GOODBYE TO NANNY, POPPY & DIGS XXX

 

26/04/12  Sadly, we packed up & headed for Donnybrook.  Home of the Granny Smith Apple.  The girls nearly wet their pants when they saw Apples playground.  About 1 acre full of equipment, fully fenced, it was pretty impressive!

After 9 weeks travelling together, we said our goodbyes & parted ways.  It was sad, but it feels like we are setting off on a new journey again. 

Driving up to Perth was like driving from home to the Gold Coast.  Busy busy busy!  This place is booming!  Mandurah was really nice.  New housing estates along the foreshore.  It was difficult finding accommodation in Perth, but we pleaded with the lady to put us in the overflow.  Finally, we have some humidity!

On Saturday night, we caught up with Leigh & Pete at their house warming party.  We had a good time.  House is lovely, but it poured rain all night.   Pete had to empty the pool twice while we were there. Everybody else we were catching up with is out of Perth.

On Sunday we drove into Fremantle, walked along the wharf & went into the Museum where the remains of the shipwreck, Batavia, are on show. It was really interesting and the girls even saw a human skeleton.  On the ship they recovered over 130 bricks, & after putting the pieces together, they realised it was a portico.  They were only able to retrieve a tiny part of the bottom half of the starboard.  There is a book about the “Batavia” which is really interesting.

We headed along the coast road passing through Cottesloe up to Scarborough.  We are going north on Tuesday as it is way to expensive to stay in Perth.

BLOWOUT

24/04/12 

This just topped off our day today!  One of those days you just need to forget.  5klms from our camp, we noticed smoke coming out from under the van.

ANZAC Day was the last day we spent with Rob & Laurel. 

MARGARET RIVER & SURROUNDS

 

This area is a really nice part of Australia.  It seems to be made up of 2 things – National Parks & Wineries!  The Karri trees(very similar to a gum) have a thick girth & are up to 80meters tall.  They line both sides of the road in some places, which is a little intimidating.  We went to Cape Leeuwin, where the Southern ocean meets the Indian ocean.  Camped beside a river, and for the first time since Tassie, we were able to have a fire.  The temperature has dropped this last week, we can’t wait to head north.

Driving into Margaret River, it was buzzing with tourists.  This is the busiest town we have been in for a while!  As there was no free camp(again),  the cheapest accommodation was a farm stay 9klms from town.  You should have seen the girls faces when the owner said they could bottle feed the baby lamb!

We drove out to the coast and the little villages, made up of old fishing shacks are slowly being renovated into flash mansions with awesome ocean views.  There are massive houses along the river too.  On Sunday, we were tourists for a day and did the tourist thing.  No.1 – Animal Farm.  Girls wanted to take the bunny rabbits home!  No. 2 – Cheese Factory.  Yum Yum.  No.3 – Silk Farm. Saw the silk worms.  No.4 – Chocolate Factory.  Walked in the door & it was like walking into Central Station!  We sniffed out the free samples & got out of there!  It was a busy day and we blew our budget.  Wineries - tomorrow.

23/04/12 Mike checked out the surf early, but didn’t go in!

Mike & I had the afternoon to ourselves, so we decided to visit a couple of wineries around the area.  This one was very extravagant.

SALMON SLAUGHTER

 

17/04/12  We parked up on a spare block at the entrance to Peaceful Bay.  Walking down to the water, Mike could see fish chopping up, so he ran back to the car & grabbed his fishing rod.  Just as we got closer to the waters edge(the water was crystal clear),  fish were jumping out of the water, beaching themselves, trying to outrun the schools of Salmon chasing them.  Whitebait, Tommy’s & Garfish were being chased by massive Salmon!  We couldn’t believe our eyes!  Garfish were walking on water!!!  We were catching & releasing, it was unreal!!!  People said they have been coming to Peaceful Bay for 35 years & never seen anything like it.

Kirsty tried to catch one but she couldn’t reel it in.  It was funny.  I even caught 2 myself.  It was great fun, as they put up a good fight jumping out of the water, shaking around, it took some muscle to reel them in.  Yes, they were all massive!

DENMARK - WA

 

Denmark is a quirky little tourist town set beside a river, close to the ocean.  There are over a dozen wineries & other touristy places to visit. It is a pity we are on a budget!  Kirsty & Jade have a new love in their life – snorkelling.  We brought snorkelling gear when we were in Albany.  They absolutely love it!

This beautiful place is Greens Pool.  Here you can swim safely as it is protected from the surf.

Also in the William Bay Nat Park is Elephant Rocks.  It is pretty awesome to see.

Notice the size of the people.

