Almost at the bottom of WA

Hi Everyone

Well we have almost made it all the way down the west coast of Western Australia. 

This is our last blog entry before we head East for Christmas.  Michael is visiting his family in Brisbane and I am returning to Canberra.  We both fly out of Perth on 17 December and return to Perth on 27 December.  When we get back to WA we will be staying with Bruce and Vicki in Rockingham for a few days before starting the trip across the bottom of WA and then the Nullabor as we head back to Canberra.  We have included an updated map showing where we have been so far.

Have a lovely Christmas and New Year and stay safe over the holiday season.

All our love.  Karen and Michael

1 to 5 December (day 257 to 261)
Peppermint Park Eco Village, Busselton, WA

After leaving Bunbury we travelled all of 50kms to Busselton.  Busselton, like Bunbury is located on Geographe Bay.  We travelled the coast road and stopped in at Port Geographe which is a very upmarket development on a series of canals and the coastline.

Busselton is one of WAs most popular seaside holiday towns.  It is renowned for the jetty which is a miles long and has an underwater observatory near the end.  Unfortunately we discovered that the jetty is undergoing restoration so we could only walk the first 200metres and the underwater observatory is closed.

We chose to stay at the Peppermint Park Eco Village which turned out to be one the best caravan park we have stayed at.  It’s about 10km out of town and isn’t located on the beach like many of the other caravan parks here but it was really lovely.  Its name comes from the Peppermint trees that are all around the park and because it has taken environmentally friendly approach (no concrete pads for vans, recycling etc).  At the rear of the park is a small lake which is home to ducks and lots of birds.  I spent sometime each afternoon checking out the birdlife around the lake and some of the ducks visited us each morning and afternoon.  The park was almost empty which made it even nicer as it felt like we were camping in the middle of parkland. 

The WA Triathlon was being held on the weekend we left Busselton so there were heaps of athletes around town doing their training rides, runs and swims.  We rode the 6 kms along the beachfront into town, and back, on one day.  Fortunately the triathletes mostly choose to ride on the road otherwise we would have just got in their way at our leisurely pace.

We also visited the nearby town of Dunsborough just 20kms further down the road.  This is a very upmarket town with lots of trendy shops and cafes.  We checked out the real estate prices in both Busselton and Dunsborough and about 20% of the homes were over $1million.

One of the highlights of this part of our trip was visiting Cape Naturaliste in the Leeuwin Naturaliste National Park (which has sections all the way down to Augusta which is in the bottom west corner of WA).  On one of the walks we took the wrong path and ended up on the Cape to Cape track which goes for about 125kms from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin.  We realised after about 40 mins that we had taken the wrong route but really enjoyed the walk through the scrub with beautiful views of the coastline. 

This is part of the Cape to Cape track:

We took a tour of the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse which was built in the early 1900s and is still in operation.  From the viewing platform at the top we saw several whales.  We then did then did a walk to the whale watching lookout hoping to see the whales make their way around the cape.  We were lucky to see a calf doing a series of tail slaps.  We felt very fortunate as whale sightings have really dropped off by December.  The whales make their way from the nursery grounds north of Broome, all the way down the WA coastline, on their way to Antarctic for the summer months. 

We also saw a large flock of very noisy, Short Billed (White Tailed) Black Cockatoos that only live in this corner of Australia:

5 to 9 December (day 261 to 265)
Riverview Caravan Park, Margaret River, WA

We were very excited about visiting Margaret River.  The Margaret River region extends from Busselton north down to Augusta and includes a number of coastal towns and villages as well as several country towns. 

As the name implies the caravan park is located on the Margaret River, a couple of kms from town.  Again we were visited by the local ducks (Mallards, Pacific Black and Australian Wood ducks) and Australian Ringneck parrots each morning and afternoon. 

