PERTH TO KALBARRI

ROAMING RAMBLINGS #5
APRIL - 2007
PERTH TO KALBARRI
Our first stop after Perth was Cervantes which is a lovely little fishing village with a population of about 250, home to a large fleet of Crayfish boats. It is also the nearest point of access to the Nambung National Park where we found “The Pinnacles.”
The Pinnacles Desert is a very large area of interesting Limestone structures, some up to 4m tall, created by the constant winds blowing the sands from the stone outcrops over many thousands of years. The National Parks people are currently creating a large new interpretive centre and car park at the entrance to the desert in the hope of attracting more visitors in years to come. (Don’t know why that is necessary as it seems every tourist in W.A. goes there now)
The road through the desert is very well defined with many parking areas for those “Kodak “moments.
On the way back to Cervantes we drove into several of the side roads indicated as tourist areas to view the coastal scenery and on one occasion we discovered the local nudist beach so we didn’t stay there too long, the scenery wasn’t that good anyway.
Closer to town we drove to Lake Thetis which is a small inland lake, the location of some Stromatolites which look just like rocks around the waters edge but they are in fact a living organism dating back 3500 million years supposedly the oldest life form on earth. They’re obviously very happy little organisms as they don’t appear to want to move very far or fast.
We then visited the local wildflower centre, as this area appears to be a major wildflower area later in the year during spring when we believe the towns population grows considerably.
Back in town we drove to the beachside area and saw the sign indicating the existence of the nudist beach to the south, we must have gone through the back door.
Cervantes is named after an American whaling ship wrecked on a nearby island “Cervantes Island” in the mid 1800’s.
From Cervantes we drove north along the coastal tourist road through Jurien Bay, Green Head and Leeman to Dongara where we originally planned to stay for a while but we decided to continue on towards Geraldton and stop at Greenough (Grenuff not Greenow as we originally thought) as we had been told at Cervantes we could launch the boat directly into the river from the caravan park and do some fishing for a few days.
That turned out to be wrong advice, but we stayed for a few days anyway and found some very interesting attractions to visit plus the TV reception was good for the V8 races on the weekend. (That’s important)
Greenough is a town that was relocated during the 1800’s due to several floodings of the old town which still stands on its original site and has recently been purchased and restored by The National Trust.


The restoration of the area is almost complete and it has become a very popular tourist attraction.
The buildings available for inspection include the old gaol & courthouse, the community hall with a continuous video presentation showing aspects of life as it was in the village during its existence, 2 churches (Catholic & Anglican) which are still available for weddings and other events including regular services, the convent, the presbytery and a couple of the original houses.
The most surprising thing about this area was the large number of artefacts and relics within these buildings, not tied down or in display cases, just laying where you would expect them to be when the buildings were occupied and apparently nothing is ever removed by the visitors. ….It gives you a bit of faith in your fellow travellers.
The next day we drove into Geraldton and visited the W.A. museum and the H.M.A.S. Sydney Memorial which sits high above the town in memory of the 645 seamen lost when the “Sydney” was sunk offshore in
this area during WW2. The memorial is a huge steel dome containing steel stampings of 645 seagulls and is quite spectacular.
The museum down on the waterfront is mainly dedicated to the story of the “Batavia” a Dutch East Indies ship wrecked on the Abrollhos Islands about 60 k’s from the coast in the 1600’s and the story of the few survivors who made it to the mainland, fortunately they were picked up by another ship some time later and returned to Holland, which is probably just as well otherwise we’d all be speaking Dutch.
On Monday we decided to leave Greenough because once again we had picked up a story in the park about Kalbarri and the possibility of finding a caravan park on the river where we could get some use out of the boat and for once it turned out to be a fact.
We arrived in Kalbarri early afternoon after visiting Northampton, Horrocks Beach and Port Gregory on the way, found a nice park opposite the river, so the boat is off and ready to go.
That’s enough from me for now, I’m goin fishin.
Till next time
Luv to all
D & J

