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.