JOURNAL 2008

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January 7th 2008 (Monday)

We have been hose-sitting for over two weeks now and have about the same still left to do. It has been fun looking after dogs again and I have managed to get a lot of information from the internet for the WA Guide.

Apart from that we have been taking things relatively easy and staying away from tourist spots. With luck most of the ‘blow ins’ will be heading home by the time we head down to Westbay.

January 17th 2008 (Thursday)

Less than a weeks house sitting left to do and then we are off to Augusta for a while. We have had a couple of periods of very hot weather while we have been here. Christmas and Boxing day were both scorchers and the last two days have been equally bad. Much better than being up near Perth though.

January 26th 2008 (Saturday)

We are now back down at Westbay after a very enjoyable time house sitting. So far it is very restrained here for a long weekend – apart from one peanut in a campervan who had to park next to us and then play his music too loud – what this evening will bring who knows what, but so far it hasn’t been too bad compared to the Labor Day long weekend last year.

The bad news is that Easter is early this year (March 23rd I think) so we will probably have to ride it out with ear plugs in.

No chance to get out fishing yet but the boat is all ready to go and the rods are rigged up, maybe tomorrow?

February 1st 2008 (Friday)

The wind continues to be a problem here and even the locals – who should be more or less used to it – are complaining. It seems as though W.A. (alias WINDY AUSTRALIA) is getting more and more wind every year – too many politicians perhaps?

February 7th 2008 (Thursday)

After taking the boat out three times we have caught – NOTHING – at least nothing worth while. We did hook lots of undersized KG whiting that had to be put back but nothing else and no crabs at all. Rather dismal compared to last year.

We are experiencing the first rain – if you could call it that as it is only drizzle at the moment – since we came down to Augusta. Little else to write about at the moment.

February 8th 2008 (Friday)

We were only going to Margaret River today to do some shopping but as I couldn’t get a connector for the mobile phone anywhere in town we had to go up all the way to Busselton. It turned out to be an enjoyable if somewhat tiring (not to mention expensive) day as Belle did the rounds of the shops.

February 12th 2008 (Tuesday)

Belle’s 49th today and we took a drive up to Hamelin Bay. When people bring their boats in from fishing in the bay a number of stingrays turn up to get fed. It was very interesting to see how big some of the rays grow. They are so greedy that they almost strand themselves in an effort to get any food on offer.

February 14th 2008 (Thursday)

The wind has been so bad in Augusta this year that we have decided to give up and go inland at the end of the month. We were expecting a better day today and to start with it was beautiful so we took the boat out. Everything was great until we started back and then we encountered a very strong northerly wind blowing right down the inlet. It was probably about the roughest water we have ever been out in, in the dinghy and this was in a ‘protected waterway’.

We have given up any idea of going out again and will pack everything up slowly over the next two weeks. We are thinking about going to Woodanilling and then dropping off at Popo on the way north but we will see how things go.

February 18th 2008 (Monday)

Phoning around for caravan park prices today resulted in:

Wagin $82.50 per week

Woodanilling $132 per week ! up from $80 this time last year WHAT A RIP OFF !!

Darkan $50.00 per week concession rate

Bolgart $11 night $55 a week.

Towerrinning $90 per week no drinking water available.

Bindoon. Overnight only by tourist info. Showers & toilets. $10

Hamelin Pool $20 night $120 week.

Green Head $23 night $138 week

Leeman $23 night

Jurien $26 night $163.8 week RIP OFF!

Cervantes $27 night RIP OFF!

February 24th 2008 (Sunday)

Our time at Augusta is coming to an end and we expect to be away this Thursday. The weather, fishing and crabbing have all been awful this year and we probably won’t be back again for quite some time.

We now have to bide our time before heading north so the plan is to visit:

Busselton, Darkan, Wagin, back to the bus, Beverley, Bindoon, Bibby Road, Green Head, Cliff Head, Seven Mile, Coronation Beach, Galena Bridge, Hamelin Pool, Gladstone, Bush Bay and Barradale before getting back to Karratha for the winter. How long we stay at each spot depends on how bored we get. We have 9 weeks in all to kill before we want to be up there.

February 27th 2008 (Wednesday)

We had planned to be on our way again tomorrow but a heat wave is due and we have had second thoughts about heading further north. That means we are stuck here over the long weekend and after that we may as well hang around another couple of weeks or so as we wanted to kill a bit of time anyway. The only down side is that just about everything is packed away now but at least that means we can get away quickly when we are finally ready to go.

March 4th 2008 (Tuesday)

The Labour Day long weekend is over and much to our great relief it was nice an quiet despite the fact that quite a few people came into the caravan park. It was a nice change after the horribly noisy Labour Day weekend last year.

We are off to Busselton for a few nights on Thursday. I have been busy checking the caravan bearings and have re-greased a couple that looked like they needed some new grease. Hopefully this preventative maintenance will stave off any problems with the wheels.

While we are in Busselton we want to get a new gas regulator fitted as well as do a bit of other shopping before we head inland away from ‘civilisation’.

9th March 2008 (Sunday)

We arrived in Busselton on the 6th and have stayed at the Fore Square Church camp ($18 per night). This was not the best place to stay as there are tennis / basketball courts next to the caravan area and when groups of kids come in the noise is too much for us. We were thinking about staying one more night as the weekend arrivals left this morning but as another group is due in tomorrow night we are heading to Darkan to see what the caravan park there is like.

There are a number of church camps along what is called the ‘holy mile’ in Busselton that take caravans but they are not allowed to advertise. The Uniting Church looked like a good spot to stop and we will try that if we are down this way again but we hope that it won’t be any time soon.

I got the gas regulator done and saved about $110 in the process but we have managed to spend too much while we have been here so it will be a relief to get away from the temptation to spend money. We were quoted $150 for the supply and fitting of a regulator and managed to do it ourselves for $40.

We are basically marking time now until we can head north again.

10th March 2008 (Monday)

We had intended stopping at Darkan but the caravan park was just about full – something we hadn’t expected, so we kept on going to Wagin where we have booked in for a week to see how things go. I would like to get out to Dumbleyung while we are here as well.

11th March 2008 (Tuesday)

Took a trip out to Dumbleyung today to have a look at the town and the lake. The lake is currently nothing more than a huge expanse of salt flat. It seems odd to look at it now and think that Donald Campbell broke the water speed record there in 1964. How things change.

Dumbleyung is a very small town which has limited attraction for tourists. Without the lake it has almost nothing to offer.

17th March 2008 (Monday)

Back at the farm now for 2-4 weeks and best of all we are back in the bus for a while. It will be nice not to have to pack the computer up every day and just leave it on the desk.

29th March 2008 (Saturday)

Almost two weeks at the farm now and another week to go before we start heading north. I have fitted a new set of rear lights to the caravan but otherwise apart from tidying things up life has just rolled on without much of interest. The weather is nice, warm days and cool nights but the cold toes in the morning mean it is really time to go where it stays warm all winter.

Caravan park fee check for:

Beverley $20 pn

Brookton $17.50 pn $100 pw.

Waddi farm $20 pn

Hamelin Pool $20 pn (7th night free)

Gingin $23 and $27

7th April 2008 (Monday)

On our way north again for the winter. We didn’t get far today as we stopped off at Brookton for the night. We wanted to check out Yenyenning Lakes and then go into Beverley to see the Aeronautical Museum and Avondale Discovery Farm. Avondale turned out to be the best place we have been to in a while. It is officially an agricultural research station but the public can visit and entry is free. There is an excellent machinery museum, the old homestead museum and a number of interesting farming displays to see. There is also a picnic area with seats and BBQs so you can take in lunch and relax for a while.

Yenyenning Lakes would be much better with more water in them but it was still an interesting drive east of Brookton. Much better done in wildflower season I expect.

The Aeronautical Museum at Beverley was interesting but the plane I really wanter to see (Silver Centenary) was no longer there. (It has been restored and is now flying again.)

Fuel prices up north are very frightening at the moment (diesel in Karratha is currently $1.72 a litre). We have to wonder how much longer we can keep on going up there.

April 9th 2008 (Wednesday)

Yesterday we got to Bolgart and stopped overnight. The caravan park there is cheap ($11 a night or $55 a week) but the toilets could do with a bit of renovation and some disinfectant.

On the way in to the park we had to cross a bit of a wash away and the back of the van grounded as we crossed it breaking the new feet we only recently put on the wind down legs. Anyone going in to Bolgart caravan park needs to be aware of this problem as you enter.

Today we stopped off at New Norcia to have another look round and to take some updated photos. Then we went on to Moora and did some shopping before reaching the Transit caravan park at Dandaragan where we called a halt for the day.

The transit facility is very good. There is only room for 3-4 vans but the ablution block is new and spotless and the area is well presented. At only $15 a night ($65 a week) it is good value for money too.

April 10th 2008 (Thursday)

The weather is a bit on the drizzly side at the moment so we are trying to stay on powered sites with proper facilities until it clears up. We have gone a short distance north to Waddi Farms Resort. The resort is 5 kilometres down an unsealed road (a bit corrugated in places) off Koonah Road which runs east from the Brand Highway.

Waddi Farms was obviously set up with lots of money. The caravan park would not be out of place in a seaside resort (in fact it is better than some we have seen in such places.) It was apparently built in the late 1980s and is getting a little run down and uncared for now but it is quite a long way from anywhere and unless you just want some peace and quiet it is hard to see why anyone would make a special trip out to stay there any length of time.

It is difficult to work out why someone would go to all the effort of building such a facility right out in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps it gets busier during wildflower season.

There is a large well appointed ablution block and even a swimming pool and restaurant.

April 12th 2008 (Saturday)

We arrived at Sandy Cape (just north of Jurien Bay) yesterday and will be here for 3-4 nights. The road in is very corrugated this year and we had to stay in 1st gear almost all the way in.

April 17th 2008 (Thursday)

Still at Sandy Cape killing time. The weather turned nasty last night as thunderstorms and rain rolled in. We are hoping it will clear in the next 24 hours as we want to move on.

April 19th 2008 (Saturday)

We arrived at Cliff Head North yesterday and will be off again tomorrow. The next stop we expect to be Galena or Nerren Nerren. From there we take a short detour to Hamelin Pool for 1-3 nights and then on to Bush Bay which will be the last major stop before we get back to Cleaverville.

We have been lucky weather wise as the clouds have gone all round us but not over the top so the solar panels have managed to keep working properly and we have only used the generator at night.

April 21st 2008 (Monday)

Arrived at Hamelin Pool today and settled in for 2 nights. The stromatolites are everything we had heard they were – ugly funny shaped little rocks with little visual attraction – but the caravan facility at Hamelin is not too bad. The ablution block is a little ‘dated’ and fresh water is from a tank rather than on tap but it is a pleasant enough spot. We haven’t managed to do any proper shopping for over 2 weeks now and we are starting to run out of all sorts of things so it is going to be a big relief when we finally make it to Karratha.

We expect to be at Bush Bay by Wednesday but that will depend on the weather and as there is a cyclonic low developing out in the ocean near Christmas Island we will be studying the weather reports to see what is likely to happen.

April 23rd 2008 (Wednesday)

Arrived at Bush Bay and Belle was straight into the whiting. She has been waiting for this since last year and really enjoys fishing for what I call the ‘poor little fishies’.

There are some very high tides at the moment and our usual campsite disappears under water once a day so we are camped on the highest ground we can find.

April 24th 2008 (Thursday)

We couldn’t wait any longer to get some supplies so went into Carnarvon today to stock up on the essentials. Everything else can wait until we get to Karratha.

We caught some whiting, a few to eat and some more to freeze and use as bait when we get to Karratha. There have also been some squid in the shallows but we haven’t managed to bag one yet.

April 25th 2008 (Friday)

Clouds have covered up the sun so we are having to run the generator to keep the batteries charged.

The whiting all seem to be asleep today but we have managed to get the first mullet in the set net. A fisheries inspector had a good look at the net yesterday but we did everything properly so no problems and no fines.

April 30th 2008 (Wednesday)

We arrived at Cleaverville yesterday after making the 680 kilometre drive from Carnarvon in one go. It was a bit on the tiring side but it was good to finally get where we wanted to be. Now we can more or less relax for the next 3 months.

For half the drive we had overcast rainy conditions which was good for driving but as we passed Barradale the sky started to clear and things warmed up a bit.

It isn’t as hot here as we expected but the generator will still get a work out over the next couple of weeks as we enjoy having the air conditioner on.

We had heard that the campsite was over-run with workers but thankfully that turns out to be quite untrue.

By the end of tomorrow we should be more or less set up and ready to go fishing.

May 5th 2008 (Monday)

Sunday Dark moon -1 03:09 1.6 / 09:37 4.4 Light winds clear sky

Monday Dark moon 04:15 1.5 / 10:11 4.7 light winds some cloud

We more or less finished setting up our camp by the end of Thursday and went into town and spent too much money on Friday. (2 new Alvey reels and a 2nd LCD TV for the bedroom plus all the usual booze and grocery items ended up costing over $600!) We weren’t quite ready for the perfect fishing day that presented itself on Saturday but by Sunday we were, and the weather was still good so we went out to one of the close reefs that we have labelled ‘flag’ on the GPS and picked up 2 flag and 2 blue lined emperor. The float line took off with something huge but as I had only rigged with a short wire trace it was bitten off and we had nothing else with us.

Today we were much better prepared and came back with a 1.34 metre Spaniard plus a smaller spotted Mack and a good sized flag. Quite a nice start to the season so far.

May 6th 2008 (Tuesday)

Dark moon +1 04:51 1.3 / 10:46 5.0 Light wind cloudy

Went out fishing again today and did a bit of exploring trying to find some new spots. We did find two rather promising places out behind Dixon Island and although we only brought in 1 mackerel, 3 snapper and 2 flag, we caught a lot of other fish that we put back including 2 other macks, 1 huge golden trevally and numerous snapper, flag, cod and tuskfish.

The highlight of the day was a massive stingray coming right up to the back of the boat with its entourage of at leat 4 large sucker fish. It would have been a good time to have a camera on board but of course I didn’t. We also saw a school of tuna hunting baitfish and leaping out of the water. A very entertaining day.

May 7th 2008 (Wednesday)

We were a bit ‘fished out’ so despite today being good fishing weather again we opted not to go out.

May 8th 2008 (Thursday)

Dark moon +3 06:04 1.3 / 12:03 5.0

The weather looked ok for fishing this morning so we took the chance and went out again. We should have known better. The wind came up before we got on to our fishing spot and after trying one or two other places we gave up and came back in quite fishless!

May 9th 2008 (Friday)

Shopping day in Karratha.

May 13th 2008 (Tuesday)

Full moon -2 03:45 1.9 / 09:40 4.2 Calm to start but wind picked up

Managed to get out crabbing today. For a change the wind allowed us to get 3 runs in before it started to come up and we finished the final run as the wind was picking up. 12 blue swimmers was the total for the day and for us that is quite sufficient.

May 19th 2008 (Monday)

Full moon -1 04:18 1.8 / 10:12 4.4

There was no wind this morning and a 10am high tide so we went out in the boat to have a look at Rocky Creek to the east of the campsite. There were too many biteys in the creek so we came out again faster than we went in, but it looks like a good place to explore later on. All we managed to catch were a few garfish to keep in the freezer for bait. We are hoping the next couple of days will be a bit better fishing wise.

May 20th 2008 (Tuesday)

Full moon 04:49 1.7 / 10:42 4.4

A good fishing day weather wise looked like being a lousy day fishing wise as when we went out 5km to the reefs behind Dixon Island we didn’t catch anything worth while. A few good hooks ups resulted in fish getting off before we even saw what they were so we came back in closer to shore and finally came back in with a 550mm estuary cod and 3 good sized spotted macks which were delicious (as always) smoked.

May 21st 2008 (Wednesday)

Full moon +1 05:17 1.7 / 11:12 4.5 calm and cloud

Today we decided to go crabbing again and the weather was perfect for it. Although we only caught 8 crabs this time in 4 runs we were happy enough with the results as this will keep Belle in crab for the next 2-3 days. We did try a spot of fishing near one of the islands but only caught one 30cm bream that we put back.

May 22nd 2008 (Thursday)

Full moon +2 05:45 1.7 / 11:41 4.5

The forecast said 8-13 knots but the wind seemed to be up a bit. We decided to chance it anyway and took the boat out yet again but this time the wind shifted round and came up too much to make fishing pleasant. Belle caught a nice 39cm snapper for dinner but that was the only fish we brought in. The fish were on the bite when we got to the reef but after 20 minutes everything went quiet so an hour before high tide we decided to give up for the day.

May 23rd 2008 (Friday)

Another expensive trip into town today courtesy of a new camp kitchen from Kmart that cost $170. The old one is starting to look a bit shabby and even though it would probably last a few more years yet we decided that the new stainless steel model with tap, lamp holder etc. would be nice to have. We will see if we can sell the old one for about $30 before we head back south, if not we’ll probably take it back to the bus.

May 24th 2008 (Saturday)

Full moon +4 06:40 1.8 / 12:43 4.3

The wind was down yet again today (what a nice change!) so we took the boat out to see what we could find. Belle didn’t have a very good day and her mood wasn’t helped by the fact that I just kept on hauling the big ones in just a couple of feet from where she was sitting.

The bring home catch was 6 snapper (137-144mm) and one large minstrel sweet lip. The catch of the day was a huge estuary cod. Initially I thought I had a snag but then the ‘snag’ started to swim away. The cod was well over the length of the 900mm fish measuring sticker we have in the boat so as it was very likely over 1 metre long (the maximum size for estuary cod in W.A.) we put it back alive and kicking. I hadn’t brought the camera out and was sorry to have no proof of the huge fish and it was only seconds after I had let it go that I realised that we had the mobile phone with us and IT WAS EQUIPPED WITH A CAMERA ! B#%!!&R !!! All those bragging rites gone to waste.

