24 – 30 Sep, Augusta to Albany

Another week of absolutely fabulous touring has been had since my last post. We have travelled through beautiful forests, scene some amazing coastline, enjoyed a number of historic and interesting places, walked amongst ancients and giants, and enjoyed each others company. Let me explain further.

Augusta – Nannup – Balingup – Bridgetown

This took us in a NE direction through beautiful forest roads, with farmlands covered in lush pastures backed by mountains of trees. I didn’t expect the range of geography in this part of the world. Townships built on sides of hills, rivers cutting through the towns and surrounded by farms and trees.

All of these towns on route were involved in the logging of the past. Primarily logging the Karri and Jarrah trees for export and for sleepers that were used in the building of the transcontinental railway.

We took a walk around Nannup, across one of the old railway bridges that criss-cross this part of the country – the old logging routes. Simply a day of driving and walking covering some magnificent country roads. The road from Nannup to Balingup would be a great bike ride, and this was later confirmed by a rider I spoke to in Bridgetown.

The surprising thing is that most of the tourist information centres in each town have a particular exhibit that is just worth visiting in itself. Bridgetown had a wonderful jigsaw museum – yeah jigsaws. A room full of all types, the largest being a 9,000 piece jigsaw with lots in the 4-5,000 piece range. Could you just imagine sitting there doing those jigsaws.

 

Bridgeport saw us also walk town taking in the old gaol (great exhibition on the depression years), antique store and morning tea in a fabulous old pub (they were expecting big patronage for the AFL Grand Final telecast).

Bridgeport – Manjimup – Pemberton

The road S ran through the forests changing from primarily Jarrah to Karri trees, with an interesting canola farm. Karri trees are the third tallest in the world (up to 90m) and the largest flowering tree in the world. They were of interest to the early loggers as they initially grow straight up reaching their height in about 100 yrs and then would add to their girth. The branching would be exceptionally high thus giving straight timber for 10’s of metres before branches occurred.

Manjimup was the centre of a major timber mill and had an excellent museum and park dedicated to the industry. We walked amongst the trees, were informed of the history and culture of the area, viewed old steam mill equipment and travelled on.

I thought Pemberton would be a bigger town to stay at but in fact it was smaller than Manjimup. It is on the main W-E highway but was a lovely hamlet (well 900 odd permanent residents) set in a river valley but with a terrific structure for tourists.

On the trip we visited the Diamond and Gloucester Trees. Well I thought they would be special types of trees, but in fact they were forest lookout trees. Instead of building fire watching towers, they used the tall trees as forest lookout points, driving pegs into the trucks to create a ladder and mounting tower cabins in the trees’ crown at the very top. These trees’ could still be climbed for the not so faint hearted (this didn’t include me) rising some 50-60m above the ground.

From Pemberton we visited a trout farm for morning tea, you could fish for trout if your heart was thus inclined.

We also took a 4WD tour out to the D’Entrecasteaux NP where we travelled on the largest land locked sand dunes (they are slowly moving inland at 4m pa consuming the forest), through old growth karri forests and down to the beach at the mouth of the Warren River. This 4WD trip was quite arduous and at one stage our driver gave way to oncoming traffic and being too courteous nearly had us overturn in the dune – Robyn’s expletives are not repeatable in this family oriented blog, but hell it did raise the adrenaline levels.

 

Pemberton – Point D’Entrecasteaux – Northcliffe – Walpole

On leaving Pemberton we headed further S to the southern coast. This took us down through Northcliffe (where we returned later for lunch) to Windy Harbour (a small holiday fishing settlement) and up to the magnificent Point D’Entrecasteaux, overlooking wonderful cliffs and the expansive Southern Ocean.

From there back to Northcliffe for lunch and a chat with the local antique dealer (who is selling his lovely shop if anyone is interested). He says that he feels they are about 10yrs too early for the location, if they were in Margaret River he would be making a killing. From there we travelled onto Walpole where we would spend the night. Not a great many km’s today but enough to see quite diverse landscapes.