Here is a Pacific Black Duck and her chick:

And one of the Mallards:

And a Ringneck sitting on one of our chairs:

We spent some of our time here exploring most of the area – popping in to the coastal villages to check out the scenery and walking around the trendy shops in Margaret River itself. 

We booked ourselves onto a winery tour (run by Bushtucker tours).  We were picked up in a little bus at 10:30am. 

 

We ended up being the oldest people on the bus and were a little concerned at first whether we would fit in.  Our worries were shortlived as by the time we left the first winery the conversation was flowing very freely (and very loudly on the little bus).  The other people were from Sweden, Germany, Ireland, Preston in the UK, Hobart, Perth and Sydney. 

 We visited 5 very different wineries – from a small fairly young winery, to one of the oldest in the region and a very large winery and brewery.  We were given a short talk at each winery while we enjoying the wine tastings which were very generous in number and size.  Most of the wines were very nice.  We were very restrained and only bought 6 bottles.

This is the cellar door at the Bettenay Winery where we bought a bottle of chilli infused wine called Hot Flush:

Getting the spiel at Brookwood Winery:

We were provided with a very nice sit-down lunch with lots of gourmet treats. 

We also visited the Margaret River Cheese Factory and the Margaret River Chocolate Factory both of which were a bit disappointing.  The cheese factory was like a very small deli with less than 10 types of cheese and the cheeses were very ordinary. The chocolate factory was like a huge shop absolutely packed with people.  The chocolate was quite nice but not worth the $12.50 per 200 gram that they were charging.  Michael and I have become fans of Whittakers chocolate (even though it is from NZ) and didn’t like the Margaret River chocolate as much. 

It turned out to be a really enjoyable day and we actually learned a little about wine as well as the region.  Of course we only visited a small sample of the wineries as there are about 90 in the region.

The day after the winery tour we attempted to walk off our excesses by visiting Ellensborough Homestead and doing a short walk to Meekadarabee Falls.  This was a very pretty walk to a small waterfall where we saw some lovely birds including a Scarlet Robin (which has an orange breast).  We also did a walk along the river into town, but again we went the wrong way so we didn’t make it into town but it was a lovely bushwalk anyway.

9 to 13 December (day 265 to 269)
Mandurah Caravan and Tourist Park, Mandurah, WA

After leaving Margaret River we headed north again towards Perth.  A couple we had met several times along the way told us they had spent a week in Mandurah and thought is was very nice, so we decided to call in here for a few days.  Its is about 60km south of Perth and just down the road from Bruce and Vicki in Rockingham which is where we are headed next.

Mandurah is the biggest place we have been since we left Darwin.  It appears to be a growth area with lots of canal based suburbs being built.  There are lots of large homes on the waterfront.  The English couple we met on the winery tour had only been to Mandurah and Margaret River and asked us if everyone in Australia was really wealthy as this was the impression they had got.  We have certainly been surprised by the apparent wealth from here down to Margaret River.  Its not just the houses that are big, there are also lots of big boats moored at the marinas and private jetties alongside homes.

Mandurah has a lovely foreshore and marina area that has been developed with upmarket shops and restaurants as well as a theatre and cinema complexes.  Unfortunately they are also building some highrise apartment complexes too which really spoil the view (we don’t mind up to about 4 stories but any taller than this makes it feel overcrowded).

We have tried fishing from a couple of spots but again we are only able to catch toadfish (Qld and NT have a plague of Cane Toads and south WA seems to have a plaque of toadfish). 

While we were fishing at the entrance to the Murray River we saw a fire that looked like it was near our caravan park.  As we headed back to the park it became clearer that the fire was quite close.  It ended up being about 5 metres behind our campsite.  By the time we returned it was only smouldering, but at one point the people next to us had moved their tent because the of the proximity of the flames.  Apparently the owner of the paddock behind the caravan park was burning off by walking around with matches and lighting the grass around the perimeter.  It seems that it got out of hand pretty quickly.  The fire service worked until well after dark, and again the next morning, wetting down the smouldering areas.