I would estimate the cod’s weight at something around 20 kg or maybe more! It was massive, in fact weight wise the biggest fish I have ever boated.

Soon afterward a large spotted mack took the float line but I wasn’t able to control it and it got off after wrapping the line around the anchor rope. It didn’t matter, I was on cloud nine anyway. Belle, however, was casting rather dark looks at me all day but she got over it when we got home.

June 1st 2008 (Sunday)

A bit of a dry spell fishing wise as the tides and winds have been against us. If we had managed to get up early enough we could have gone this morning but we are crossing our fingers that we can go tomorrow instead.

June 2nd 2008 (Monday)

Dark moon -2 02:50 1.9 / 08:52 4.5

Went out this morning but the wind came up almost as soon as we got out – same old story. Went near Dixon Island to fish the drop off but only caught 1 spotted mack that we brought in to smoke and 1 shark which we let go.

June 3rd 2008 (Tuesday)

Dark moon -1 03:40 1.8 / 09:38 4.5

Out again in the boat and this time the wind stayed down. We fished out the back to start with but we were late getting out and the fish weren’t biting. We came in to ‘buoy’ and the macks were nailing the bait fish and we got 1 Spaniard and 2 spotted. Would have got more if two traces hadn’t been bitten off.

June 6th 2008 (Friday)

Into town spending too much money again. Diesel now almost $1.93 a litre ! Bought 2gb memory for the computer $99.

June 10th 2008 (Tuesday)

Rain last night but it looks like clearing today. The wind is still too high to get out the front so we are taking the boat to the creek as we are a bit bored.

The council had a slasher around the campsite today and yesterday and the rotten thing managed to throw a small stone out in the direction of our car and punched a hole in one of the back windows. Now we have to sort out getting the repairs done. Bit of a pain. Good job the stone didn’t hit anyone in the head as it could easily have killed someone. We think it is a rather stupid idea with campers all round the place.

June 12th 2008 (Thursday)

More rain; we are wondering if we will be able to get into town tomorrow but it doesn’t matter if we can’t get in as we have enough fuel and water to last a while yet.

June 14th 2008 (Saturday)

The forecast looks good for the next two days and the high tides are early in the morning so we are crossing our fingers that we might get out tomorrow. The rain this last week went on for a while.

We did manage to get into town despite the rain. It looks as though the work the council has done on the road over the past couple of years has paid off. Only one slightly mushy spot but the rest was almost as god as when the track is dry.

11 days since we last went fishing so a couple of days now would be nice.

Jobs done on the caravan this week were: new 12 volt light over the seating area, mount DVD Video player above the fridge (pig of a thing died just a couple of weeks later and I had to take it all out again!) and install a new Caframo 12 volt fan ($99) over the main seating area.

June 15th 2008 (Sunday)

The tide was a bit too early to get out today and the wind looked like it was going to come up so we decided to take the throw net down to the point instead. We should have taken the boat out as it was a perfect flat day in the end.

RATS!

June 16th 2008 (Monday)

Full moon -3 00:06 2.2 / 09:00 3.9

We did manage to get out today and caught another big Spanish mackerel (1.33 metre) which makes it just a little smaller than the last one. The freezer is now rather full again so we don’t mind that the forecast for the next week is for stronger and stronger winds.

We had another look at Rocky Creek and this time the sounder was working properly. The creek was a bit disappointing and it is quite shallow (max amount 6 feet deep). We did catch a threadfin in the creek but nothing else.

June 17th 2008 (Tuesday)

Full moon -2 00:06 2.2 / 09:00 3.9

The sea looked too good to miss out on this morning and we weren’t the only ones who thought so. We weren’t in a hurry to get out as we have enough fish in the freezer and only went out to do some catch and release fishing.

The boat sitting not far from us must have thought we were nuts. They weren’t catching anything but we were hauling them in one after another and just tossing them back into the sea again. The wind eventually came up and we went back in fishless but quite happy with the session.

June 22nd 2008 (Sunday)

The easterly winds have arrived with a vengeance and have been blowing for 5 days now. Sleeping at night is difficult at best and I have resorted to a sleeping pill on one occasion. Only about 7 weeks left before we start to head south again – how time flies. We are just over the half way point now as we intend leaving by about August 11th.

June 27th 2008 (Friday)

We finally got the back window in the cruiser fixed today and thankfully the company that operated the slasher payed for the work to be done so we didn’t lose any of our insurance benefits.

I finally got round to buying a new graphics card and 5 metre cable for the computer ($160) but otherwise have managed to keep other spending to less than horrific levels.

We are patiently waiting for the LCD TV we sent off for repairs on May 9th to come back – we are told it is on its way so hopefully we will see it next week.

The forecast is for light winds tomorrow but again the tides are all wrong so the best we can hope for is to do some crabbing. Based on the wind today I am not going to hold my breath.

June 28th 2008 (Saturday)

Dark moon -5 04:39 3.8 / 11:27 1.9

Although the tides aren’t any good for fishing they were ok for crabbing and the wind obliged today so we were able to get out at the creek and do 3 runs. The result was 7 crabs. A feed at least so no complaints.

June 29th 2008 (Sunday)

We decided to try and get out this morning (neap tide) to fish the dropping tide for a couple of hours. We even got as far as taking the boat down to the ramp just on first light but when we got there I chickened out due to the level of the water. I decided to check 3 hours later and we would have been ok (on a low tide of 1.8 metres) the wind stayed down ALL DAY just to taunt me.

June 30th 2008 (Monday)

As the tides are still out for fishing and the weather forecast shows a possibility of getting out from Wednesday to Friday we have moved shopping day up this week and will go in tomorrow.

July 3rd 2008 (Thursday)

Dark moon 04:18 1.8 / 10:19 4.4

We finally got out fishing again and the weather was perfect. The fishing wasn’t so good and all we brought back was one spotted mackerel.

July 4th 2008 (Friday)

Dark moon +1 05:10 1.6 / 11:11 4.6

Good fishing weather again today, virtually no wind. Caught a lot of fish but in the end only brought back 6 snapper (all 38-43cm). Good day.

The weather has stayed quite hot this year with temperatures of about 28C during the day. This means the sandflies are still hanging around.

Jobs recently completed: Service the car and change the left front wheel which had the old spare tyre on it.

Jobs still to do: Service the generator and put new lugs on the wind gen pole.

July 5th 2008 (Saturday)

Dark moon +2 05:58 1.4 / 12:00 4.6

We took the boat out again but the forecast was wrong and the wind came up quite early. We tried out on the north side of Dixon Island but didn’t get anything worth while but then we went round to the mangroves on the south side and dropped some berley in the water and soon all sorts of fish started turning up. We caught some yellowfin bream, pikey bream and some garfish. We only brought in 5 yellow fin and some gardies for bait but there were quite a few other rather large fish hanging around in very clear water so we will probably visit that spot again if we get the chance.

July 12th 2008 (Saturday)

The tides were no good for fishing today but the wind dropped and there was just enough water to get out at Cleaverville Creek and do some crabbing. The crabs seem to be moving off again and after 4 runs all we got were 6 but at least it was enough for a feed.

The Little Bulldog trailer mudguards are playing up again. Both are broken so that makes 3 in all that have failed – not very impressed.

I have finally finished making up a wind break for the BBQ so hopefully outdoor cooking will be a bit easier from now on.

The easterly wind is back today but we hope to get at least a few more good fishing days before we leave in early August.

July 16th 2008 (Wednesday)

Full moon -2 03:42 2.3 / 09:00 3.7

Went back to the mangroves again to see if it would be as good as it was last time. We caught a lot of bream (all legal) between 28-34cm but in the end we let them all go. We also let a cod go but the catfish weren’t so lucky. A large sea eagle was sitting up on the mangroves so we fed it the catfish we caught.

We did see thousands of mullet swimming past the back of Dixon Island but didn’t have a net so just sat watching them swim past us.

July 17th 2008 (Thursday)

Full moon -1 04:24 2.0 / 10:15 3.9

Perfect fishing weather all day today and we got out to the big reef (about 5km out) and caught 4 snapper and 1 shark. We came back in, looking for garfish as we were just about out of bait but didn’t find any. I did catch a spotted mackerel on one of the inner reefs but then we went back to the mangroves behind Dixon Island (yet again) and caught 3 reasonable bream. This time we kept them but let several other smaller legal sized ones go.

When we got back in we were totally out of garfish and as we have some new neighbours we asked if they would like some fish for dinner. They said they had caught some and we asked what they were – turns out they caught garfish so we did a swap. We now have some bait ready if the weather is good again tomorrow and they have enough fish for a couple of decent feeds.

July 18th 2008 (Friday)

Full moon 04:59 1.8 / 10:52 4.1

Out fishing again but today was a bit on the frustrating side. Belle did well catching the biggest NW snapper we have ever landed (55cm) and I got one 41cm but there were lots of nibblers around and the only other fish we caught was a mack (Queensland school). I wanted two macks to smoke but despite a number of hook ups the rest all got off. I blame the full moon! Belle did very well to get the big snapper in to the boat as she only had a very small hook on the line.

July 19th 2008 (Saturday)

We got caught out with the forecast and could have got out fishing today as the wind was southerly and didn’t get too high. Instead we were reduced to standing on the beach catching garfish as we had completely run out of bait.

Thankfully we did well enough and our new neighbours donated their gardies to us as well so we now have 65 garfish in the freezer ready for the next calm day.

July 26th 2008 (Saturday)

After being frustrated by the wind over the past few days we got fed up and went out fishing today and promptly regretted it. As it has been doing for a while now, the wind stayed down most of the day but as soon as the tide was fishable and we could get the boat out over the reef the wind came up and made conditions unpleasant. We didn’t catch anything worth while and all in all it was a waste of time.

July 28th 2008 (Monday)

Went into town and spent more money! Belle has had an idea for a book so we have bought her, her own laptop computer ($649) plus a microphone for conducting interviews ($49.95) and to cap it off we bought some more external disc storage in the form of a Maxtor One Touch 4 ($159).

July 29th 2008 (Tuesday)

Phone call from Belle’s sister Blue today and the good news was that we seem to have finally found Belle’s identical twin sister. She is almost certainly the Dorothy Loader (now Ong) who posted a message to a Malaysian web site in 2003. Now we will have the interesting task of making the first contact as we are not even sure if her twin knows about Belle. I have to admit that after searching for all this time we are both excited but there is also a bit of trepidation at how things will turn out.

Belle is going to call her family in Singapore on Saturday to get as much detail as she can.

July 31st 2008 (Thursday)

Dark moon-1 03:28 2.1 / 09:30 3.9

Went out fishing based on the weather forecast but the wind came up and although we caught 7 ‘keepers’ including a 37cm and 41cm snapper we were cheesed off and put them all back in.

August 1st 2008 (Friday)

Today turned out to be quite an emotional day for both of us. We went into town as usual and after filling up our water container we dropped into the local library and I started to search for the new information that we now knew was somewhere on the internet regarding Belle?s identical twin.

It didn?t take too long before I found the photograph of Dorothy and her husband Richard that was in an article in a Malaysian newspaper (The Star) on the 19th of last month. (Just one day after our 27th wedding anniversary as it turns out).

It is difficult to put into words how I felt when I first looked at the photo of someone who looks just like Belle in every way but is in fact an entirely different person with a completely different life. Emotion overcame me and tears quickly welled into my eyes. Although this is one of the happiest moments of our lives there is also the very sad thought that these identical twins have been separated for almost 50 years! Why didn?t the two adoptive families at least stay in contact so the girls could have had some idea about each other?s lives? This is something I just can?t fathom, separating identical twins seems to me to be an awful thing to do.

I tried unsuccessfully to email the newspaper in Malaysia, but no matter what I tried the emails just kept on being rejected. To be this close to finally getting Belle and her sister re-united and not being able to send a simple email just about made me blow a gasket.

While we were shopping in Karratha I had the idea of going to the local ABC office to see if they could help and if they were interested in doing a story about the search and hopefully soon to be reunion.

I have to digress somewhat at this point to discuss our attempts to find Dorothy over the years.

Belle has known that Dorothy was ?out there somewhere? since about the age of seven but life goes on and nothing really happened until Belle got to the age of about 30. I couldn?t understand why she hadn?t done anything about looking for Dorothy and we finally sat down and decided to spend some time and money conducting a search.

Belle and Dorothy were adopted by separate families with the adoption being finalised in August 1959 (according to records). Belle knew that she and Dorothy had attended kindergarten together but at the age of just 4, they had no idea they were identical twins.

Our search began when we contacted the authorities in Malaysia and obtained a copy of Belle?s and Dorothy?s birth and adoption certificates. We now knew that Dorothy?s surname was Loader and we had her adoptive parents names as well.

From there we contacted the Red Cross, Jigsaw and other agencies that are supposed to be able to assist but we got nowhere. Later we tried TV shows like Ray Martin, I even emailed Oprah I was that desperate, but the result was always the same.

With the advent of the internet we put messages up on adoption and people-search websites, but still we had no luck. We realised that by this time Dorothy was probably married and her surname had changed.

Years passed but we never gave up hope. Every opportunity we got we checked for ?Dorothy Loader? on the net but it was not until December 2007 that the name finally popped up.

Someone called Dorothy Loader had posted a message on a website called Ask Virtual Malaysia in 2003! So long ago and I had never found the message before. I immediately tried to send a message to the website asking if they still had her email address or any other contact information but I could not get anything to work on the site with regard to sending them a message. I then sent messages to Malaysian TV stations, newspapers etc. pleading for help in getting in contact with this Dorothy Loader. I was as sure as I had ever been about anything that this was the right person ? she was in the right place ? Selangor, Malaysia ? the twins were born in Malaysia, she had the right name and she was asking about Chinese culture and Dorothy like Belle is ethnically Chinese. The only odd thing was that when she left this message she used her maiden name, was this the right person after all?

I ground my teeth in frustration waiting for someone in Malaysia to get back to me. I must have spent endless hours scanning various sites for any other mention of her name but everything I tried came to nothing.

Months went by and nothing happened. Belle has some of her adoptive family still in Singapore, so in July 2008 I asked her to write to them and see if they could find out anything about the website concerned and as it happened another website suddenly popped up with the name Dorothy Loader on it. THIS TIME THERE WAS A PHOTOGRAPH!

Absolutely no doubt now that after all this time we had finally found her. Now all we have to do is make contact.

When we got onto the net this morning we quickly found the site but there were no contact details on the website for Dorothy, so I attempted to send an email to the newspaper, guess what? It bounced!

I tried again, and again, and again but nothing. I tried different offices of the newspaper and same result. Every email I sent came back undelivered. This was all too much. To be so close and yet so far was more than either of us could stand.

We called in to the Karratha office of the ABC to see if they could help and if they were interested in covering the story. We spoke to Kirstyn March who was both very interested and wonderfully helpful. She passed the message on to an ABC show called ?Can We Help?, that does wonderful work re-uniting people who have lost touch.

They called back very quickly and Sian (From ?Can We Help?) has now started making the first tentative steps to making the reunion a reality.

This is an amazing event in our lives. We were both in tears as we drove the 40 kilometres from Karratha to our campsite at Cleaverville and the emotional roller coaster is still racing for both of us.

Even though we both knew that Dorothy was somewhere in the world, is wasn?t until we looked at the photograph of her and her husband that she finally became real.

Now comes the time of frustration as we wait for the first contact, and the time of doubts and stress as we wonder what her reaction is going to be. Belle has a million and one questions racing through her head and I am pretty much the same. We have led a rather unusual life at times and recently things have not being going our way at all, so could this be some kind of new beginning for us? A way to put a very difficult time in our lives behind us and start again? I have to say that I sincerely hope so.

One thing is sure, if Dorothy wants to meet Belle we will spend every last cent we have to make it happen. We have precious little left after we lost our home but this is probably one of the most important things we will ever do and I have promised Belle that no matter what, if Dorothy wants to make contact, then I will get her to meet her sister in person.

August 2nd 2008 (Saturday)

Dark moon+1 05:14 1.4 / 11:14 4.5

Emotions continue to well up inside both of us as we struggle to deal with the enormity of the situation we are facing. Looking at all this from the outside it would be so easy to just say, ?well isn?t it wonderful that after all this time that Dorothy has at last been found?, but there is so much more to this than the joy of finding her.

Last night we lay in each other?s arms with tears running down our cheeks. Belle said ?This is crazy, it?s not like anyone has died? but that is almost the feeling.

I know that my tears were for two little identical twin girls who were torn apart and never had the chance to grow up together and share the memories that they should have had. More than half a lifetime of lost experiences, of things they should have shared together growing up, it is so inconsolably sad.

I am also experiencing a surprising amount of anger directed at the respective adoptive parents who were too insensitive to see that identical twins should never have been allowed to lose contact. A letter occasionally between the families to keep the girls in touch until they were old enough to make up their own minds about making contact would have been the very least that could have been done.

The fact that this opportunity was denied to them seems to me to be a very cruel callous act.

Belle, being the incredibly loving and forgiving person that she is, does not feel the same way, but I have to wonder, if the initial contact with Dorothy does not go smoothly, will she eventually start to feel the same way I do?

We know too that if we are experiencing all this when we have known for a long time that Dorothy was out there somewhere, that when we do make contact, Dorothy will undoubtedly go through pretty much the same feelings.

Our thoughts are very much with her at the moment as she lives her life blissfully unaware of what is about to descend on her.

Although I find it hard to believe that by this time, she has not found out she was adopted, we both worry that if that is the case, that she may have a very much harder time coming to grips with all this. Although she is still a complete stranger to us, she is Belle?s flesh and blood and we do not want to hurt her.

My biggest concern right at this point is that we are already at a very low ebb in our lives anyway. Things have gone very badly for us over the past couple of years and try as we might we just haven?t been able to see any light at the end of the tunnel. If Dorothy was to reject contact I think that could well be the final blow that extinguishes hope from our lives forever.

Even so we have come too far now to turn back.

