to prove this all one needs to do is to climb aboard a Toyota Hiace campervan and fart in the kitchen, for in that single moment that fart not only exists in the kitchen but also in the dining room, lounge and bedroom.

Unfortunately we have been replicating this particular scientific experiment a little too regularly to the point where I now wonder if our vehicle can be classified as duel fuel due to its high abundance of gas.

Anyway, amazingly we have somehow made it as far south as we can and are in the process of heading east towards Adelaide to visit our friends.

We spent a few days in Perth and the surrounding areas which were really nice, we started out in Cottlesoe, a place that I could move to tomorrow for its postcard perfect beaches and abundance of beautiful architecture.

We were fortunate enough to have turned up during their annual sculpture on the beach event which meant that for the next few hours Pauline and Tyler witnessed great feats of contortion as I tried in vain to get the perfect picture.

Crowds were out en mass and it seemed to me to be the perfect location as both families and art lovers alike meandered around the various exhibits before taking the opportunity to relax on the beach and soak up the atmosphere.

Following this we paid a visit to the science museum in order to whet Tyler's appetite a little and catch up on the many months of science lessons that we should have been doing on this trip.

The place was amazing with activities everywhere that would be guaranteed to keep the average child's mind amused for hours and as if to prove this we lost Pauline for the majority of the day as she became hooked on a single exhibit.

They had set up a giant phosphorescence demonstration that allowed you to temporarily freeze your shadow onto a giant white wall by simply clicking a button, running quickly over to a wall, posing and voila!

In no time at all Pauline had commandeered the exhibit and was pulling handstands and cartwheels much to the complete amazement of the majority of young kids who had gathered around wondering what facility she had just escaped form.

Eventually Tyler and I managed to drag her away from her many adoring fans so that we could escape before they locked up for the night.

We headed down into Freemantle and witnessed a bush fire in the distance that had just started and in no time at all seemed to have spread to the point where we spent the evening watching helicopter after helicopter dumping water on it.

The following day I successfully convinced Pauline that we should check out the reptile centre nearby a place absolutely teeming with snakes, many of which seemed to be allowed to have their windows open during the day.

I was in my element, Pauline was in the parking lot and Tyler was once again trying to get as close as possible to anything that is in anyway dangerous, perhaps this is just his way of indicating that he has had enough of travelling with his parents.

Nevertheless as soon as they mentioned the possibility of bringing out one of the larger reticulating pythons for a little while, Tyler was at the front of the queue again, I think he had even polished his neck for some reason.

Unfortunately due to my over enthusiastic photography earlier on during the snake feeding session my camera died yet again so I couldn't record this spectacular feat of idiocy.

Following on from this we continued to head south and decided to stop into Honeymoon Pool a site in the middle of dense woodland that we had been recommended by Derek and Ellie the people whom we had met up in Coral Bay.

After missing the turn off multiple times and having every bone in our body shaken to the point of fusion by yet another 4 wheel drive road that would invalidate our rental agreement, we finally managed to locate the place.

Scarily just as we drove in, there were Derek and Ellie sitting by their nice sparkly new campervan as if the very fact that they recommended somewhere meant that they actually had to stay there in case you dropped in.

It was great to see some friendly faces and have a proper natter but unfortunately they were heading out first thing the following morning so it was short and sweet.

The camp itself was wonderful, there was no power and you felt totally cut off from the outside world at night, Tyler had instantly pulled out his "snake stick" which had been sanded and carved for him in Coral bay.

This basically consisted of a long branch a little shorter than himself which had been carefully cut into a point by Jodi whom we met at Coral Bay (this alone ensured its continual usage as Jodi and Barney were Tyler's new idols who have inspired him to become a kite surfer!).

The remainder of the evening was spent locating two additional snake sticks so that Pauline and I could be protected too, we even fashioned them into primitive spears in front of the camp fire, a thoroughly enjoyable evening surrounded by mother nature.

The unfortunate thing about mother nature though is that she doesn't have a volume switch that you can adjust when it suits, which is why we found ourselves being woken at stupid o'clock in the morning by scavenging ravens intent on destroying our campervan.

At least that's what it sounded like, although when I finally managed to convince my body to get up and take a look they were actually eating all of the dead locusts off of the front of the van, perhaps if we left it there long enough they may even clean it for us.

So blearry eyed we once again headed out, this time down to the St Margret river region famous as "THE" wine region of Australia, yipee, and all I want is a pint of fosters which 'apparently' isn't actually sold in Australia.

After the lack of sleep from the night before we decided to splurge a little and booked ourselves into a hotel for the night, we had high intentions of spending the day ambling around town soaking up the sights but ended up lounging in bed until 4pm.

When we did finally move we were informed that there was a celebration in town to mark the annual wine festival, this basically consisted of a handful of craft stools, some of the worst live music that I have ever endured and a giant slide that hurled you into a massive vat of grapes.

Much to Tyler's disappointment you had to be at least 10 to go on the giant slide and although he tried his best to convince us to lie initially, when we finally bore witness to the slide in action even he said it was too lame and lost interest.

We could have walked down the slope fast than any of the participants and soon got tired of watching and decided instead to do something far more scary, we went to watch the live entertainment.

To give you an idea of what it was like we arrived during the children's entertainment to find a woman bent over in the middle of the stage brandishing a whip and swinging it around her in a rather provocative manner.

Sadly after that things went down hill rather rapidly so we decided to cut our losses and retreat back to our nice little hotel room for the evening.

I guess the funny thing about the annual Margret River wine celebration is the complete and utter lack of wine that was to be found anywhere, I am guessing that if they tried to advertise what was actually there nobody would turn up.

We sadly waved goodbye to our hotel room and continued our journey the following morning without even the slightest hint of a hangover.

On route we passed a lookout that potentially offered some spectacular views over the forests and rivers below so we decided to pull in and take a look.

This is the moment that we discovered our starter motor was dodgy, stuck in the middle of a forest quite a long way away from any major civilization.

Amazingly the friendly man from the RAC arrived 20 minutes later, hit the underneath of our van with a hammer (which we will attempt to claim caused the bent arm from the crash) before giving up and giving us a pull start.

For the remainder of the day any tourist activities were restricted to those that thoughtfully built themselves on the top of hills (the valley of the giants) and bypassing those that had not (the really cool looking land of the dinosaurs and reptile park) but even then Pauline and Tyler had to push us off.

We had initially wanted to stop in Denmark for the evening but decided instead to continue through to Albany in case we got stranded somewhere that didn't have the part to fix it.

Unfortunately as it turns out Albany also falls into this category so we are currently holed up in the local hostel awaiting news on the fate of our campervan and the possibility that we could be here for several more days.
I am not sure that his universally excepted equation would have gained the same traction if his advertising campaign had pictured Tyler and Pauline pushing a crappy old campervan out of a petrol station and down a hill in order to gain enough momentum to start it, although I could be wrong.
mass–energy equivalence I somehow doubt that he had a Toyota Hiace campervan in mind and even if he did I very much doubt that his one had a dodgy starter motor like ours.