ALBANY

 

After 7 days of camping in sand and red dirt, watching every drop of water, you can imagine how relieved I was, to stay in a caravan park in Albany, even if it was $56 a night!  When connected to water, we are able to have long showers and wash our hair(we were turning a bit feral).   Tap water has been scarce and very salty for the last few weeks.  We had a great spot on the King River, which was a nice change from the blowy beach.  Albany is a pretty big place built around a couple of rock mountains, with spectacular scenery and beautiful beaches. Torndirrup Nat Park is spectacular.  With large smooth rocks and beautiful bays, it was impressive, once joined to Antarctica 45 million years ago, (apparently).  The Gap and the Bridge have the WOW factor.  It is bigger than it looks in the photos.

 

This is Dog Rock.

A view from the lookout, looking at the National Park.

EASTER AT QUAGI BEACH

 

After hearing that Esperance was totally booked out over the Easter break, we were a bit worried we wouldn’t find a nice (free) spot to settle for 4 days.  With our fingers crossed, we headed to Quagi beach camping area.  The camping area was a little way from the beach and as we drove in the road was one way with bush on both sides(we squeezed through).  The main area was full, but we were told there was a couple of spare spots close to the beach(if we could fit).  After a bit of pruning, we brought the vans down to the last 2 sites.  We had an awesome view of the beach.  10mins to setup, we sat having coffee and hot cross buns admiring the view and, as usual,  our 40/50klm winds started, and we spent all day inside, freezing!

Kirsty having her morning milo, Mikey having a fish off the big rock.  There are a few rock pools where we could swim safely.  No big fish here, just Tommy’s, nice eating, just small.  The mornings and afternoons are freezing.

Easter Sunday we went for a drive through Stokes Nat Park, which was close to where we were staying.  We did some 4 wheel driving to Fanny Cove & Cape Shoal(above).  Michael just reversed into our caravan!   Lucky for him, he only ripped the privacy screen!      Caravan, what caravan?

I forgot to mention Sammy the seal.  There is a fish cleaning bench on the jetty in Esperance and he hangs around for the scraps.  Sammy was sunning himself.  Apparently he does this all the time. 

WESTERN AUSTRALIA – ESPERANCE

WA has certainly impressed us.  The red gums are rich in colour.  We were excited to see lush green grass pastures.  Esperance is on the coast with 14000 population.  The main street runs parallel to the coast with park and walking tracks along the foreshore.  It is a very pretty place.  As there is no free camps, we found a nice grassy caravan park.  We explored Cape Le Grand Nat Park.  The pure white sandy beaches were beautiful.

Here are the beaches around Esperance.  There are walking/cycling tracks all the way along the coast(over 11klms).  A great view!

4/04/12 With Good Friday coming up we are heading out early tomorrow to hopefully find a good free camp. It would be nice to stay in a town long enough to get a hair cut! Happy Easter everyone!

FOWLERS BAY

 

Sorry, this was before the Nullarbor.  This quiet little fishing bay boarders onto huge sand dunes.  A young couple owns the caravan park which pretty much makes up the town.  Mike caught a Snook off the jetty the first night.

We had fun on the sand dunes.

We couldn’t live in South Australia, but can see why people do!

CROSSING THE NULLARBOR

 

We were quite excited about travelling the Nullarbor.  Loads of road trains carrying anything from fuel to train engines.  We had to move off the road a few times.  With a tail wind behind us, the land was straight and flat as far as the eye could see.  Our first stop was the Head of the Bight.  It was a spectacular view.

Our first night on the Nullarbor.  Nullarbor meaning treeless plain.  Don’t go to close to the edge!

1/04/12  Today we did the most klms ever.  We left SA and entered our next state of Western Australia.  The fuel was $1.99.  The road kill was plentiful.  We drove pass a fresh kangaroo with crows feeding off it & as we were almost level, a Wedge tail Eagle spread his wings & caught our wind as we passed him.  He would have been a metre tall.  There were some new species of trees too.  Panties Tree, Bra Tree and the old Boot Tree just to make the drive a little less boring.  We were happy & had lunch at a blow hole which blows cold wind , it was pretty amazing to see.

We still had 200klms to go till we stopped for the night.  It was getting very boring by this stage & we were over the drive!  We stopped at Balladonia(which is just a roadhouse) and asked about a short cut down to Esperance which would cut over 170kms off our drive, but it wasn’t possible.  We were spewing, knowing we had to drive another 400klms tomorrow.

TIRED? STRESSED? YOU”LL FEEL BETTER IN SOUTH AUS!

 

Red sky morning, shepherds warning!