With all this going round and round in my head I only managed 4 hours sleep last night.

To ease the tension we have been experiencing over the past two days we took the boat out fishing and although we only brought in 4 bream, it did seem to help get our minds off everything that is going on.

Unfortunately we also have other serious issues to deal with as the caravan park our old bus is in, is giving us a very hard time for no apparent reason. It looks like we are going to have to get the bus out of there and sell it or do who knows what else with it and then we will have no home base to go to. We may even have to go as far as taking the matter to court as the caravan park is now illegally trying to charge us $15 A DAY! to keep the bus there and they charge the other people storing their caravans etc. there NOTHING! Which was the agreement we had with them until they decided to start making trouble for us. Just why they are discriminating against us we can?t fathom.

They are trying to claim that because we haven?t been there much then we have to pay storage but THEY are the ones who withdrew power access for the bus in February 2007 but told us they would fix the situation and then proceeded to do nothing about it, so we can?t stay there even though we want to. I think they must be a bit deranged.

I hope the complaint we sent to DOCEP will sort something out.

August 3rd 2008 (Sunday)

Dark moon+2 05:55 1.2 / 11:55 4.6

We don?t expect to be at Cleaverville much longer and the weather was right for fishing today so we took the opportunity of going out for what we think may be the last time this year.

To start off with things were a bit slow but we did catch 4 nice snapper and a big flag out on one of the reefs we fish occasionally. At high tide we moved back to Dixon Island and fished the mangrove area we found this year and caught 5 bream, 1 flathead, 1 mangrove jack. (When I say caught I should really say kept and we did catch a lot of other fish including a good sized cod but we let the rest go.)

All in all it turned out to be a good last fishing day for the season. Although we aren?t in a hurry to leave as we want to stay in an area where we can be contacted easily, we will start slowly packing up the campsite now to be ready to head south again when the time comes.

August 5th 2008 (Tuesday)

It is amazing how one simple event can trigger such an outflow of feelings and emotions. Since we saw Dorothy?s photo on Friday, Belle and I have been talking about all sorts of things that have happened over the course of our lives.

Belle has one particularly dark period in her life when she was under the care of a married sister that she has never managed to get over, I am aware of the details but that is a story for her to tell in her own time and in her own way when she is ready. The huge mix of emotions have brought this and other events in her life into focus again and we have been just been sitting and talking for hours and hours.

August 6th 2008 (Wednesday)

Belle and I have been talking almost non-stop about everything connected with our lives. Last night we hardly slept a wink and we are quite worn out. We talked and talked, we shared some secrets that even after almost 29 years together we had never shared before and we held each other tight all night long. Now there are no more secrets and we love each other all the more for it.

Finally the news we have been waiting for. Sian from ?Can We Help? rang to tell us that they have made contact with Dorothy and she is eager to meet Belle. She did know that she had a twin named Rosabelle so thankfully our fears on that score have been put to rest.

Not long after the first call Sian rang back and now we have a rough time-table of about a month before everything should be in place and we will actually get to meet Dorothy for the very first time. We don?t quite know yet if we will be going to Malaysia or Dorothy will be coming to W.A. but I expect it is more likely to be the latter.

Everything is almost taking on a dream-like quality, it seems unreal. As we are about 1700 kilometres north of Perth at the moment, we are going to have to make our way back down the coast a little quicker than we had planned and we won?t be stopping at Bush Bay this year but WHO CARES?!?

We are planning to leave Cleaverville on August 18th and then keep on heading south until we are within easy reach of Perth. We will have to find somewhere to stay with the van near Perth and hope that the property at Oakford will be available. We have stayed there before and it is in a very good location.

Packing up has already begun but it will take a while to get it all finished.

August 7th 2008 (Thursday)

Our second last shopping day in Karratha for the year. We took the opportunity to get some passport photos taken just in case we need to go ahead and renew our passports. Belle?s should be easier to renew as hers is Australian but mine is a British passport which means I also have to get a re-entry visa, a bit of a pain but there is no way I want to give up my British citizenship.

August 8th 2008 (Friday)

It has been a week now since some kind of renewal started in our lives. Although finding Belle?s twin sister was the trigger for everything that we have gone through in the last seven days we have found that our love for each other has been completely rejuvenated.

Belle and I have always had a very strong relationship and are still very much in love, but I think we had reached a kind of plateau where we were both happy with each other and comfortable in our relationship but the kind of intensity that existed in the first few years had faded somewhat.

The events of the past week have changed all that and we are now back to the way we were when we first met without all the insecurities of a new relationship.

There is nothing more thrilling than to find that after nearly 29 years we are still both not just still in love but completely infatuated with each other all over again. This has probably been the most emotionally satisfying and deeply fulfilling week in both our lives, we hope it just goes on and on and on?..

August 9th 2008 (Saturday)

And still our emotions keep pouring out. I can?t believe that after more than 27 years of marriage we are falling in love all over again. This is all just too wonderful for words.

I have never really talked much about our relationship in this journal as for a long time it was part of the westernbelle.com website that we had on the internet and some things were just too personal to share with others but now the website has been wound up and the journal has still continued as a personal recollection of our lives, I think it is about time for me to go back in time and tell the story of how we met.

Belle is 17 months older than me but in an odd circumstance when she came out to Australia from Singapore, she dropped back a year in high school and ended up being a year behind me instead of a year in front which would ordinarily have been the case.

I started university at WAIT (now Curtin) in 1978 but it wasn?t until the following year that Belle started. We were both living in the same student accommodation at flat 6, Rotary House on campus but in the previous year I had, had a disastrous relationship with an Asian girl who was studying medical technology. I was very broken up about it and when Belle moved into the same flat I was staying in 1979, although I was initially attracted to her, I deliberately kept my distance as I didn?t want to get burned a second time. (Of course Belle is ethnically Chinese and was also studying medical technology so I went on the ?once bitten, twice shy? rule.)

We really didn?t have much to do with each other even though we lived just metres apart, one on each side of the main hall that runs the length of the flat.

I don?t know exactly when I first started to find myself thinking more about her, but I do know she brought herself to my attention in a way that we would both remember for the rest of our lives.

The student accommodation had a series of individual dormitories for the ?inmates? but there was a common room and a shared kitchen. Back in those days I was somewhat more of a cook ? more by necessity than design ? but I could make rather good cakes with coffee flavoured butter icing. I used to leave the cake on the counter in the kitchen and one day I noticed some of the cake had gone missing but there was a little note attached that said : ?Dear Marc, I stole a piece of your cake. It sat there looking at me. Rosabelle?.

I was touched, it was such a sweet thing to happen and this was the trigger that got me to stop avoiding her and from there we started to talk just a little more. I was by this time more or less over the emotional pounding I had gone through the year before and I wanted to get to know Belle better. It wasn?t until November 11th 1979 that I knew I was starting to fall deeply in love with her.

A friend of mine (Tom Little) was having a birthday party and somehow Belle and I ended up sitting together down by the lake just talking the day away. I had always been very awkward with girls before, I never knew quite what to say and to that point in my life (and bear in mind I was 19 years old then) I had never even so much as kissed a girl on the lips ? I was so very shy and innocent. For some reason I just felt comfortable with Belle, there was none of the awkwardness that I felt with other girls and I started to realise that I had been such a fool for deliberately keeping out of her way for so long.

We talked all day and I remember that evening, when we were visiting Tom in his parent?s flat, I think it was Tom?s mum or it may have been his sister (after talking to Belle about this I am now reliably informed that it was Tom?s aunt) who said something like : ?Is that your lady? in reference to Belle who was sitting beside me. My reply was : ?Not yet but I hope she will be.?

I couldn?t sleep much that night and felt I had to write something to Belle to tell her exactly how I was feeling so I did just that and Belle remembers waking and expecting to find a note pinned to her door. She woke up and went to the bathroom but there wasn?t a note, but by the time she returned to her room ? there it was.

That?s the way it all started we have never looked back from that point onward.

Neither of our families were too thrilled about our relationship but just three weeks after this picture was taken we knew we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives. We did wait a while before we actually got married which was on July 18th 1981 but it was November 11th 1979 that I knew I was hopelessly in love with her and there was no turning back.

Now nearly 29 years on I am experiencing all those wonderful powerful emotions all over again and it all seems too good to be true.

I could not have picked a more wonderful person to share my life with. Through all our troubles Belle has always been beside me and I just can?t imagine my life without her. She is sometimes naive, always bubbly, sweet, loving, kind and despite all she has been through, she still has an innocent soul. She is in fact one of the few truly good people I have ever met. How on Earth I ever managed to be lucky enough for her to love me never ceases to amaze me.

August 12th 2008 (Tuesday)

Our final week at Cleaverville for the year has officially started and as usual we have some problems developing with the car. We have known for a while that the brakes need doing but now we are getting unpleasant burning smells that can only originate in the clutch. We have to be extra gentle with the car and hope we can make it to Carnarvon as repairing it here will be completely prohibitive. (Karratha is such a rip off joint for that sort of thing.)

This means our plans of getting all the way down to Perth have had to be shelved, but thankfully when we rang Sian this morning, she said that from her end there would be no problem as the ABC could either fly or bus us to Perth ? having done one long haul bus trip I have to say that I REALLY hope it will be fly, not bus, down.

August 14th 2008 (Thursday)

Our last trip into Karratha for the year and fill up time for the car. Over $200 just on fuel plus a new rear tyre ($289) meant a rather expensive day. It will only get worse when (if?) we get to Carnarvon and have to have the brakes and clutch done on the car.

Now the real work starts as we try to find places to put everything away and there is only 4 days left to get everything done. The first job tomorrow is the routine monthly maintenance of our Honda generator and then taking the wind generator down and replacing the cable supports on the pole. The wind gen will now have to be completely disassembled as we are going to be killing time and not set up anywhere long term until we get back from Perth.

I always hate packing up here, it means the best part of the year is behind us and there is another 8 months at least before we will be back in the north west.

August 20th 2008 (Wednesday)

We spent last night at Barradale and got to Carnarvon today without any further hassles with the car. We will have to stop here a while and get everything sorted out and until the planned meeting with Dorothy takes place we will stay in town at the Norwesta Caravan Park. Normally I avoid caravan parks like the plague but at the moment this is the simplest solution.

We have to get our passports sorted out reasonably soon but may just hold off making the actual applications until after Belle gets to meet her sister. We don?t want to spend around $500 just on passports if it turns out there is no real need to get them. Since we don?t have much money to start with we have to make sure that when we spend it, we do so as wisely as possible.

August 23rd 2008 (Saturday)

Something that would once have driven me almost apoplectic, my computer breaking down, has left me somewhat disgruntled but otherwise unconcerned. I guess the impact has been softened somewhat by the fact that Belle now has her laptop ? which I can pinch when she isn?t using it, and the fact that we have two external hard drives with all our information backed up, but I have to say I was rather pleased with my understated reaction last night when the desktop stopped working. It looks like it may be the power supply and there is an Acer agent in town so hopefully all I need to do is get a new one and pop it in.

Carnarvon has markets on Saturday mornings so we went down to have a look. I can?t say I was overly impressed but the fruit and veg was quite cheap. Since it can all be bought at the plantations along River Road anyway there isn?t much point in going to the markets. There was some other arts and crafts type stalls there but nothing that interests us.

We have had a quote on the work that needs doing to the car of $1450 which is more or less what I expected so we will book it in on Monday and hopefully it will be done within a week or two.

Apart from sorting out the problems we have with Lazeaway and waiting for the ABC to tell us when we will have to go to Perth, the rest of the time here will probably be a bit of a yawn. All the fishing gear is put away so we can?t even go fishing from the jetty. Being stuck in a caravan park isn?t my favourite thing to do and I will be much happier when we can shift out to Bush Bay and be back to complete self-sufficiency again.

August 25th 2008 (Monday)

Our usual bad luck seems to be dogging us again as when I bought a new power supply for the computer ($70) I fitted it and nothing happened when I switched it on, so it looks like the mother board is dead ? the worst possible thing that can happen to a PC. I may as well just buy a new PC and stop stuffing around wasting money trying to fix this one. The rotten thing is only a couple of months out of warranty in any case.

On top of that I now have a dose of the flu! Why don?t sick people stay at home instead of wandering around giving their disgusting germs to everyone else? We went to the library this morning and there was some stupid woman with the flu coughing her lungs out over everyone ? thoughtless cow!

One of the reasons I really don?t like spending much time in towns is that I always seem to pick up any bug that is going round.

The car is booked in to get the work done on Thursday and Belle has finally had her long overdue blood test so we are starting to get somewhere with the things that need doing.

August 29th 2008 (Friday)

We picked the car up this morning and are now just over $1500 poorer. The extra money was for the leaking brake cylinders that were found on the rear wheels. Never mind, we have to keep the car in good working order as we are completely reliant on it.

The ABC seems like it is dragging its heels a bit, as every time we ring to see how things are going everything is still going to happen in about a month?s time, and we have been ringing for several weeks now. We are getting to the point where we just want to make contact with Dorothy and not be kept waiting any longer. I don?t think the people at the ABC have any real concept of how stressful this is becoming or how important it is to us. We are both finding it difficult to sleep and things are getting much too difficult. We have now decided that we want to make first contact by phone now and not wait for the face to face stuff. It really isn?t fair of the ABC to just keep stringing us along and denying us the all important breakthrough that we have been waiting for, for so long.

We don?t want to waste too much money sitting in a caravan park in Carnarvon and we would be much happier out at Bush Bay so we are thinking about moving out there next week.

The State Admin. Tribunal have set a phone conference about the problems with Lazeaway for 10:30am next Thursday so once that is over we will probably head out and free camp for a while until the ABC gets its act together.

September 2nd 2008 (Tuesday)

Developments in two areas in the last couple of days, one good, one more or less inevitable. First the bad news, DOCEP are useless and have done nothing to assist our situation with regard to Lazeaway. Although the threat of the stupid storage fee no longer hangs over us we are going to have to move the bus as the situation is no longer acceptable. The SAT phone conference is now pointless and has been abandoned.

We are not going to do anything about this just yet as the other news is that the ABC have now had a change of heart and are talking about flying us to Malaysia NEXT WEEK!

Once all that is out of the way, we will have to start looking for a new home for the bus or we will just have to get rid of it.

September 3rd 2008 (Wednesday)

From a high of thinking the ABC was about to fly us out next week to the low of finding out that it is now all being pushed back to the end of September and that they are now talking about bringing Dorothy out here again instead of us going to Malaysia.

When they told us a few days ago that we would soon be flying out to Malaysia, we thought that they finally had recognised the importance of all this to us and that they were finally taking things seriously. Now we are right down in the dumps again and Belle is even questioning just how interested Dorothy is to see her.

We are at the point now of wishing we hadn?t involved the ABC in the first place and are seriously thinking of pulling out of the whole business and just getting ourselves over to Malaysia. The costs involved would be a bit over $5000 if we want to stay there 4 weeks, which we could just about handle but then it becomes a matter of when do we go?

Apparently Dorothy only has leave over Ramadan, September 27th-October 5th or about those dates but us going then would make it even more expensive as here, it is school holiday time.

We don?t want the first meeting to be over here, we have decided that since we were the ones to find Dorothy and not the other way round then we should be the ones to fly out and this is one thing we are now not going to compromise on. If that means we have to pay the whole cost ourselves then so be it.

We simply don?t want the first meeting to be in a crappy sterile hotel room. The ABC just does not seem to understand that it is not just the first meeting that is important but how that meeting is handled and what kind of environment it takes place in. Even though they seem to be trying to help in their own way they just can?t seem to grasp how important it is to us that this first meeting is done properly.

We lost our home so have nothing to show Dorothy but she has a home and a life in Malaysia that Belle wants to find out about. If Dorothy were to come here we would have no car, no way of taking her round, we would be out of our environment and she would be out of hers. The whole thing is stressful enough without meeting in an uncomfortable setting. Why can?t anyone else understand this? Perhaps they simply think we are after a free trip but that isn?t the case at all ? we will pay to get ourselves there to make sure things are done the way we want them to be so although it will be hard for us to spend all that money it isn?t an issue when it comes to Belle?s first contact with Dorothy.

If the ABC no longer wants to be involved then we will probably give up all idea of getting there this year and will try to arrange to go next February which will be Belle & Dorothy?s 50th birthday.

At the moment we feel totally drained and exhausted. What should have been a very happy time has now been completely spoiled by the mishandling of the situation by the ABC. Belle very rarely gets over stressed, in fact in the whole time I have known her I have only seen her get VERY VERY angry on two occasions but this afternoon she got that way again.

She got so mad she even said she wished that we (actually I got the blame) hadn?t found Dorothy in the first place, not that she meant it but she was just so fed up and frustrated with everything.

Everything has taken far too long to get sorted out and we are both heartily fed up with being mucked around. All Belle wants is to contact Dorothy and be able to speak to her but still we are being forced to jump through hoops for a simple phone call ? this is all just too much.

Even the first phone contact, that would have been exciting, has now had the shine completely rubbed away.

Why the hell can?t anything in our lives be simple and straight forward'?

September 4th 2008 (Wednesday)

What an awful day, we had no choice but to pull out of the whole situation with the ABC as they can?t find enough money to get a crew to Malaysia and can?t offer anything but a first meeting in Perth. That just isn?t the way we want to handle this and so we had to tell them that we would take over and do everything ourselves.

They did offer to fly us to Perth and then pay half of our fares next year but they don?t seem to get the fact that to us this isn?t just about money. We have precious little of it, but if it means spending most of what we have to do this properly then that is a better option for us than going about it in a way we are unhappy with.

Words can?t express how devastating this has been. Just a few days ago we were all set to go to Malaysia and now everything has collapsed in a huge heap. It was an incredibly heartless thing to do, to tell us we were going next week and then pull it all away from us.

The whole experience has been irrevocably ruined by all this. I just can?t see any way of putting the shattered pieces back together again.

Now we have no choice but to wait until next year, let?s just hope nothing bad happens meanwhile.