Busselton to Perth

APRIL 2007
BUSSELTON TO PERTH.
Busselton is a very nice city, like the rest of W.A. there is much development happening. It seems there are just not enough houses to go around and serve the current population growth.
The caravan park was very comfortable with large sites and very clean amenities. Walking distance from the town centre and the waterfront.
We drove down to Augusta on day 2 through Margaret River which we thought was a bit overrated and were pleased we had decided not to stay there, lots of wineries just like the Hunter Valley, a bit too yuppie for us. Anyway we at least had coffee and a walk around the shops fo an hour or so before heading south to Augusta where we were pleasantly surprised... Augusta is a favourite holiday destination for Perthites and it's not hard to understand why. It's right on the coast and the scenery and the town are very attractive.
We drove out to Cape Leeuwin for a lighthouse tour which was amazing. The tour guide told us that the weather and conditions on this day were as good as any he'd experienced in many months, as you already know the wind very rarely stops blowing over here and on the day there was not a breath, the sun was shining and the ocean was like a millpond.
Cape Leeuwin is the point at which the Indian and Southern oceans come together and due to the calmness of the day, we could actually see the two currents coming together about 500 metres offshore. As the two oceans currents rotate in opposite directions we could see the small waves coming together at about 45 deg to each other and at that point the water just welled up about half a metre and rolled into the shoreline.
From there we drove around for a while to look at the other sights and when we were parked at one location, a N.S.W. car pulled up behind us so we started a conversation with the people and they turned out to be recent neighbours of cousin Wendy and her family from Glen Innes.
(you could never try and hide in this country)
On the way back to Busselton we stopped off at a Venison Farm where we bought lots of delicious Venison products including some mouthwatering fillet steaks...Sorry Bambi!...... and then on to the Chocolate Factory (Yum. )Then to the Bootleg Brewery which has just recently won a major award for Boutique Breweries in W.A.... Nice area amongst all the wineries with very nice picnic areas around a large dam.
Next day (Wed) we stayed close to town to catch up with the shopping and in the afternoon,walked the length of the Town Jetty (1.8km)
This is the longest timber Jetty in Oz. Again the weather was perfect and the walk was very pleasant. There is normally a small tourist tram runs the length of the jetty but is out of action at the moment for maintenance, but I think we would have walked anyway as the weather was so nice. (and we probably needed the excercise.
We headed to Mandurah on Thursday where we had planned to tuck ourselves away for Easter.
Mandurah was probably not the best option for Easter as everyone from Perth who hadn't gone to Margaret River & Augusta were in Mandurah
for the weekend.....Very much like the Gold Coast or any major tourist destination, wall to wall people and cars, we probably should have headed inland away from the hustle..... Anyway we had a quiet Easter, walked around the waterfront one day, checked out the marina and all the flash real estate. New estates and housing everywhere, they say this is currently the fastest growing area in Australia.
Monday a lot of the visitors were heading home so we went to a miniature village, much like Cockington Green in Canberra, not quite as expansive but very nice just the same, we successfully negotiated the maze so we were pretty happy with that.
Tuesday we drove up to Perth for 10 days where we were expecting a 5 day visit from Karen, Todd & Brant, arriving Thursday so we had a spare day to catch up on the housework & washing, plus car & caravan washing (believe me it was long overdue)
Lovely caravan park at Karrinyup, right on the bus route, very clean and quiet.
We had a nice few days in Perth with the family, the weather was fairly good except for the Sunday when they had their monthly rainfall average (40mls) in one day however it didn't stop us doing what we wanted as we'd planned to drive to Fremantle for the day where we found some markets, the maritime museum and the old Fremantle prison which was very interesting.
The previous day we spent in and around the city using public transport, buses & trains which seem to be a pretty good system. We visited the Perth Mint where they handle all the gold mined in Australia as well as Indonesia. We travelled around the city on the Tourist Tram and ended the day with a visit & tour of Kings Park which is one of the largest city parks in the world, bigger even than Central Park in New York and Hyde Park in London. (I think something like 600 hectares)
Before we caught the train back to our park we walked around the city centre for a while and found London Court which is a very old shopping arcade built in 1937 in Tudor architecture and either restored or maintained in its original form to this day.
Perth is a very nice city as we've always been told, a lot slower in pace than Sydney & Melbourne, more like Adelaide which we love, lots of development again as the resources boom over here continues and it seems everyone wants a piece of the action. New estates and new suburbs being created everywhere, we drove out to a new area north of Perth called Joondalup on Tuesday morning and the entire area appears to be no more than 10 years old yet it is a very busy and obviously thriving area. Anyway we found the Spotlight store so J was happy and the Teddy Bear box has now been refilled....( that should keep her going till Darwin)
Karen, Todd & Brant flew home on Tuesday and we packed up ready to leave the next day to continue the journey.
That's about it for now so will send this of into the ether and hope it arrives safely at your house.
We hope you are all well, we are and looking forward to the next stage of our adventure "around the block"
Love to All
D & J.