Later?..

The ABC has finally coughed up the contact details we have been waiting so long to get. Belle has now sent the first email to Dorothy which was as follows:

?Dearest Dorothy,

By now you may have received an email from the ABC. The reason I didn?t want you to come to Perth was because we would have such a short time together before you had to fly back home again and I was very afraid that we may still be strangers to each other. The setting for our first meeting would be so sterile, contained within 4 walls. It?s taken us nearly 50 years to find you and I have to honestly say that I had given up hope. If it were not for my dear husband Marc (who never gave up the search) we may not have found each other at all. They say identical twins have a kind of ESP that passes between each other no matter the distance and not long ago I felt a dreadful fear that you felt that I didn?t want to see you. That is far from the truth. I cried so much when I saw your photo in the Malaysian article and I cried a lot that night. I don?t know how it was for you being adopted but once I found you it made me assess my own adopted life and how I have been treated in the past by my adoptive family. It seems now that I have found you, my adoptive family are keeping me at arms length and I can?t understand why. My husband and I are really the only family we?ve got so finding you has been WOW!!!! I want our first contact to be truly special. The ABC when they were thinking of flying us to Malaysia instead, even mentioned taking you and I back to our [birth] place in Bukit Besi. It was such a disappointment for us when they changed their plans yet again because I would have loved to have come home with their help. So you see I am so afraid you may not like me if we met here that it would destroy any future meeting. Please email me to let me know how you are feeling. I can?t help loving you because you are myself. I hope you feel the same way about me.

Love always,

Rosabelle ?.xxxx?.?

Now we just have to wait and see what happens.

September 7th 2008 (Sunday)

The email Belle got back from Dorothy has given us some hope that she may come down to Perth and then (crosses fingers and toes) we may be able to fly back with her. That would be a dream come true for Belle (and I) actually flying back to Malaysia with Dorothy would be an amazing thing to be able to do.

Unfortunately the black cloud on the horizon is the d******d at Laze Away who has now started ringing and making threats about the bus. The moron rang no less than 3 times on Friday making threats about us getting the bus out of there within a week. NO CHANCE! I really don?t care any longer what the little twerp tries to do, he has broken the law and he can wait until we get the most important issue in our lives dealt with. We are going to seek legal advice on Monday and see what we can do. Meanwhile I am writing to SAT and DOCEP to tell them what is going on.

The biggest issue we have to resolve at the moment is getting our passports sorted out.

We are waiting (somewhat impatiently) for Monday morning so we can find out what the ABC thinks of Dorothy?s proposal and whether they are going to keep going as they said they would.

September 9th 2008 (Tuesday)

The little rat at Laze Away is still pestering us but it isn?t going to change anything. The trouble is it is just adding to our stress levels, so much so that we had to go to the doctor today to get some pills that may help to reduce the levels a bit.

We have made an appointment with a para-legal tomorrow to see if we can at least knock the caravan park issue on the head until we get back. I know poor Belle is stressed beyond belief at the moment and this should be one of the happiest times of her life. I feel so sorry for her ? more so than for myself as I do so want her meeting with Dorothy to be wonderful and the stress over what to do with our bus is really starting to make Belle miserable.

If we could just pay someone to move everything for us I would, but we are just too far away to organise anything and there is no where organised for everything to go anyway.

On the positive side we did get an email from Adam today saying that the ABC are now working on a detailed itinerary so we do have that to focus on.

To keep my mind off everything I have been trying to keep busy by putting together a series of discs about our travels to leave with Dorothy so that she can at least see some of what Belle?s life has been like for the past 11 years.

We are still a bit stressed about what Dorothy may think of our life style but we are what we are and we are good people, so we just cross our fingers and hope that none of that will mater in the end. Belle is quite sad that we can?t offer her sister somewhere to stay here when she does decide that she wants to come for a longer visit, but things do change and by that time perhaps our lives may have taken a new path. Personally I think it would be really interesting to be able to get Dorothy and her husband down here and do some ?on the road? stuff with us so they can see how Belle?s life has been for the last 10 years.

2 weeks 4 days (from my current calculations) to D-Day and time is just dragging.

September 15th 2008 (Monday)

Believe it or not we still don?t know what on Earth is going on with the ABC and we are getting heartily sick of the whole process.

Laze Away managed to interfere with the story and have extorted $1210 in payment THAT THEY ARE NOT OWED! The money had to be paid even though it is not owed because the ABC would have dropped everything and so it is nothing more than blackmail and the ABC have actually helped them get away with it.

Right at this moment it looks as though we will lose the bus, the shed and all our possessions down there including photographs, Belle?s jewellery and God knows what else. It is utterly useless trying to get the authorities to uphold the law and we stand to lose everything all over again.

As we don?t even know if we are going to meet Dorothy, even that seems to be fading into just another forlorn hope.

Our lives are currently at the lowest ebb they have ever been.

September 16th 2008 (Tuesday)

We have finally got word from the ABC that the story IS going ahead, it certainly took long enough to get to this point. The next major concern is getting our passports sorted out and that is where we could really come unstuck.

The British Consulate have told me that I can get a temporary passport issued the same day that I front up with the correct documentation (which I do have) but the snag is the return entry visa to Australia. I have decided that if it comes to it and I can?t get one in time, then I will go anyway and sort it out while I am in Malaysia ? to hell with it!

Belle has to get her Australian passport re-issued but at least if she can get that she will have no further problems.

The next snag ? why is there ALWAYS a next snag ? ? is that the ABC want me to book and pay for my ticket to Malaysia! This is simply stupid. I have no problem paying for it but as they are booking Belle?s and Dorothy?s tickets, the very least they could do is tentatively book mine as well so we are sure we are all together on the same flight and in the same seating. Words fail me!

Here we are just a week away from the day we are supposed to fly to Perth and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING is confirmed. My father always said that Australians couldn?t organise a rice pudding, how right he was.

The big shock of the day was the price we were quoted for my air fare to Malaysia and back. We checked a week or so ago and were given a figure of about $1000 and this was what we were budgeting on. Today we were quoted a figure of $2080!! I found that very difficult to live with and spat the dummy in a big way. I was so annoyed I was close to giving up again but thinking about how disappointed this would have made Belle and Dorothy I just had to swallow the bad news and resign myself to spending the money.

Dorothy sent Belle a few more photos and Belle gets quite emotional looking at them. I have to admit that it is rather odd to look at someone who isn?t Belle but looks just like her. When identical twins grow up together, they and everyone around them just accepts the fact there here are two people who look exactly like each other but when identicals are separated and then re-united it is a peculiar experience. From what we can gather, Dorothy probably has one or more children, if that is so then it will be quite weird for them to have someone arrive who looks like ?mum? but isn?t. The whole situation is both very interesting but rather strange at the same time.

September 17th 2008 (Wednesday)

Still no confirmation of anything from the ABC, 1 week to go and we are hardly any better informed of what is going on than we were two months ago. We are now being told that we will have the final itinerary tomorrow but I have basically given up hope of them ever keeping to anything they tell us.

At least now we have managed to contact another travel agent (RAC) and have been given a much more reasonable air fare price of $1450 return. Although it is more than we expected it is a hell of a lot better than over $2000. Problem is, the ABC are now changing the flight on us again! Aaargh!!

The ABC has now said that they have managed to get Dorothy on a better flight that arrives in Perth at 3pm on the 27th instead of nearly midnight. The snag was that they were then suggesting that we then fly back a day early on the 29th instead of the 30th. That would be very unfair to Dorothy who has never been overseas before. To fly in, do the filming for the ABC, have just one day in Perth, a SUNDAY at that, then fly out the next day would be a really lousy experience for her.

Even though we won?t have our own transport available we could still hop a train to Fremantle and show her as much as we can of where we have spent most of our lives. Even though the ABC said that it would allow us to get a hotel room at their expense on our way back, I have the sneaking suspicion that they were just being cheap, as doing it that way would save them paying one extra night for Dorothy in a hotel here. We don?t care about getting a hotel room on the way back through Perth, we will just go to the domestic terminal and wait overnight for our flight the next day. Better to do that than have Dorothy miss out on a full day in Perth.

September 18th 2008 (Thursday)

There are times in my life when I really do wonder if the whole world is trying to tell me something. As the ABC has been rather awkward about booking the flights and would not assist us by even making a tentative booking for my flight. Two days ago Belle decided to cover all the bases by making a tentative booking on the Malaysian Air flight just in case the ABC decided not go proceed with the SIA flight, so I was basically holding seats on both flights just in case the original ABC itinerary changed.

Yesterday we got a call first thing in the morning saying that, yes, the SIA flight was the one the ABC had decided to go with and so we cancelled the tentative booking on the MA flight. Next thing we know we get a call from the ABC telling us that they have NOW changed their minds and they are going to go with a different flight. At that stage we didn?t know what flight, or airline the new booking was with and it was not until this morning that we found that they had now moved to the MA flight that I had originally been booked on and then cancelled when they said they were still going with SIA!!!!!

Two days ago we were given a price of over $2000 for the SIA flight and so Belle called RAC travel yesterday and got a price of $1450 as I have already mentioned above. We also started looking at travel insurance as being away for two months could leave us exposed to extra expenses if we fall ill etc. The RAC quoted a figure of $509? expensive but well, essential, so that is what we were going to go with.

This morning when we FINALLY got the confirmed bookings for Belle and Dorothy from the ABC we tried to get in contact with RAC travel and get my booking confirmed on the same flight. First we got no reply then when we got through there was only one person in the office and they would call us back! Meanwhile we are sweating blood thinking that all the seats could be booked and I would not be able to get on the same aircraft as Belle ? this would have put the mockers on the whole thing.

Belle decided to go back to Travel World in Carnarvon to see what they could do, as waiting for the RAC was taking too long. First thing we discovered was that the RAC had given us the wrong quote on insurance and if we had gone ahead with it we would not have been covered for the right region of the world. Next we found out that the insurance for Malaysia would cost $775 not $509. Thankfully Travel World discounted this and brought it down to $620.

After sorting out the insurance we then managed to confirm a booking for me on the right flight for $1278.50. So after all this time and a hail storm of hassles, all the bookings are finally in place and once we sort out the passport and visa stuff we will be set to go.

We have been through some pretty bad stress in our lives but I have to say that the last two weeks rate as probably the most unpleasant and stressful we have ever had, worse even than losing the house. We have to hope now that it all turns out to be worth it.

There is still no news about whether the bus can be moved or not, so we are no wiser about that but we no longer care.

The cost of us getting to Malaysia with the ABC subsidising our trip we are currently estimating at $3478.50. The money itself hasn?t been the major issue and even though we didn?t have a lot to begin with, I would have spent whatever it took to get Belle re-united with her sister. The thing we could have really done without has been all the stress, which in great part has been caused by the ABC either not giving us the information we needed, such as Dorothy?s contact information, or not getting their end of things sorted out before telling us what was going to happen. I have lost track of the number of times they have told us something only to change their minds and then tell us something completely different.

Their organisation of this has been very hap-hazard. Although we know there have been other external factors, like Laze Away, causing problems, that was not something the ABC should have taken any notice of and by their actions they in effect helped Lazeaway to blackmail us. This is still something we have to sort out in the courts when we get back.

As things stand now, we fly down to Perth next Wednesday, run around and sort the passports, visas, international driving license etc. out on the Thursday, do some interviews with the ABC on Friday and then on Saturday, Dorothy flies in and the ABC conclude their filming.

We then have two days to show Dorothy around Perth before we all fly back together on the following Tuesday and we are then in Malaysia until November 30th.

To top off the day, when we dropped in to the computer repair shop to see how my computer was going we were informed that when they put a new mother board in and tested it, it caught fire! They have now ordered another one so I won?t see my computer again until we get back.

September 21st 2008 (Sunday)

Well everything is now finally booked and paid for (except the passports etc.) but with our usual unwavering ability to get stuffed around it was not possible to get a booking covering 24-30 September in the same hotel so now we have to stay two nights in one hotel (Kings) and then transfer to another (Goodearth).

Strange to think that after all this time, come next Sunday Belle and Dorothy will finally be together. LESS THAN A WEEK NOW!

One recurring question that goes through my mind is; when identical twins are separated and go off to lead completely un-connected lives, would things still have worked out the same way if they had swapped places in the beginning, or would personality differences mean that each life would have been completely different to the way it turned out? The old ?nature Vs. nurture? argument that can never be answered but never-the-less is interesting to ponder on.

I am fairly sure I know how Belle will react when she sees Dorothy for the first time, what I am not so sure of is how I will react. Belle and I are so close emotionally that we tend to feel each other?s emotions almost as if they were our own, so I know that the re-union will probably have a dramatic effect on me too.

September 22nd 2008 (Monday)

About a week ago we bumped into someone we met at Bush Bay last year, it was just a chance meeting and apart from just catching up to say ?Hi? we didn?t think a great deal more about it. Today when Bobby and Gus called in and we told them about finding Belle?s sister they asked if we would like to stay with them overnight when we flew back in from Malaysia. Little did they know that our plans for that night were to spend a rather uncomfortable time waiting in the passenger terminal.

We gladly accepted their kind offer and they have even organised to pick us up and drop us back at the airport the next day for our connecting flight back to Carnarvon.

It?s strange sometimes how things work out.

September 23rd 2008 (Tuesday)

Well after all the stress and hassles we are on the ?threshold of a dream? to steal the title of a Moody Blues song. Nothing left to do now but wait for the last few hours to tick away. I can?t say I am overjoyed to be flying, in fact I hate flying, but Belle loves it. It doesn?t matter how many times I fly, I still get the jitters.

September 24th 2008 (Wednesday)

The flight from Carnarvon was about an hour late taking off but somehow it managed to make up a bit of time on the trip to Perth and we only arrived half an hour late.

The descent was quite rough (Perth airport is usually a bit of a rough ride in) and the smaller plane was knocked about a bit which made some of the less experienced flyers have a few moments of panic.

We were met at the airport by the ABC and taken to the hotel. This certainly made for a nice stress free arrival in Perth. The hotel we picked for the first 2 nights (Kings) turned out to be a bit of a ?dive? but it is only two nights so no big deal and we have certainly stayed at worse hotels before.

Tomorrow is ?run around day? as the passports and visas get organised but tonight we can just sit back and relax.

Dinner was a burger at HJ?s, anything to save money at this stage as we will need to be a bit more free with spending once Dorothy arrives. We managed to find a shop to pick up some cereal and milk for brekky but the room we are in has no plates etc. so we had to ask for them to be sent up. Somehow the request got jumbled and all we have to eat breakfast with is one tea spoon ? oh well it will take a bit longer to eat that?s all.

September 25th 2008 (Thursday)

Today was ?full on? with trips to Australian Passports, British Consulate, Immigration and the RAC for Belle?s international license in the afternoon. I am quite sure that if the ABC hadn?t been involved in all this today that we would never have been able to arrange the travel documents in time. It is amazing how co-operative various Government authorities can be when there is a film crew sitting in the office.

The day turned out to be a bit more expensive than we had budgeted for as my re-entry visa was $240 instead of around $150 that we had expected. (Last time we went overseas in 2001 it cost just $70!!)

The filming side of things takes a long time as in order to get a number of different angles and differing shots there are lots and lots of re-takes. The filming part of the day took about 4 hours and in the afternoon we got to have a look inside the sanctum of the ABC and then did a bit of grocery shopping so that we won?t starve when we get to the new hotel tomorrow. (The new hotel is quite a bit further away from the main area of town than the hotel we are in now.)

Hopefully the next room will be in better shape than the one we are in at the Kings. This one has broken light bulbs, the fridge door won?t close properly and the walls seem to be rather thin as we can hear the TV from next door almost as clearly as we can hear our own. Carpets are stained, the wardrobe door is stuffed, things like guest soaps aren?t replaced daily, bathroom ceiling paint is peeling off and the view is of a car park wall ? lovely NOT!

On the positive side I have to admit that the hotel is very conveniently located and very close to the centre of Perth. An ironing board and iron are provided in the room and the bed at least is comfortable. If I was going to stay in Perth for any reason other than the ABC story I would certainly choose not to stay at the Kings again.

The day starts at 9am again tomorrow as the ABC pick us, our bags and our food up and run us around to do more filming, get Belle?s passport and then in the afternoon conduct a more formal interview at the hotel.

All in all this is an interesting experience and Belle was quite chuffed with being the centre of attention for the day. Finally the stress of the past few weeks is starting to fade into the background, and despite being quite tired we are starting to enjoy ourselves.

Of course the whole thing comes together on Saturday when Dorothy arrives.

We know so little about Dorothy at the moment but from the few emails she has exchanged with Belle I get the sense that they really are very much alike. My prediction is that the minute they see each other they will instantly bond and that from that moment on they will become emotionally inseparable.

I think that despite the long separation and the fact that they have lived different lives in different countries, their basic characters will be as similar as their appearance.

September 26th 2008 (Friday)

Wow what a day! The film crew picked us up from the Kings Hotel at 9am and took us off to South Perth to do some outside filming. After a short lunch break the interview session with Belle was done at the new hotel room (thankfully a much better hotel room) and this went on until around 6pm.

Belle doesn?t really feel that the interview managed to capture what she has been feeling. The hectic nature of the past couple of days has overshadowed the enormity of her upcoming re-union with Dorothy and it has taken the edge off her emotions somewhat. She is worried that she will come across as being too controlled and un-emotional about everything, but I think that the meeting with Dorothy tomorrow will set the record straight about how emotional all this is.

It is quite amazing just how much work goes into producing a bit of footage no more than 10 minutes in length.

One thing I haven?t mentioned yet is that on arrival we found that the original producer (Adam) has been replaced by a new producer (Darren). This is something that we have come to be extremely grateful for. Darren is forward thinking, well organised, efficient and best of all compassionate and helpful. These were the qualities we sorely needed when this was all starting to get organised by phone and we now feel that everything is being handled professionally and in a way that we feel comfortable with. To be honest we both wish that Darren had been handling this story right from the outset.

Our cameraman (Carl) is great. We enjoy his sense of humour and he obviously knows his job inside out. We have had two different sound men on the story so far but as soundmen are always the unseen and unappreciated ones, we won?t spoil things for them by changing that state of affairs now 

Tomorrow of course is the big day. We get picked up at around 11:30am when Dorothy should already be an hour into her flight. The plan seems to be to complete some filming with us and then at around 3pm everything reaches the climax that we have all been working towards for so long.

Being a bit of a worrier I am now starting to be concerned about what the future holds. Belle has this wonderful chance to get to know her sister for the first time in her life but in just a few short weeks we will be back in Australia again and the two girls will be separated for who knows how long.

Dorothy is obviously very settled in her life in Malaysia and has all her family and friends there. We on the other hand are still on the road and have no ties to bind us. It would be wonderful if some way could be found for the girls to both live in the same country but with our limited resources and capabilities these days, I have no idea how this could ever possibly come about.

It would be tragic indeed if these few short weeks turned out to be the only time Belle and Dorothy ever get to have together. I think when the time comes for them to say goodbye in Malaysia it will be very a painful experience.

September 27th 2008 (Saturday)

The film crew came back to the hotel to do some final interview and ?getting ready? shots and then we were off to the airport. The tension and expectation grew and grew and finally we were told that Dorothy?s flight had landed.

After almost 50 years apart, Dorothy walked through the arrival doors and was finally back together with Belle.

The initial reaction of one sister to the other was quite funny, as neither sister could really see much resemblance with the other but everyone around them knew instantly that they were identical twins.

My predictions about how similar the twins were turned out not to go anywhere near far enough. It is almost impossible to believe that after a lifetime apart and living in totally different cultures these two girls are alike in almost EVERY way. From everything to their favourite colour (blue) to their likes and dislikes, the way they eat, and even the way they think they are the same.

The film crew were just as surprised and when they took each sister aside to ask them a few questions they found that the answers they got were the same from each girl. The Nature Vs Nurture argument has come down decidedly in favour of nature in this case.

The surprise for me was not that I was able to easily relate to Dorothy, after all she is just like Belle, but that Dorothy seemed to be pretty much at ease with me. On the way to Kings Park from the airport Belle started feeling ill (as she does from time to time, especially if she gets stressed) and by the time she got back to the hotel all she was able to do was to flake out in Dorothy?s room leaving Dorothy and I to get acquainted.

From my point of view it was easy, here was the identical twin of the woman I love most in the world and I didn?t have a second?s difficulty in relating to her or feeling comfortable in her presence. Dorothy on the other hand was sitting alone in a hotel room with a complete stranger but she didn?t seem the least bit phased by the situation. We sat and talked and I cooked dinner while Belle recovered and then the two girls talked and talked and talked. I would rate today as one of the happiest of our lives.

All the hassles and problems we have had over the past couple of months have now faded into the background and all our focus is now on the two girls getting to know each other at last.

September 28th 2008 (Sunday)

Today we took Dorothy around Perth to do a bit of shopping and to see a few of the sights. Belle and her sister are staying together tonight (and probably tomorrow night as well) to talk ?girl talk? without me around.

While I thought Belle had gone through some tough times in her life we have found that Dorothy has had a much more difficult time. We hope that re-uniting her with Belle will change things for the better for her. At least she now knows that she has two people in her life who will always be there for her and who will stand by her if she ever needs us.

September 29th 2008 (Monday)

Belle and Dorothy were supposed to get some sleep last night but it turned out that they just talked and talked and talked all night. Belle came back down about 6:30am and went straight to bed.

Today we took Dorothy down to Fremantle so that she could see a little more of the metro area in the very short time she is here. Although it was a public holiday the Royal Show was on, so trains were very regular and we didn?t have to wait long.

It was a rather long tiring day but we still managed to stay up past midnight. I am very glad that Belle has had this time to spend with Dorothy without any other distractions. I think it has allowed them to really start bonding very strongly.

September 30th 2008 (Tuesday)

We fly out this afternoon and it is sad the Dorothy didn?t have more time to spend in Perth. We have decided that it will be easier for us to help her come down to Australia and spend time with Belle in the future as it will be cheaper than both of us going up to Malaysia all the time. Even though we only have the caravan we can sort things out so that the girls sleep inside and I can sleep in the tent outside. We have just enough seating in the car for three people so when she does come down we can spend time showing her some of W.A.

October 1st 2008 (Wednesday)

The flight to KL was very smooth and we landed almost on schedule. We met Dorothy?s husband at the airport and he drove us back to their home and later out to the place we will be staying while we are in Malaysia. The apartment Dorothy has made available to us is very nice. It has meant that we have a lot of extra time in Malaysia than would have been possible if we stayed in a hotel and we are so very grateful that she could help in this way.

Unfortunately the two apartments are quite some distance apart and with our lack of night driving skills, the time Belle can spend with her sister once Dorothy goes back to work looks like it will be fairly limited. Meanwhile we are spending as much time with her as possible and I just love to watch these two girls getting closer and closer to each other every day. I know now that my decision to never give up the search was the right one.

The only problem we have had is the fact that it is a public holiday here and we haven?t managed to change any money. We tried the credit card at an auto teller today and it was rejected and it didn?t work when we tried it at a supermarket. We have to ring Bankwest and find out what on Earth is going on.

October 2nd 2008 (Thursday)

Thankfully the bank mix up was just some stupid administrative stuff up that has now been solved.

A hectic day running around to various places. The lifestyle in Malaysia is certainly a vast change from the way we are used to living in Australia. Here, apart from working the main activity is eating, in fact it seems to be a national obsession. 5 to 6 meals a day is about normal but we just aren?t used to it.

The other difference is the time of day for going to bed. Our usual is 9-10pm but here 1-2am! seems to be usual.

October 3rd 2008 (Friday)

Sadly Dorothy has to return to work this Monday and we won?t be able to see her as much. We have arranged a rental car for around $18 a day and expect to see that on Monday, so we will be able to get around and with luck will be able to navigate as far as Dorothy?s apartment and get to see her at least a couple of times during the week. The girls have so much to catch up on and we will never be able to afford to come to Malaysia again so it is vital that they spend as much time together as possible now but we also have to bear in mind that once Dorothy goes back to work she won?t want us under her feet all the time.

Belle has to do most of the driving and even her eyesight isn?t too good at night so our visits are likely to be limited to daylight hours.

We have been very saddened to find that Dorothy is not in a happy marriage but now that we have found her we have promised to help her as best we can but we are both very concerned about her. We are hoping that just our being here might change things for the better but if not we told her that she can come to us any time she needs to.

October 4th 2008 (Saturday)

Today we went out with Dorothy and her family to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. The meal was very good and far cheaper than anything back home in Perth.

I am still getting a thrill just watching the two girls together. Even just going shopping together they are enjoying something that has been missing from their lives for so long and I can see it on their faces. I feel very privileged to be here and just observe them as they begin to grow closer together. Normally I avoid going shopping like the plague but now I am happy to just tag along and watch the two girls together.

The highlight of the day was seeing Dorothy really smile for the first time since we met her. Like Belle, her smile lights up her face and it is so sad to think that she has had very little to smile about in her life. We may be short of money but we have never been short of love so Belle and I feel that despite the outside influences that have tried to drag us down over the past couple of months, compared to what Dorothy has been through in her life, we are truly blessed.

We think we have solved the problem of not being able to see Dorothy during the week by taking a room in a reasonably cheap hotel (70-80RM a night) for 2-3 nights a week. This means only a short drive from Dorothy?s home at night and Belle won?t be missing out so badly.

It is hard to believe that it was just a week ago that the twins were re-united. They have bonded so quickly that it seems as though they have known each other for years, what a joy it is for me to see them together at last.

October 6th 2008 (Monday)

For some reason the sim card we put into the mobile phone wasn?t working properly today but it seems to have gradually sorted itself out ? well at least we can send SMS messages but we are yet to confirm we can ring out.

Our first day on our own was both a bit of a relief and a bit lonely. The last 12 days have been completely exhausting so it was good to just sit back and relax, even so not having Dorothy around was a bit sad.

We are going down on Wednesday and will stay in a cheap hotel overnight and we will go down again on Friday to pick Dorothy up and she will come back to stay with us for the night.

Our outing for the day was a walk to the shops next door to the apartment block where Belle found a good stationery supply shop.

The rental car is now not due until around 9pm today so if that arrives as planned we will at least be able to have a look around the local area tomorrow.

October 7th 2008 (Tuesday)

In the end the rental car didn?t turn up until about 11pm but at least we are now independently mobile and $1600Rm poorer with another 1000RM still to pay in November. Today was a quiet day as we visited the local shops and got a few bits and pieces.

Tomorrow we go down to Shah Alam to see Dorothy so it will be interesting to see how well we navigate. We will stay overnight at a hotel down there and next day we will have a bit of a look around that area on our own so that we can learn where things are.

So far the weather has been much better than we expected and although there seems to be some rain each day the humidity isn?t too bad and the temperature is quite pleasant.

The stupid phone still won?t let us call out but we can SMS so we will have to put up with that until we find out what is wrong.

I managed to get some connections for Dorothy?s home theatre system that has been sitting in the apartment unused for a long time and that is now working properly (although it seems like there should be more speakers.)

The other job to do (Dorothy is already finding me jobs to do just like Belle does ) was setting up a water filter system that will allow us to get safe water without boiling it. With that done we just had a simple sandwich for dinner and got to bed at the extremely early hour (for Malaysia) of 11pm.

October 8th 2008 (Wednesday)

The big trip down to Shah Alam went smoothly and it was only when we tried to get from Dorothy?s place to the hotel that we got a bit lost. Thankfully Kevin, Dorothy?s son, was at home and he was able to guide us to the destination. When Dorothy got home we went out shopping but we were too full from lunch to have dinner so settled for a drink.

We all went back to the hotel so that Dorothy and Belle could chat for a while and again we made it well past midnight before going to bed.

October 9th 2008 (Thursday)

The hotel were stayed in last night (Royal Comfort Hotel) was a bit seedy but it wasn?t too bad. The air conditioner worked well but I still didn?t get a decent night?s sleep. I think I am too worried about Dorothy?s domestic situation and things keep running through my head. Come Friday we will have to have a talk to her about how she feels and make some suggestions about how to improve things. All we want is to see her happy.

We made our way back to Sungai Buloh by about 11am and managed to follow Dorothy?s map without any problems. One big difference between the two girls is the mapping skills. Belle just can?t deal with maps at all.

We have fixed the phone problem by swapping to one of Dorothy?s spare phones so now we can actually make calls and send SMS messages.

October 10th 2008 (Friday)

Belle and I went to see Dorothy at her work this afternoon and her colleagues put on a very nice lunch. It was interesting to see where Dorothy works and it seems as though the people she works with are a pleasant happy bunch.

Dorothy then took us to the library and with luck we will be able to find our way back there at some stage to borrow some books to read or DVDs to watch. From there we headed back to Sungai Buloh for the night.

After dinner some rather deep discussions ensued (until around 3am!) and we now think we have a plan for the future that involves things getting better for everyone. We will cross our fingers and work hard to those ends.
 

October 11th 2008 (Saturday)

Up to the town of Sungai Buloh today for lunch and to get some more money out of the bank. The Aussie dollar has dropped in value ? curses we should have changed more money sooner ? and we lost 50c Malaysian on each dollar we converted.

Dorothy had to attend a wedding reception tonight and at first we wondered if she would make it as the weather closed in and a huge thunder storm rolled in. Eventually it cleared and we drove her back to Shah Alam and then waited for her before coming back to SB. Poor Dorothy was ill (like Belle she gets sick when she is stressed out) but still we managed to ?burn the midnight oil? again and by 3am we crawled off to bed.

Late nights, thunder storms and eating out are becoming the three major impressions I have developed of Malaysia since we have been here.

October 12th 2008 (Sunday)

Today was the first time we managed to broach the subject of migration to Australia with Dorothy?s husband, Richard. He seemed to be quite interested in the idea and we will be very interested to find out what he said to Dorothy on the way home.

I have sent an email to Mara Pritchard at Australian Immigration asking what can be done about helping Dorothy and her family to immigrate and I have to say that Mara is exactly the right person in the right place at the right time. She is an ex-journalist and will know immediately the potential that all this will have.

We are very hopeful at this point and are now focusing firmly on a future where the two girls will be living in the same country.

As the girls get better acquainted we are finding some differences but we now use the ?ying and yang? as an analogy because where one skill that the other lacks each seem to balance each other out in different areas. This is difficult to explain on paper but it sort of goes like this:

Belle has a life filled with love but has very little money, Dorothy is reasonably well off but so far has not managed to have the love that she desires. Where one lacks something, the other seems to have it and vica versa. The main differences between the two girls seem to be due to purely environmental things like work. Dorothy has much better computer and tech related skills than Belle because her work involves using computers etc. Why Belle has such a poor sense of direction is difficult to explain because Dorothy has exactly the opposite.

Following are some of the similarities we have discovered to date:

Both adoptive fathers died while the girls were still children.
Both mothers were Red Cross nurses.
Both their mothers died in tragic circumstances.
Both only received a necklace as a keepsake but would have preferred a pendant.
Both get left and right directions mixed up.
Both get the words of popular sayings mixed up.
Both are left handed even though we are pretty sure that they are mirror twins.
Both have the favourite colour of blue but both prefer to wear pinks.
Both eat food very slowly.
Both eat certain types of food (Ie. Crab) in exactly the same way.
Both are very outgoing, talkative and sociable.
They have similar taste in music.
They like the same sort of foods.
Both are very emotional but Belle, unlike Dorothy, does not keep it inside.
Both show a natural artistic talent.
Both have a kind of OCD.
Both see the need to always try and justify their actions to others.
Both drink very little alcohol.
Neither smoke.
Both like to sing.
Both like to fish.
Both like similar television programmes.
Both started wearing eye glasses at the age of nine.
Both suffer from motion sickness and get ill if over stressed.

Now what about the differences?

Belle likes to wear bright colours, Dorothy likes pastels.
Belle wears much more makeup.
Belle also wears many different perfumes.
Belle and Dorothy may both love food but Belle is a lot more fussy about what she will eat.
Their hair styles are markedly different.
Their hand writing is not all that similar but hey can easily imitate the others writing if they try.
Dorothy has had children and Belle has not.
Dorothy is quite religious and Belle is not.
Dorothy is much more computer literate.
Each kicks with a different foot.
Their facial expressions are different except when they smile.
Belle is not a ?spur of the moment? person but Dorothy is.

It has been nice to see some positive changes in Dorothy since we first met her. She was rather stiff and wooden when Belle first started to hug her but now she is the one who is initiating the hugs with her sister. The poor girl has been so starved of affection for so long that she really needed Belle to come along and break down the wall that she has built around herself. I have always said that Belle is so affectionate that she could get a rock to hug her back!

The main thing that has come out of this meeting between Belle and Dorothy is that they obviously were in desperate need of each other but until they met neither knew just how deep seated that need really was. I don?t think I will ever grow tired of seeing them together and I have witnessed some very touching and beautiful moments between them. If only we can find a way for them to be together from now on.

October 13th 2008 (Monday)

A very quiet day in the apartment at Sungai Buloh. Time to catch up on all those late nights. Spent the morning getting one of Dorothy?s old printers working. It took several hours and almost all the cleaning fluid I bought but it seems to be working reasonably well now.

October 14th 2008 (Tuesday)

Just a bit of shopping at ?Central?, the local shops today and the rest of the day more or less relaxing.

Hard to believe that two weeks have already slipped by since we got here, time is going much too fast and it won?t be long before we have to say goodbye, best not to think about it yet though.

Tomorrow is house chores day and then on Thursday we will go down to Shah Alam again for the night and back here with Dorothy on Friday evening.

October 18th 2008 (Saturday)

Another delightful day watching the twins growing ever closer together. Where Dorothy was once a bit hesitant to hug Belle, now she is initiating the hugs and we can tell that this is a bit of a turning point in how she views life. We can only hope that she will continue to remove the emotional walls that she has been building around herself and she will eventually find real happiness in her life.

Belle cooked one of our favourite dishes for dinner (Belle?s own recipe for prawn & sun dried tomato pasta) so that Dorothy could at last taste some of her culinary delights and once more bedtime was sometime around 2:30am.

October 19th 2008 (Sunday)

A relatively quiet day with lunch at Sungai Buloh town and then back to the flat where the girls decided to play ?make up?. Watching them together it is impossible to see them as nearly 50 years old, they are just two wonderful sweet young girls having fun and doing the things that have been missing for so long in their lives.

I took quite a few photos and when we looked through them together on the computer we found quite a few where it was almost impossible to work out which twin was which. I have known Belle for 29 years and if I had not taken the shots myself, even I could not tell who is who.

I know I?ve said it before but I really do feel so privileged to be able to watch them and to share in the absolute delight they seem to find in each others company. Dorothy is starting to smile more now and when they both smile at the same time it is just like the sun coming out from behind the clouds on a dull drizzly day.

With the end of the weekend Dorothy had to head home again ready for work tomorrow and the fascinating tableau I have been watching all weekend came to a close until next week. How we will cope when we have to fly home I just don?t know?. I can no longer imagine a life where the two girls have to remain separated.

November 2nd 2008 (Sunday)

Another weekend has slipped away from us before we even knew it was gone and now we are facing the downhill run to the end of our time in Malaysia. We only managed to see Dorothy from Saturday afternoon and through most of Sunday this weekend which really is less than we would like but we have to remember that she has a life going on that involves much more than just us, so we just have to be patient and enjoy the short time we get to spend together.

Dorothy jokingly said as I walked down with her to her car that we would probably be glad that she was going home at last and I said that each time she had to go we were sad but that just doesn?t cover how we feel.