Esperance to Busselton

APRIL 3.
GREETINGS TO ALL FROM BUSSELTON W.A.
Arrived Esperance Monday 26th March.
We spent a couple of pleasant days in Esperance including a visit to one of the best museums we have seen (believe me, we have seen some)
On the Tuesday morning we took in the local Tourist Drive around some of the prettiest beaches, we intended taking a cruise to one of the nearby islands but the weather intervened and the cruise was cancelled (as you would know it gets pretty windy over here most of the time) but the drive was very pleasant nonetheless, we visited a wind farm of which there are many in W.A. due to the prevalence of the aforementioned wind and also drove past the Pink Lake, although the weather was quite dull you could still see a tinge of pink in the water, we believe due to the presence of algae in the water. Back into town for a visit to the local Museum and Heritage Village.
This museum is located on the site of the old Railway Workshops and although there are a lot of exhibits relating to railway history, the general
exhibits relating to the town and surrounding areas here are as interesting as anything we have seen previously, most of the items you expect to see in any museum, but beautifully presented and very clearly identified, obviously prepared by a very enthusiastic and passionate group of local people...... One display that stood out to us was the section relating to the Space Station "Skylab" which we had learnt a little about back in Balladonia on the Nullabor, but apparently much more of the debris fell in the area surrounding Esperance and when you see the mapped
locations where some very large pieces came to earth it's a wonder many people were not killed or injured.
Tuesday night we spent a few hours at a lovely waterfront seafood restaurant to celebrate J's ??rd Birthday then headed off early next day towards Albany, we intended to have a stop along the way but as the weather was still not very nice we continued on and arrived at Albany late afternoon after a very interesting drive through huge areas of wheat and grain country, it would be fascinating to drive here later in the season when all the crops are planted and with the amount of rain they've been having I think the farmers over here are a little optimistic at the moment.
Very nice caravan park at Emu Beach, about 6 k's from the city right on the beach.
Our immediate neighbours turned out to be Brian & Joan Shoesmith from Manning Point which used to be known as Brighton when our family holidayed there for several years in the 1950's. We used to rent a house next door to his uncle Jack and Jack had hire boats which our dad hired
for our fishing excursions over the 2 weeks we stayed there..... Brian grew up in the village and his family owned the only shop, he and Joan later
built the caravan park which they ran for 30 years before retiring last year. We had a lot of fun discussing life at Brighton in those early days and remembering names of other families who went there and finally concluded we had probably played and swum together as kids.
Albany is the oldest established settlement in W.A. and is the point from which the ANZACS left for Gallipolli during WW1 so there is a lot of military history to be seen.
Friday we were joined by Russ & Jan Sessions who we met last year at Streaky Bay shortly after they had left their home in Warnambool Vic. for a 2 or more year journey around Australia, (they obviously love W.A as they haven't left here in 12 months, although they did travel to Europe in the middle of last year and have flown home to Vic. recently for a family wedding.
We have kept in contact with them and as we were to be in the same area they called in to Albany to see us on their way to Bremmer Bay for Easter.
The best part of this is that Jan (who is very clever) taught me how to set up a BLOG on the puter so I can now prepare all this waffle without being connected to Cyberspace and you can all view it by accessing the BLOG...... (If you want to)
At least that's the way it's supposed to happen. (Stand by for instructions later)
At Albany we also visited Whaleword which was one of the last whaling stations to operate in the country and it has been beautifully restored as a tourist attraction with all the usual interactive displays etc. We took the organised tour and got a really good insight into the industry as it was in early times.
We also drove to a point where you can see the southernmost point of the mainland.
You can drive out to it but it's a pretty rough track so we declined. There is also another windfarm. (I'm sure we are going to see plenty of these)
I'm told most W.A. town names end in "up" because the wind is always up. That's certainly been the case so far.
After a very nice Saturday evening which included dinner at a local Japanese restaurant with our Albany neighbours, we left Sunday morning for our next destination. We had checked out the road to the 2 local lookouts the afternoon before so we knew we could take the van up there as we were leaving, unfortunately Mount Adelaide had the road closed for a billycart racing event but the other one, Mount Charlotte, was easily accessable so we spent an hour or two at the Princess Royal Fortress which was the gathering point for the military personnel leaving for overseas service during WW1 and also the site of the first ever ANZAC dawn service.
The fortress has been lovingly restored over recent years with government assistance and it was well worth the visit.
We finally left Albany late in the morning and as again the weather wasn't the best we decided to drive through to Pemberton in the centre of the State Forestry Industry.
We had originally intended to stop at Walpole for the night and go back to visit the Valley of The Giants in the forest, but as we passed the entry point the weather broke into beautiful sunshine and it was obvious we could take the van in and park while we did the various walks available and also the "Tree Walk" rather than come back later and run the risk of the weather tourning sour later in the day.
This was quite amazing, there is a very easy ramp up into the trees and then a 600 metre structure about 40 metres above ground right in the tree tops. The trees in this area are Tinglewood and are really beautiful stately specimens.
I'm not normally very comfortable with heights but I found this so interesting I forgot all about the height.
Having decided not to stop at Walpole we continued on towards Pemberton not sure what to expect but we were pleasantly surprised when we arrived to find a lovely little town and a very pleasant caravan park on the river.
The country in this part of the state in very interesting and diverse, everything from cattle, dairy, sheep and grain plus forestry which is obviously the major industry and still going strong evidenced by the constant warnings to be aware of timber carriers.
Even though W.A. is experiencing drought like the rest of the country, most of the dams we passed are holding a fair amount of water and most creeks were running so it seems they have had a bit of rain recently.
That's about enough for now, we have arrived in Busselton and plan to visit Margaret River and Augusta tomorrow, then a quiet day before heading north to Mandurah for Easter.
We hope you all have a Happy & Safe Easter
Thanks to those who have sent emails with news from the East.
Love to All
D & J.
P.S. Will send this as a normal Email and then put it on the BLOG which we will update at more regular intervals.
(Hopefully the link to our BLOG will appear somewhere)
Well anyway here goes.