Before we met Dorothy, Belle and I made up 100% of everything we cared about, now we have found her we now only make up 66%, Dorothy is the one who now makes us complete and without her around something is always missing. The apartment is not the same without her here and she is the main topic of our conversations during the week. Our lives have changed forever. One thing we never really thought about was just how quickly a bond would form between us and how painful each separation will be.

She spoke to us for the first time today with tears in her eyes about how our leaving at the end of the month affects her but I don?t think she realises yet that although Belle and I may have each other, without her we are also now alone. A vital part of our lives is missing when we are not together. I said to Belle when Dorothy had gone today that the three of us together just seems so right. I already get choked up thinking about how hard leaving for Aus will be and I know the last night here will bring little but tears. Until then we need to stay strong and positive and basically have as much fun together as we can.

Before we go I hope we can put in place a solid plan and a timetable for Dorothy to come out and see us next year, I think we are all going to need something like that to cling to, to keep us going. She is thinking about next September but that seems much too far away at the moment. We shall have to see how things go and how much money we have available when we get home. Personally I am hoping that her Company will be able to give her some leave without pay so that she can double the time she can come over for and we can easily give her enough money to cover any lost wages. Flying down for just a week would be awful ? far too short and difficult for us to show her around much.

The next few weekends are planned out already, with next weekend earmarked for a trip to Malacca, the following weekend to KL on Saturday and then seeing Dorothy?s work mates for lunch on Sunday. The weekend after we have Saturday free and then meet Dorothy?s church friends on Sunday. The final weekend we will be down at the budget hotel on Saturday and then ? the most awful day, leaving on Sunday?.I can hardly bear to think about that. Never mind, we still have much to share together and sad thoughts need to be put aside for now.

As the time ticks away every second we spend with her is more precious than gold and if I can I am going to find excuses to get a couple of extra nights down at the budget hotel. The girls both worry about spending money but money means nothing in all this, in fact it is for times like this that we have money in the first place. What on Earth is the point of money if it can?t give you a bit of extra time with those you love? A week up here on our own, well 5 days really, seems too long and I know we will regret it if we don?t make the effort to be with her.

November 3rd 2008 (Monday)

After just over a month in Malaysia we have had a chance to reflect on life back in Australia and how that differs from what people have over here. We grumble a lot about things at home but compared with life in Malaysia we live in paradise!

There is no decent medical system in Malaysia, if you get sick and can?t pay then basically you are left to die. People are exploited by their employers (converting from Australian dollars to Ringgit we actually get more on a pension than Richard does working almost all week!) there is no national pride in the country and everything is dirty and poorly maintained. There seem to be no set standards when it comes to buildings and the discrimination against the smaller ethnic groups is not only evident, it is supported by the government. There are few nice parks and places for people to relax and the only thing Malaysia has going for it is the cheap food.

Australia by comparison really is a ?land of milk and honey?.

Back to yesterday?s topic again?. Belle sometimes has the ability to say some quite profound things that on reflection are also very disturbing. She did it again when she was thinking about Dorothy and spoke about how Dorothy will feel after we go home and she comes up to Sungai Buloh for the first time as finds the place empty. I now can?t get the thought out of my head and I can?t help putting myself in Dorothy?s place and thinking about how she will feel.

Dorothy puts on a hard face for the world but I have seen behind the mask and I know she is as soft as Belle inside. It was with these thoughts running through my head that I woke this morning with tears in my eyes. I had to struggle to keep Belle from seeing how I was feeling as I didn?t want her to start thinking more about it as well.

November 5th 2008 (Wednesday)

A lovely cool morning courtesy of the rain means that we may stay in today instead of heading down to Shah Alam as planned. With little to do, it is time to do some pondering and record a few thoughts, facts and observations.

The first subject to write about is one that has dominated our thoughts and hearts since August 1st ? Dorothy. So far I haven?t sat down and recorded much of her story so now is as good a time as any to do so.

Like Belle, the memories of her early years are a bit faded but she does remember more than Belle and apparently the two families were neighbours. The girls not only lived next door to each other during that time but they were playmates. When the families moved Belle?s went to Singapore and Dorothy?s eventually ended up in Penang.

Dorothy was adopted to be a companion and playmate for another ?adopted? girl named Ann. Ann (if I remember correctly what Dorothy told us) was actually the child of her adoptive mother?s sister who was unwanted by the aunt and taken in by Dorothy?s mum. There is no mention of her mother ever having a child of her own but Ann was a blood relative while Dorothy was not.

Dorothy?s adoptive father was English not Australian as we had been led to believe. While he was still in the picture her life seems to have been a relatively stable and happy one. When she was nine years old her father went to England leaving the family virtually destitute. I suspect there is more to this particular part of the story than Dorothy remembers or was told but the years have effectively covered over the past.

Dorothy and her family were then forced into a life of hardship and uncertainty. The stability of her childhood evaporated as the family moved from place to place without ever finding security. She did not have the chance to enter higher education and had to find work in her late teens. Her father did make a brief re-appearance (I think she said she was about 13 at the time) but was very ill and died just 10 days after re-locating the family.

As we had suspected, Dorothy was not originally told that she was adopted. Her adoptive mother was Chinese so unlike Belle there was no obvious difference in the racial makeup to tell her any different. Her sister Ann seems to have found out about the adoption before Dorothy did and her attitude completely changed at this time.

Dorothy?s sister Ann (now married and living in England) seems to have been jealous of Dorothy and as Ann was actually a blood relative she started to treat Dorothy very poorly after she discovered Dorothy was not related by blood.

Dorothy found out she was adopted by accident when she was 16 and I can?t imagine how much of a shock this must have been to her. Having grown up all your life thinking you were your mother?s real child and then finding out you were not, is something that can leave deep emotional scars. Belle was lucky in a way because she knew from an early age that she was different to her adoptive family, no one actually had to tell her she was adopted as it was obvious.

Being adopted means that your birth parents have already abandoned you and this on its own can cause great distress. Add this to discovering at the tender age of 16 that you are not who you thought you were and things get even more complicated. I know Belle has a lot of insecurities buried deep inside her and I can?t help but feel that Dorothy must be the same.

Although Dorothy speaks a number of languages and is more closely associated with the culture here, she is still regarded as something of an outsider. Belle falls very much into the western culture and can only speak English but even though Dorothy had a much more Asian upbringing and lifestyle she still gets called ?banana? by the locals. Why banana? Because a banana is yellow on the outside and white on the inside. So like Belle, she is neither western nor fully Asian and has had to make a place for herself somewhere between the two cultures.

I feel sorry for both girls in this respect as they have no real roots. Although I don?t think about it much, if someone asks me what I am, I always identify myself as being English. Even though I have spent 39 of my 48 years in Australia I will always identify myself with the country of my birth and the history and culture associated with it. Neither of the girls (especially Belle) really have a cultural identity to hold on to. This is just one of the many insecurities in their lives.

When, at the age of 24, Dorothy chose to get married, she seems to have selected her partner on the grounds of his ability to provide for a family rather than any notion of being in love. Belle on the other hand married purely for love, she must have as I had nothing else to offer at the time and I don?t have much more to offer even now! We were both broke, we had dropped out of university (Belle only went back to complete her degree much later when we were both working) and were unemployed. Even so I remember the early part of our marriage as being one of the happiest. We lived in a small rented one roomed flat and had two push bikes that we used to go shopping on. We had virtually nothing but each other but that was all we ever wanted so we had everything our hearts desired.

From what I can see it is love that is most important thing in life as it is possible to be poor and happy and equally possible to have money and be miserable. (Mind you I wouldn?t complain if we were rich and happy!)

It seems to be the lack of deep emotional love that is missing from Dorothy?s life and knowing Belle as I do, I believe that the root of all Dorothy?s sadness comes from this lack of a close personal bond and the genuine affection that flows from such a thing. Like Belle she needs the security of a deep and abiding love and not just love but friendship. Belle and I have always been in love but we are also best friends and soul mates. Hopefully we will be able to share some of that with Dorothy and she will find, at least in part, some of what has been missing from her life.

Dorothy has had 4 children in all but two did not survive. Again a huge cause for insecurity in her life. The final blow to her emotions came when her mother died. Dorothy obviously loved her mother dearly and I don?t think she has ever managed to get over the tragic circumstances of her death. She blames herself even though she has no reason to do so. She has never had anyone to love or to love her like her mother and the lack of affection in her marriage meant that she had no emotional support when her mother died. This single fact makes me so sad that we could not have found her earlier. If only we could have been there for her when she so desperately needed someone close to give her the love and support she needed I think her life would have been much happier.

The future is a very uncertain creature but I think we have at least managed to bring hope into her life, something that she has not had for far too long.

November 9th 2008 (Sunday)

(after a weekend away at Malacca)

When we got to Sri Muda we found the hotel was booked out and after looking at another (much more seedy version) nearby and deciding against stopping there, Dorothy said that she wanted to come back to Sungai Buloh with us. I could also see that Dorothy wanted to do all she could to keep the weekend going and not to have it end too soon. We felt exactly the same way so after some token resistance we gracefully surrendered to the idea and Dorothy drove us up.

Sadly time eventually caught up with us and quite late in the night we had to say goodbye and a truly magic weekend was over. Time really is slipping away from us now far too quickly.

I think Dorothy has had more fun in the short time we have been here, than she has had in a very long time and it is wonderful to see her laughing, relaxing and enjoying herself. She has a sense of humour that in some ways is a little closer to my own than Belle?s and she isn?t averse to giving me a ?bit of stick? occasionally. I am very happy that she feels comfortable enough to do this as in Australia it is quite normal to tease people you are very close to. Of course I don?t let her get away with it scot free and I am just as happy to tease her a bit in return.

November 11th 2008 (Tuesday)

Even though there are still 18 days left before we have to go home we are starting to feel the terrible impact of how leaving will make us feel. In the last few weeks we have grown closer and closer to Dorothy. I always thought that when the time came for us to go it was going to be very sad but I completely under-estimated just how devastating it really is going to be. Last night Belle and I were sitting on the sofa and we both just burst into tears and put our arms round each other trying in vain to find some sort of comfort.

Dorothy may have had a tough life but she is an absolutely wonderful person and we are both completely captivated by her. The thought of more than a few days going by without seeing her is unbearable and our emotions are becoming more and more difficult to control. Dorothy has had to be a lot tougher mentally than us and I know she is struggling to keep everything under control but when the dam wall breaks I think there will be a huge flood of emotions from her, I just hope she doesn?t wait until we have gone to allow that to happen ? we will need to be together when it does.

We are starting to do more about getting Dorothy permission to come and live in Australia. At least if we can get some sort of positive answer to that before we go, there will be something to hold on to. Belle is writing directly to the Minister for Immigration pleading for special consideration because of the unique circumstances and also sending a letter to Darren asking for whatever support the ABC can give.

Finding and meeting Dorothy has been the single most powerful and emotional experience of our lives. In just a few short weeks we have come to love her more than mere words can express, she is now part of us and we cannot let her go.

November 15th 2008 (Saturday)

The subject of getting Dorothy to migrate to Australia is rarely far from the surface these days but I know she is still struggling with the whole idea of having to walk away from 24 years of marriage. I think she realises deep inside that there is nothing left for her here and that her best option is to make a break but I also know just how difficult that will be for her. There is still the forlorn hope that R. will eventually wake up and give her what she needs but sadly this has gone on too long and while Dorothy seems to have done everything humanly possible to keep the marriage alive, R. has never responded and there really isn?t any sign that he ever will.

November 16th 2008 (Sunday)

This morning when I woke the two girls were fast asleep next to each other and for a while I just sat up and watched them sleeping. I find some of these moments so touching and beautiful. Something so simple and innocent but also something they have been denied for all these years; the closeness, the togetherness that they have needed for so long.

Later I managed to film an interview style session with both Belle and Dorothy and to my surprise it was Dorothy who provided the most emotional moments. She has had to be so brave, so strong, in a life that, until now, refused to give her the love she needed. I am so pleased that she trusts us enough to allow her vulnerable side to show from time to time but she really does need to let herself go more often as it is unhealthy to continually bottle all your emotions up inside. She still seems to view crying as being weak but it really isn?t al all. I think allowing yourself to show your true feelings to those you care about is in itself, an act of courage.

We went down to Sri Muda to meet some of Dorothy?s friends from church where she had the opportunity to ?show Belle off?. I can see how much she loves the fact that she now has Belle in her life and she takes great delight in introducing Belle to the people she has known for so long.

Back at Sungai Buloh, Dorothy cooked dinner and for the first time we got to see how she ?stacks up? as a cook. Dinner was delicious so Belle obviously now has some competition in the culinary stakes.

Once again the weekend came to an end around 10pm and the apartment seemed that much more empty once Dorothy had gone. It is so sad to think that next weekend is the last full one we will spend together up here. We just have to get Dorothy out to Australia, we will wither and die without her. Not even two weeks left here now'.All we need is to get some official word that says Dorothy can come and live in Australia, at least once we have that then we really have something to live for and to work towards.

November 19th 2008 (Wednesday)

The ?fix it? man finally turned up this week after suffering the tragedy of a broken drill last week. An extra fan and light were installed and although the work was ok as far as Malaysian standards are concerned it would be unthinkable in Australia. Here it is quite acceptable to run conduits along ceilings and walls to get power to new areas. In Australia ALL wiring and plumbing is hidden from view.

The job didn?t get finished so he is due back tomorrow to install a washing machine and a couple of power points.

I am very out of sorts today, maybe it?s the flu, maybe it?s thoughts of having to go home and leave Dorothy on her own here, maybe it?s the lack of progress in getting an answer from Immigration, maybe it?s all the above. All I know is I am a very grumpy bum today. Belle and I were quite niggly with each other.

November 20th 2008 (Thursday)

With all this time on my hands I have little to do but sit and ponder why things turn out the way they do. Why didn?t we find Dorothy before this? What is so special about this point in time? Looking at the way things have turned out there are all sorts of co-incidences that came together over the years to make this time possible.

If we had found Dorothy way back in 1989 when we first started searching I wonder how differently things would have turned out. Even if she had been more into computers in 1999 and had looked for herself on the web, I think everything would have been completely different. In all the years between 1999 and 2008 she never looked up her own name on the net, you have to wonder why?

Now Belle and I are in a position where we are basically free to do more or less what we please (within budgetary constraints) and we have been able to spend much more time in Malaysia than we could have at any other point. Even that would not have been possible if Dorothy hadn?t decided to buy a second apartment. Dorothy had also reached the stage where she felt cut off from her family, she was alone and desperate almost not caring if she lived or died. Putting all the life lines and co-incidences together tends to lead to the conclusion that something different has to happen in all our lives now. Why life has to be so difficult I just don?t know. We are at a cross road, which direction will life take us this time?

Everything in our lives now hangs in the balance. All our dreams and wishes for the future are more or less in the hands of other people. This is so emotionally draining and frustrating. Add to that the fact that in 10 days we will be on the way home?. I would give just about anything not to have to go.

Dorothy, of course, is firmly of the opinion that her God is behind all this, and given the number of things that had to come together in order for us just to find her, it is tempting for most people to see a plan of sorts behind it. Unfortunately all I see is just a series of related and unrelated events that happened in a way to allow us to find ourselves here. Strangely enough I actually envy Dorothy her ability to believe in a God. I never will have that belief but I can see how it helps to make sense of a very cruel and unfathomable world.

I also have to ask myself why, when Belle had given up, did I keep looking for Dorothy? In my mind at least, it was to find the missing part of Belle. Like Dorothy, we had also reached a point in our lives when we were drifting aimlessly. We had no goals, no purpose, no meaning, we were like ghosts drifting through the world with no real family and nowhere to call home.

The minute we found Dorothy everything in our lives began to change, even how Belle and I related to each other was profoundly influenced. Then when we finally got to meet her and found she was in a similar position there was finally some sort of light at the end of the tunnel.

If Dorothy had been happily married we would simply have met, she and Belle would have formed a bond of sorts and we would have gone home, back to a life of drifting around without meaning.

The way things actually have turned out so far is very strange. All three of us needed each other in different ways and it is hard to believe just how well we get on together. I don?t expect everything to always be as smooth as it has been so far but I also don?t think the bonds that have formed will ever be broken.

November 21st 2008 (Friday)

If nothing has happened re-immigration by the end of March then we will be looking at moving north again. Assuming that happens then it will be August before we head south and if Dorothy has not been able to come over between January and March, we expect she will be planning to come over to see the spring wildflowers. (It really would be much better if she could come while we are in the south west corner which is a great place to explore. It really would be amazing if the girls could be together for their 50th birthday!)

If she has been over and things are still dragging then I think we will seriously consider coming back to Malaysia (assuming that is still possible both financially and accommodation wise) once we are back near Perth. Well that is the thoughts for next year at the moment, plans usually change rapidly as things move in their own direction but there has to be some sort of basic plan to start with.

At some point during the afternoon Belle commented that it would be good if Dorothy came up to SB straight from work and brought the tiffin carrier with her instead of going back to SA. Well weird or not Dorothy turned up much earlier than expected having come straight here from work and guess what, she had the tiffin carrier with her! I am really starting to wonder if there is some sort of telepathy going on between the twins. Now I am more intrigued than ever to do some ESP testing and see if any sort of link can be empirically proven.

November 22nd 2008 (Saturday)

Today the three of us mostly mooched around Shah Alam central and had lunch at the same Japanese restaurant we went to on October 4th. How long ago the first meal there seems and how quickly the time has passed. This time next week it will just about all be over?. I just can?t even start to think about that now so I have to stop writing.

We tried to do a sort of ESP test using cards with pictures that neither twin had seen before. Although it was hardly conclusive and no cards were picked in the correct sequence, it was worthy of note that Belle correctly picked 4 of the 8 pictures correctly and Dorothy got 2 out of 8. Even though none were in the right sequence, since neither twin had seen the images prior to the test it is interesting that so many cards got identified when I really didn?t expect any to be correct.

November 23rd 2008 (Sunday)

We went down to Central to pick up a few things and even just being there and thinking that it could be the last time we are there together started me off again. It got to the point where I just had to walk outside for a while to recover as I didn?t want the girls to see how it was affecting me.

By this time next week we will be flying over Australia. If only I could be sure that we would all be together again. Life can be very unpredictable and we don?t know from one day to the next what is going to happen, there is no guarantee that we will ever see each other again and I am just not coping at all well now. I am trying very hard for Dorothy and Belle?s sakes not to let the emotions show but holding it all inside is almost physically painful.

Just a few precious hours left today then Thursday night, Friday and Saturday.

In the end Dorothy decided to stay the night and go to work from Sungai Buloh in the morning. This gave the girls the chance to play ?dress-up? and I was lucky enough to get some lovely pictures.

Dorothy cooked dinner for us and it was the best meal we have had since we came to Malaysia. She really is an excellent cook. Not only that, she did the whole meal, soup, fish, chicken and potato, beans, cauliflower and prawns on just one burner!

To this point in time, the girls have managed to spend 36 (out of a possible total of 59) days either together either as full days or at least a few hours. I think now they are completely inseparable emotionally and it was just wonderful that we had the opportunity for things to have worked out this way. By the time we have to go we will add 3 more days making 39 in all, not enough to compensate for all the missing years but enough to really find out how we all feel about each other.

This has been a wonderful beginning and now we can make plans for a future where the girls can be together.

I still can?t explain exactly why our lives have taken this turn and I don?t know where it is going to lead us. I have stopped trying to work out things that I don?t understand and I am just going to accept things as they are. Like Dorothy I am just going to have faith that these things are going on for a reason.

November 25th 2008 (Tuesday)

This time next week we will be waking up in Carnarvon? hard to accept that at the moment. Just two months ago we were still waiting to meet Dorothy for the first time, it seems like a lifetime now and in some ways it is. What a strange journey we started on when we first saw her photo in The Star. I really can?t remember a time in our lives when we have been happier than the past two months. Everything just seems to have fallen into place at last.

Dorothy too has changed since we first met. Some things that she was struggling to accept she has finally ?seen the light? on and I think her mind is more at peace with regard to that. The problems with R. that had taken over her mind and almost obsessed her have, at least partially, receded into the background. Even though there may be some tough times to get through, I can see she is almost a different person to the one we first saw in Perth. It has been so wonderful to see her happy. I think for the first time in ages she is getting back to being her real self again.

At least when we get home we have a lot to do that will help keep our minds occupied. Dorothy has her work and in no time Christmas and New Year will be upon us, then with luck we go down to Cowaramup to look after the house and before we know it Dorothy will be with us again (crosses fingers).

The worst part today is seeing all the suitcases starting to fill up. Belle has to leave some things here and so do I as the light coloured shirts would quickly get ruined if I wore them in Aus. Even so we are struggling to get everything else packed away.

We have decided not to bother going down to KL again this trip, our minds are just too occupied with other things to bother about sight seeing or shopping.

As the time to go approaches I can feel the emotions starting to build up. I am NOT going to enjoy going home. I am starting to get quite despondent, how can life be so complicated and cruel?

One thing I have noticed that is quite peculiar. Originally when I looked at Belle and Dorothy all I could see were the similarities between them, now all I can see are the differences. In fact I am now almost unable to see them as identical twins. I am not at all sure why this has come about. They do say that as identicals grow older they become less and less similar but how does that fit with the fact that originally I saw them as being very similar? Perhaps it is due more to the fact that I am now viewing them as separate individuals and my mind is not willing to see them as being so similar. I know they have both never seen each other as looking the same.

November 26th 2008 (Wednesday)

It is almost impossible to believe that just 2 months ago we were on the eve of meeting Dorothy for the first time. Somehow it all seems unreal, how can all this have happened in two short months? If someone had told me back then what was going to happen I would have laughed at them! Not one of us could have predicted back then that our lives would have been changed in so many wonderful and interesting ways.

I wonder what was going on in Dorothy?s mind at 8:06pm on September 26th? What did she think Belle and I would be like? Nothing like the crazy people we turned out to be I bet. I am sure she could never have even guessed back then what an odd pair she would find herself stuck with.

Looking back at the journal entries I made before we met Dorothy I did predict that she would be a lot like Belle, I just didn?t know how right I was!

We have shared such marvelous times together in the last few weeks and not only have I been so wonderfully privileged to be an observer, I have also been taken in as ?one of the girls? a rare thing indeed for any man to get that level of acceptance. The delight I have felt in watching the girls together has been matched by the delight in watching Dorothy start to shine from the inside again. A light has been switched on inside her that had all but gone out and it shows in her face and her every action when the three of us are together. Last weekend she was positively glowing.

She is an absolute joy to be around and each weekend we have both looked forward eagerly for her face to appear. The days without her have been lack-lustre and rather empty but now we have to face not just days but entire weeks without seeing her, not a nice thought.

Her sense of humour, her quirky little phrases, her laugh and that lovely smile that she had kept hidden for too long, all these things Belle and I have become so accustomed to we will now have to do without, how much more empty life will be.

November 30th 2008 (Sunday)

As I type this I am sitting outside gate C4 at KLIA waiting to board our flight home. Leaving Dorothy this morning was every bit as painful as I expected it to be. Belle was the one who didn?t break down and cry at the hotel but she did once we were in the taxi on the way to the airport.

By the time we were due to fly back to Australia, Belle and Dorothy had bonded completely. It was almost as if they had spent their entire lives together. Leaving Malaysia and saying goodbye to Dorothy was perhaps one of the most traumatic events in our entire lives. Thankfully Dorothy had already decided to come out to Australia again in January and spend three weeks holiday with us. This did eventuate and she arrived on January 25th.

By now we knew that there was no way the girls could separate again and we had to make plans for making an application for Dorothy to live permanently in Australia. This is where we hit quite a weird hic-up.

As the girls had both been adopted by different families their legal ties to each other had been separated and there was no way to make a valid application for Dorothy to immigrate to Australia. This was taken up by the Sunday Times newspaper and by Channel 7 which shot a story on the issue. In the end there was nothing for it but to make an application that we had already been told was going to be rejected at a cost of $2105. The next step, that took many more weeks, was to make an application for a review of the rejection at a further cost of $1400. Then once this process has all been exhausted we make a direct appeal to the Immigration Minister in the hope that he will recognise the special significance of this case and will grant Dorothy permanent residency. In January all this was still very much in the future.

When it came close to the time for Dorothy to Return to Malaysia and for the girls to say goodbye once more it just became impossible to do. The pain and heartbreak of such a parting would have been too much to bear. Dorothy stayed on for a few weeks while we sorted things out in Australia and we flew back with her again on April 7th. She spent the next 6 weeks winding up some issues in Malaysia and then we flew back to Australia together on May 20th.

Since January 25th the girls have been together on a 24/7 basis. We have made the application to the Dept. of Immigration and have also made the application for review which we also expect to be rejected. Our only hope is that Minister Chris Evans will give the girls the gift they most want in the world - the chance to spend what remains of their lives together.

I have no doubt about the fact that the girls could not separate again without experiencing severe mental trauma. They have an innate need to be with each other and this is our most heartfelt wish for the future.
 

December 1st 2008 (Monday)

Our friends Gus and Bobby are such nice people. We really haven?t known them all that long but with some people you just hit it off right away. They have a lovely home and they were so interested in seeing the footage of Belle and Dorothy together. I hope they get a chance to meet Dorothy one day.

They drove us down to the domestic terminal and we caught the flight up to Geraldton and then Carnarvon. The ride was a bit bumpy in places but overall not too bad. I managed not to get teary today but this time it was Belle?s turn.

I think Belle has finally realised how lucky she is to live in Australia after spending time in Malaysia. She even says she is proud to be an Australian citizen.

We are now back in the caravan but with our usual luck the car isn?t working. We had a new clutch put in ($1500 worth of work) before we left and now the clutch isn?t working so we are waiting for the RAC to turn up and tell us what is wrong. Of course we don?t have any food etc. either so have to get to the shops and even more important I want to get to the internet and email my girlfriend 

Meanwhile the RAC man has turned up and had a look and the car wasn?t as bad as we first suspected. The clutch fluid had drained over the 2 months we had been away and a bit of adjustment was all that was required and it didn?t cost anything.

Picking the mail up was the most stressful event of the day because of the problems with the bus. We think at this point that the bus has already been removed but we will be able to find out on Thursday for sure because that is when the S.A.T. has scheduled a conference. Either way I no longer care. If we lost the stuff in the bus it is nothing compared to what we have found in Dorothy. She is now the only thing in our lives that matters.

One thing I forgot to mention before is that customs did pinch the pressed flowers that Dorothy put on the pencil holder she made for Belle. We did expect that to happen but it was sad to lose something Dorothy had put time and effort into making.

Dorothy emailed to ask about timing for her flight and she has pushed the date up to January 25th or 26th. We don?t care what time the flight gets in so the earlier date is better for us. It will depend on how easy it is for her at the Malaysian end.

As she now intends going back on February 15th that means a whole 3 weeks together!

No matter what happens with the bus we plan to be on the road south by Friday. If the bus has in fact gone then we will just take our time going south as there won?t be any need to rush. We won?t have access to the internet for a while but will SMS Dorothy when we are in phone range to tell her where we are.

Belle has to see the doctor tomorrow and I have to start checking the car and caravan and get it all ready for travel. This means checking all tyre pressures, oil levels, fluids, coolant etc. and then making sure the generator is starting properly, getting loaded up with fuel and water and making sure the porta potty is ready.

It is 7:57pm (our time) or 6:57pm Malaysian time so Dorothy is probably at home (perhaps folding the washing and watching TV) it is so easy to imagine her there now.

When we walked into Woolworths in Carnarvon today it was almost as if we had never left. If it wasn?t the memories and photos we have then it would all seem like just an amazing dream.

I have a little project to attend to and that is to make copies of some of the Australian documentaries I have in the DVD collection. There are some really good ones about Australia that I can send to Dorothy.

Looking back.......(10:09pm December 1st 2008)

Well now that the first meeting is all over and the first big trip is done I can sit back and reflect on what it has meant to us. To start off with even finding Dorothy was just a dream. We thought it would be nice to find her and for she and Belle to finally get to know each other but even in our wildest dreams we could not imagine a scenario that was even remotely like reality.

Belle and Dorothy have never been able to look into a mirror and see their twin. I thought I could at one stage see one in the other but now even I have difficulty. Yes they are very similar in some ways but they are also quite different too.

Belle has so far been the ?emotional? twin but I think that now Dorothy too is becoming more and more emotional as the enormity of what it means to really love and be loved starts to dawn on her. I don?t think she has ever had this kind of relationship in her life before. She obviously loved her mother but from what I can gather there was little actual affection shown. Belle and I are absolute terrors for showing how we feel about others and because we both love Dorothy so much we can?t help but be a bit ?over the top?. I think at first she found this quite uncomfortable, nice in some ways but not something she was used to and therefore something to be held at arms length just in case she got hurt.

Now, however, I think she has surrendered to the power of love at last. We might be a couple of crazy mixed up people from Australia who have weird complicated lives but we both love with all our heart and soul and that just has to be infectious. We have to love the way we do because holding back in any way really isn?t proper love. Yes you can get hurt from time to time but if you never truly give your heart to someone else then you never get to know how wonderful it is when they love you like that in return. (A lesson it took me far too long to learn.)

Dorothy thinks that God is the greatest power in the universe but I think that love is more powerful than even God if one does in fact exist. Nothing else can make you feel as good as loving and being loved in return, in fact I don?t think we can ever be complete without experiencing that feeling.

I know that Dorothy has now bonded completely with Belle and Belle has done likewise with Dorothy. I really don?t think that Dorothy was at all prepared for a strange man like me though. I have to admit that as far as men go I do have a very big emotional side to my nature and I?m not at all afraid to show it. I really have Belle to thank for that as she has always shown me that showing your emotions to someone you love can be a real strength.

I still can?t believe how quickly the last two months have gone. One minute we were flying out of Carnarvon full of fears and anticipation and the next we were flying back in filled with more love and positive emotions than either of us have ever experienced before in our lives.

At first when we met Dorothy I think we were more worried about her than anything else. She had been unloved and unappreciated for far too long. She was stuck in a life she could not stand but she had no where else to turn. I think that almost straight away she saw us as a way to escape and to start with we were worried that she might run away from a life that was still salvageable. I think we spent the first three weeks in Malaysia trying to work out if her marriage could in fact be saved but events took our minds down a different path and finally we decided that we could see no hope there.

What happens from here is anybody?s guess. In case Immigration decides to be difficult I have come up with a rather complicated and long term but workable solution which I talked over with Belle today. The idea is a ?last ditch? one if all else has failed but it would work and it would be legal. The idea is simply that if we can?t get Dorothy PR status in Australia through any other means then a couple of divorces and a marriage would solve the problem ? that is how far we are prepared to go to get her here ? Belle thinks as a last resort it is a good idea but of course Dorothy would have to agree too. It really would only be considered if there was no other way but I am convinced that it would be successful.

The next major event is Dorothy coming over in January 2009. We should have good internet access both before and afterward so arrangements and then parting may be made a little easier this time round ? although thinking about the parting side of it ? that is NEVER going to be easy!

As for Dorothy?s trip, I am starting to work out all the things we want to show her. Now might be a good time to start a list: (no particular order here yet). (Dorothy ? you can look some of these place names up on the net if you want to find out about them first).

1)Fishing in the boat along the Blackwood River near of Alexandra Bridge. Picnic.
2)Fishing in the Hardy Estuary near Augusta.
3)Sight seeing at Augusta and Cape Leeuwin. Fish & chips.
4)Margaret River and the coastline. Yallingup and Gracetown. Swimming.
5)Boranup Forest. Picnic.
6)Visiting the vineyards, cheese factories, chocolate factory, berry farm and other similar places.
7)Cape Naturaliste and Dunsborough. Sight seeing.
8)Busselton. Swimming? Sight seeing, shopping.
9)Jewel cave and maybe one or two others in the area.
10)Bunbury and Australind. Sight seeing and shopping.
11)Nannup and the river pools. Swimming?
12)Donnybrook. Apple farm.
13)Pemberton and the karri forests. Places like Heartbreak Trail and the Warren River.
14)Big Brook Dam. Swimming.
15)Manjimup.
16)Windy Harbour.
17)Bridgetown.
18)Walpole and the Valley of the Giants.
19)Collie, Collie River, Wellington Dam. Swimming.
20)Mandurah and Rockingham on the way down or on the way back.

That?s a good enough start.

Well I?ve been drivelling on too long again and it is now 11:29 pm so I had better get ready for bed.

December 2nd 2008 (Tuesday)

Time got away from us and we only got down to the internet caf? just before 10am (our phone?s free hour is 9am-10am) but as I got on to the net to read Dorothy?s latest emails Belle got on the phone just before 10am so that we could talk to her.

The best news is that Dorothy has booked her flights and we will see her on January 25th. We will probably have to book a motel for the night somewhere along the route to Cowaramup so we will get some info today and select something suitable. We need to book ahead of time as the 26th is Australia Day and it is a long weekend.

Flight info:
25th January 2009 Depart KL Flight: D7 2714 @ 0800 Hrs Arrive Perth: 1450 Hrs
15th February 2009 Depart Perth Flight: D7 2715 @ 1605 Hrs Arrive KL: 2105 Hrs

The days are passing quickly enough at the moment but I don?t much like the evenings ? too much time to sit and think and even though Belle is here, there is still a feeling of loneliness. This weekend will probably be the worst time as that would normally be the time that Dorothy spends with us.

I am hoping we get some more of Dorothy?s journal over the next couple of days as if we leave on Friday then we won?t have internet access again for a while and there isn?t much of her writing to keep us going yet.

We will probably postpone Christmas this year and have all the usual Christmas fare when Dorothy comes over. Not that we do much more than have Christmas dinner anyway but it would be much nicer to have it with her.

I have almost finished a disc with about 6 hours of Australian documentaries so I will try and get that off in the post tomorrow.

My Malaysian souvenir (IE. the cough) is still going strong and I have started taking vitamin C again in the hope it will help.

December 3rd 2008 (Wednesday)

Countdown: 7 weeks 3 days?

I wish I could get myself motivated. We are supposed to be on the move the day after tomorrow but I still have to check all the tyre pressures, wash all the bird poop off the car as it has been sitting under a tree for two months and has about 5 kilos of the stuff on the bonnet, start packing things away and make sure everything is tied down and folded up correctly. The gas bottle needs refilling, then comes the car plus the 3 x 20 ltr jerry cans of diesel and a 10 ltr fuel container of petrol for the generator. I haven?t even checked the generator is running yet?. My mind is not on anything properly at the moment? have to get into gear tomorrow or we will never get away. Need a new ratchet tie down strap for the boat trailer. Also get some info on motels in the Perth area heading towards the south west.

Dorothy?s plane comes in at 14:50 which in real time is 13:50 because of daylight saving. Take about 45 minutes to clear customs etc and we should have 4 hours of daylight to start heading south. This probably won?t be enough to get all the way down to Cowaramup but allowing about 70 kilometres an hour that?s around 280km? checks map?

Well back to that map? Cowaramup is actually less than 300km from Perth so with a bit of luck we just might make it before nightfall. Traffic shouldn?t be too bad as everyone who is going away for the long weekend will already be where they want to be by Sunday night. This trip definitely comes under the heading of ?suck it and see? ? Translation ? this is Aussie slang for, I don?t know what the result might be but I?ll try it anyway 

I guess we?ll get some idea of how long the trip will take as we have to drive up in the morning anyway to collect Dorothy. At least the car should be pretty empty as we will unpack it once we get to Bec?s place. Oh, have to remember to email Bec and tell her that Dorothy is now booked 25-Jan to 15-Feb. I think they will be very eager to meet her.

Steve and Bec are another couple we have met who we immediately got on well with. We didn?t get much of a chance to spend time with them last year but I think given the opportunity we would be good friends.

They say you should never wish time away as you will never have that time again but stuff it! I wish the next 7 weeks would fly as if they were only 7 hours?.

December 4th 2008 (Thursday)

Well the S.A.T. hearing was a complete waste of time. They have not supported us and now we expect to just have to walk away from the bus. If things were in a more advanced state with regard to getting Dorothy over here and we had a home organised then there might be some point in trying to salvage some of the things down there, as it is it could be months or even years to get things sorted out so we have no choice but to just walk away from everything in the bus and shed.

The worst part isn?t so much the loss of material goods (even though there is around $25,000 worth of things there) it is the loss of personal items like photographs, documents and all sorts of bits and pieces that can?t be replaced.

Well we just have to put it behind us and look to the future, after all we lost just about everything once before and managed to survive and now we really do have something to live for.

Well tomorrow we are off down south again. We are still going to Wandering to start off with and from there we will go and see if the bus is still there or not. If we can at least manage to salvage the personal belongings, especially the photos that we want to show Dorothy as well as some of the electrical goods and the split system air conditioner it won?t be too much of a loss. All we can do now is hope.

Time to make a list of what we want to salvage if possible:

Art supplies - pencils, pastels, paints, paper, Bed base, bread maker, Books cooking, Books craft, Rotisserie, Can opener electric, CDs music, Clothes, coffee maker, Craft supplies - Cross stitch etc, Cutlery, good pots pans, Filing cabinet contents, Food grinder electric, Food processor, small Fridge 240v, Iron, Laminator, pie maker, Storage boxes, toaster, Waffle maker, Cooker 2 burner & grill, computer printer/scanner, Computer speakers, Ice cream maker, Jig saw, Sander, Vacuum cleaner, Stamp collection, photographs, Belle?s makeup, perfumes and jewellery.

I noticed in Dorothy?s last email she said ?I'm glad that Belle is stronger than I am when it comes to this. I fail terribly when I am alone.? but Belle isn?t doing all that well either.

Dorothy, if you thought she was emotional and cried a lot when we were over there then that was nothing compared to what she is like since she has been home. She now cries at almost any little thing and I know every time she thinks of you so far away over there she is being torn apart inside, actually so am I. We are doing our best to look forward to January 25th but it is still such a long way away and we miss you so much?.. Not having you near to us is probably one of the worst things we have ever experienced in our lives, we both love you so very much, it hurts to be without you.

We just have to find a way to be together, I don?t know how we will be able to bear it otherwise. I wish we could be stronger but we are just too soft inside??

December 5th 2008 (Friday)

4am and I can?t sleep, fairly normal when we are about to move on after being in one place for a long time. I am trying to remember all the things that need to be checked each time we move but there are other things on my mind this time as well.

Check list:

Fill diesel tank
Fill jerry cans
Fill 10 ltr petrol for generator
Check tyre pressures car and van
Check oil, water, power steering, clutch in car
Clean car windows
Check all ratchet straps
Bring down TV antenna
Lock all windows
Close top vents
Pack up sat dish
Fill water tanks
Check porta potty
Put fridge door lock on
Put TV away
Put computer away
Put freezer in travelling position
Put picture on bed
Pack camp kitchen
Pack chairs
Pack black tank and bin
Put cover on air conditioner
Check annexe is in travelling position
Pack up any lose objects inside
Roll up power cords
Roll up water hose

I think I will be glad to finally get moving, at least it will feel like we are moving closer to where Dorothy will be soon.

This awful cough I have continues unabated and it has even been worse over the past couple of days. I have taken all sorts of things to try and rid myself of it but nothing works.

We were away by 8:30am (really 7:30 cos of daylight saving) and drove until 6:30pm. A looooong tiring day but we managed to get further south than we had planned and stopped for the night at Cliff Head North a bit to the south of Dongara. So far we have it to ourselves and we are parked right next to the ocean. I am looking forward to the day when we can all travel round like this as there are so many places for us to show Dorothy.

We will probably get to Wandering tomorrow as we are only around 450 kms away now. The wind today was terrible. Very strong and blowing directly at us from the south. Going across the Greenough flats we were barely making 60 kilometres an hour.

We do have phone reception here even though we are a fair way from Dongara. I sent a couple of SMSs to Dorothy so I hope she doesn?t get fed up with all the messages.

Belle was getting the inside of the van set up while I was sorting out the generator and when I came inside I knew something was wrong. She had just put Dorothy?s pictures up again on the back shelf and burst into tears. So much for ?I'm glad that Belle is stronger than I am..?

12:33am ? I have terrible coughing fits, almost non-stop. Can?t sleep, can?t lie down, head in awful pain and throat very sore. Tried everything but can?t get any relief. Just don?t know what to do for relief! It has never been this bad before. Finally had to go out and sit in the car so Belle could get some sleep. So cold I had to come back after a few hours.

December 6th 2008 (Saturday)

There really isn?t any point in heading further south until Monday so we are going to sit at Cliff Head for the weekend. I am not really in a fit state to drive anyway.

The cough is a little better this morning but head and throat are still bad.

Worked out how to send emails via the phone but haven?t get the Hotmail smtp data & stuff yet to enable me to download. Also not sure how to send text from laptop to phone yet so have to test and see. (Test worked ok so I can now send journal entries without being actually on the net, just need to be in mobile phone range.)

Dorothy: Thanks for cough remedies, don?t have many ingredients with us but will try what we have. Am trying to send this file as an attachment to see if I can send journal entries over the phone. I won?t be able to receive anything from Hotmail until I get all the relevant mail server info next time I get on line.

Rang Dorothy this morning but Belle had to do most of the talking as my voice is almost gone from all the coughing. We have the Bluetooth speaker set up now so I could hear her clearly. Have been messaging back and forward all morning, oh for the day when there is no need for sending messages and she is here with us for good?

It was nice and calm this morning but the wind is back up now. Not much to do but sit and look at the sea ? happens to be a favourite past-time of mine anyway, so not so bad.

Wish I had more of Dorothy?s journal to read, I have read the first bit several times now and I am looking forward to more <hint hint>.

We sat and listened to some music this afternoon and everything was fine until the Carpenters song ?when I fall in love? came on. Our thoughts immediately went back to last week and the girls singing this song together and we just broke down and cried and cried and cried??

While we are really looking forward to seeing Dorothy in January, in the back of our minds is the question; what on Earth is going to happen when she goes away in February? Each separation is going to be harder than the last and I just don?t know how we will cope.

The ABC has given me the go ahead to contact other media outlets about the story and the fact that we want Dorothy in Australia so I have already started doing that. If there isn?t any positive news from Immigration in the post when we get back down south then I will write to the Minister again and send a copy of the interview showing just how important it is that the girls are together. Surely there just has to be some compassion left in the world.

Belle mixed up one of the cough remedies that Dorothy sent this morning, it was the almonds, butter and sugar and this seems to be quite effective. It is such a relief to be able to stop coughing for a while even though I can?t lie down yet without going into spasms of coughs. I hope I do manage to get some sleep in the next couple of nights as we still have a fair drive ahead of us on Monday.

Well 1 week down and 7 to go. Perhaps once we pass the half-way point things will start to cheer up a bit. Hard to believe that this time last week we were still over there. I guess I should be happy that we live in a world of aeroplanes and not sailing ships!

December 7th 2008 (Sunday)

I finally got some sleep last night and am feeling much better today. The cough doesn?t seem as bad as it was so maybe the almond mixture has made a difference. Not much to do today but sit and look at the sea and think about Dorothy. It was about this time last week that we parted.

The image of her standing there on the street with tears in her eyes as the cab pulled away and looking through the back window of the taxi as she vanished from sight still haunts me.

Neither of us are coping with this separation all that well. No, that isn?t right, we simply are not coping at all. Everything seems so difficult and takes too long to get sorted out. We feel alone, isolated and helpless. We have written to all sorts of people but either no one can help or no one bothers to get back to us. I don?t think anybody understands how distressing this situation is becoming.

It has only been a week now since we left Malaysia but we are disconsolate and despairing. Despite the fact that we have each other, we are so lonely and sad. The world has lost all its colour for us and we don?t know who to turn to for help.

It just isn?t possible for us to mentally cope with the idea of it taking months if not years to get Dorothy permission to come and live in Australia. Chris Evans could change all our lives with the simple stroke of a pen so why does it need to take so long to even start the process? What we need is a miracle!

Doesn?t anybody understand just what it means for these girls to be separated once again after only being together for two months? They desperately need each other and being apart like this is simply soul destroying. Surely there has to be somebody out there who has a heart and can help?

The trouble is that we all just seem to fit perfectly together. Never before in my life has anything ever felt as good as being with the two girls. Even though life with Belle has always been wonderful, being with both Dorothy and Belle is just that much more special. Now being without one half of the pair just seems wrong and I know Belle feels pretty much the same way. It is hard to say which one of us is suffering more.

I always knew leaving Dorothy in Malaysia was going to be tough but I had no idea just how much pain would be involved until the time came to say goodbye. Normally sitting in the van by the sea is a time of great enjoyment for us but until we have Dorothy back in our lives I don?t think anything is going to make us happy again.

We are utterly miserable at the moment. When Belle reads the journal she bursts into tears and re-reading it myself I just about do the same thing. This is all like some sort of horrible torture. We have something we desperately want and need within our sight but held just out of our reach.

December 8th 2008 (Monday)

We are still very depressed and fed up but at least today was taken up mostly by driving. We have driven over 1050 kilometres since we left Carnarvon and we are finally at Wandering where we expect to be until after the New Year.

We have to think very seriously about how things are going to progress in future with regard to going to Malaysia. I had no idea just how emotionally traumatic this was going to be for both of us and if Dorothy leaving in February is as bad as I think it is going to be, then we are going to have to question whether these visits are a good idea or not. Deciding not to visit would be an incredibly difficult thing to even consider but we also have to think about what this will eventually do to our lives and our mental health.

I don?t think Belle could handle the idea of having to go through the rest of her life without her sister by her side but I know how much it cost her to leave Dorothy this time and each time it happens the pain will just grow and grow until it consumes her. She is in a terrible state now, she cries at almost any little thing and come February I am going to have a complete ?basket case? on my hands, even if I am not one myself by then. Belle was just so happy over there and to see her in pain like she is now is almost unbearable. (Not to mention the fact that I am completely disconsolate myself.)

At the moment we both feel lost because Dorothy is flip-flopping again about the idea of coming out to live in Australia and I don?t know if we are strong enough to continually go through these devastating separations. If Dorothy could make up her own mind then at least we would have some certainty in our own lives. All the effort we are going to in contacting the government agencies, papers, TV, magazines etc. etc. could all just turn out to be worthless if Dorothy decides to stay where she is. It is tough enough to keep going with just the immigration issue to worry about but now with Dorothy appearing to have yet another change of heart, well I just can?t describe how that makes us feel.

Dorothy just can?t seem to accept that her marriage went down the toilet years ago and although living here might not be the answer to all her prayers, surely 80% of something is better than 100% of nothing which is all she has over there. Perhaps when she gets here in January she will finally understand how much better life could be over here.

At the moment I just feel emotionally exhausted. I have to get on to other topics??.

There is good phone reception here and a Telecentre that opens on Monday, Wednesday and Friday so I can at least get on the net from time to time.

Time to go and have a shower now as we haven?t had a proper wash since Friday?yucky!

Just too tired and fed up to write anything more for a while, it is all becoming very difficult to deal with, I need a break from all this.

December 9th 2008 (Tuesday)

Too depressed to write today.

December 10th 2008 (Wednesday)

Last night we got a message on the phone from the caravan park saying ?we know where you are? and this morning when we drove out of the park we are in our car caught fire. I managed to get the fire extinguisher out and put the fire out before too much damage was done but looking at it once the fire was out it was obvious that someone had deliberately damaged the wiring.

We have called the police and are waiting for them to turn up but I doubt they will do anything. We have to get the car fixed which is going to be a hassle as we are a long way from the nearest workshop but everything will get sorted out before you are due to arrive so don?t worry about that.

Meanwhile we are stranded until the car can be sorted out and of course Belle is very worried. In view of what has just happened I think we are simply going to abandon the bus and get out of here as soon as possible.

The police finally turned up at about 3pm and took pictures of the car. I doubt anything will ever get done about it but at least with the police report number we can claim the damage on insurance.

December 11th 2008 (Thursday)

The car has been towed away now to be repaired but we will be without it for at least a week ? if we are lucky. We can?t find anyone with the right equipment to move the bus so we don?t know what to do at present. It really might be simpler to just get our personal belongings and abandon the rest. It is getting just too difficult to sort out.

There are no shops in Wandering but we do have enough supplies to last us a week or two. Lets hope the car doesn?t take any longer.

December 12th 2008 (Friday)

Not a lot going on at the moment except for sending paperwork to lawyers. Idiots at the farm sent a fax to the Telecentre saying we have until 22nd to remove the bus or they will sell it.

December 13th 2008 (Saturday)

While I might like the peace and quiet out here at Wandering it doesn?t have much else going for it. No shops and nothing to do in town. Without the car it is going to be a pretty boring weekend.

Nearly two weeks gone now since we were with Dorothy. At least on the up-side that means two weeks closer to seeing her again.

We phoned Dorothy again this morning and managed to have a bit of a serious chit chat about the next step we want to take with regard to the bus, getting a house etc. I know Belle misses her sister terribly but I think it is even more difficult for me.

I do long for the day when we are all together and nothing can separate us again.

We are expecting the first hot day of the season tomorrow which just goes to show how quickly it can go from fairly cold to hot. Even though there isn?t much to do here it is rather nice to sit outside in the afternoon and look across the paddock to the hills and just have a sip or two of wine as the sun goes down.. Of course as pleasant as it might be there is still one thing missing.

From the phone call today it seems plain that Dorothy wishes pretty much the same as I do that somehow she could come here and just stay on. If only dreams could come true that easily. Funny that the car (fully loaded) carries 3 people and the van sleeps 3, if you were tempted to believe in fate you might start to have rather strange thoughts about that. As I said before, no harm in dreaming I suppose. Running away together would be completely irresponsible and I suppose not feasible in the real world but as an idea it is incredibly romantic.

December 14th 2008 (Sunday)

6:30am and the sun is already up. Another rather long boring day ahead. Well we do have satellite TV, I have work to do on the computer and we inside of the van needs a clean so I can?t say we are completely without things to occupy us. Just seems like time drags on days like this.

Funny, around 7am I started to feel rather sad and melancholy. As nice bright sunny morning with the birds singing outside and all of a sudden I just got this unpleasant feeling. My mind must be going back a couple of weeks to the time we left. I hope the feeling passes soon.

Later?

Not the best day, we are both very despondent at the moment. We both miss Dorothy so much and getting things to start moving in the right direction just seems so difficult sometimes. I have to channel some of Dorothy?s positive energy and spirit to help keep me going. We both know that nothing worth while ever comes easily so somehow we just have to keep pushing forward and ignore all the negative things that keep happening.

Only 3 weeks now until we are due to move to Cowaramup and once we are there we will be past the half way point. At least this week we will find out if we get to salvage anything from the bus or not. Frankly I just don?t care anymore whether we do or not, it is only ?things? and things aren?t important and most can be replaced.

I know it is too early to be letting it become a major concern but this is going to start to become a bigger and bigger issue and that is how do we cope come February 15? This relatively short separation has bordered on being unbearable, if this is so bad how do we then face months apart? I simply have no answer for that at the moment.

One thing I think seems pretty unfair is the way time seems to change its nature depending on what you are doing. When we were with Dorothy the weekends used to just fly by, even though we all tried our best to stay up late. Now we are without her time is just dragging along.

15 December 2008 (Monday)

8:40am ? the caravan park are now sending their friends over here to harass us. (Ray Gibbs). We notified the police but nothing will happen as usual. Belle wants to move away from here so we have booked the tow truck to move the van tomorrow $200.

16th December 2008 (Tuesday)

It would have to start raining the day we are going to move the van wouldn?t it? We ended up going the wrong way to start with and the tow truck driver had to reverse the caravan up the road for about half a kilometre until he fond a spot to turn round. Even then it wasn?t easy. Finally arrived in Williams sometime after 10am. Thankfully Williams is much bigger than Wandering and at least has a general store. There is a medical clinic tomorrow so Belle has booked me in to see about this awful cough. It just will not go away!

Just 9 days to Christmas and then a month until we see Dorothy again. I think Christmas is going to be pretty sad and lonely this year.

17th December 2008 (Wednesday)

Sometimes it just feels like we are going backwards! The stupid insurance company has been mucking about and hasn?t even sent an assessor out to look at the car yet and now it looks like work won?t even get started until Friday. The way things are going we won?t even get the car back until after Christmas.

We are completely helpless without the car as we can?t get to the farm and rescue anything from the bus. We have been told that next Monday is the deadline before we lose the lot so what do we do? It really seems as though we are meant to just walk away from the bus and everything in it.

The Telecentre closes for two weeks over Christmas so the one decent life line we have for getting emails from Dorothy dries up over the period we most need to hear from her.

I took some pictures around Williams today and Belle?s face in the one by the bridge just about sums up how we are feeling. This is going to be the most horrible Christmas of our lives. I am just so sick of everything at the moment, if only we could get some good news from somewhere, it just all seems to be bad right now.

Even the satellite TV isn?t working properly as there are a bunch of trees that wave about and break the signal up. No TV and nothing meaningful to do <sigh>.

Life may not be meant to be easy but I didn?t think it was meant to be bloody impossible!

22nd December 2008 (Monday)

I am finally coming back from the rather unpleasant place I have been for the past two days.

25th December 2008 (Thursday)

The journal is getting quite neglected at the moment in favour of just sending direct emails to Dorothy. The only event worthy of recording here anyway is the fact that the dispute over the bus now goes to court so we just wait and see what happens now.