Walpole – Denmark

A very short journey today but one that would see forest art, and a walk amongst the ancients and the giants.

Amazingly, just N of Walpole was the Walpole Wilderness Discovery Swarbrick, which was a walking art loop in the forest dedicated to the theme of the forests and the 10 year struggle to save this wonderful area from logging, culminating in the wilderness declaration in the late 1990’s.

A fabulous part of this was the Forest Reflections, a massive piece of polished metal that reflected you and the forest around you. This had the history of the struggle to save this part of WA for future generations.

On leaving Swarbrick we followed a drive through the farming hinterland to the Valley of the Giants.

Here we would walk on a suspended walkway from ground level up to 40m into the tree tops of the giant Karri and Tingle trees. The bridges would move and the experience was exhilerating – well I can say that as my family will know about my love of heights.

This was then followed by walk amongst the ancient Tingle trees (redwood eucalypts 400-500yrs old) that have the largest buttresses of any of the eucalypts. These buttresses are subject to attack by fungi and fire giving rise to caverns at ground level which has seen cars park in some, but now you can only walk or stand within.

On leaving the giants we headed out to the coast for what can only be described as magnificent vistas. Green’s Pool and Elephant Rock just N of Denmark was simply stunning. Robyn just kept saying oh, oh, oh as she took in one of the most stunning views we had seen. Clear protected pools with round basalt rock, deep blue ocean. The photos just can’t capture this stunner.

  

Denmark – Albany

Again a short driving day but taking in the sites and meeting the locals. First up was a visit to the visitor centre where once again I was blown away. This time a purpose built centre to house the worlds largest water barometer. Yeah a barometer.

A couple from the Netherlands ran a barometer museum in an 18th Century chateau in the Netherlands for many years receiving world recognition. In the mid 1990’s they emigrated to Australia settling in Denmark. He could not leave his treasure behind so he brought it with him and donated it to the community. In 2006 a visitor centre was built to house the 12m tall barometer and the thing actually works.

After this we took in a Bush Tucker Factory and Cafe where we had morning tea with the Swiss immigrant owner. We spoke with her for a wonderful 40 minutes and then headed into Albany where we are now based. I will not cover Albany in this post as we are here for a few days. So until next time keep safe.

16 – 23 Sep, Perth to Augusta

Hi there, everything is simply great out here in the west. Robyn arrived on time and we have had a simply fabulous holiday so far together.

First up we spent the Thu & Fri in and around Perth. Walked the city, visited Kings Park (the wild flowers were in bloom in the Botanical Gardens) took a ferry down the Swan River to Fremantle. Then a a free bus around Freo, had lunch at the jetty and visited the WA Shipwreck Museum. Then a stroll around Freo and the train back into Perth for a night of rest.

Robyn says it took her a couple of days to recover from the jet lag. Yeah, yeah some jet lag a massive 2 hour difference. I think it was more the excitement of being with me again, yeah, yeah I here you say.

We collected the campervan on the Saturday morning, went through all the familiarisation, did some shopping in Rockingham (a little south of Perth) then headed into Bunbury for the next two days. The van is great, although a little older then expected and I have been sent to Siberia for the nights. You see I am in the bunk above the drivers cabin, Robyn is in the bed that is made from the seating and table area. As the beds are only 1.2m wide and we normally sleep in king size bed, I am in Siberia.

Sunday we took a walk around pleasant Bunbury, had coffee on the foreshore, then took a 100 odd km drive in the hinterland, out to Donnybrook and Collie before retiring back at Bunbury. The next morning a cruise ship had docked and it was visible from our van, quite unexpected.

We headed out again continuing our trip S down to Busselton where we visited a heritage homestead (national trust) and a bird hide over a natural wetlands. Then to the campground where we had a walk on the beach and out to the old Jetty.

The Jetty is the longest in the S hemisphere, but is undergoing major reconstruction work so we could only take in the interpretive centre – in other words, the history of the jetty and the surrounding town.

Tuesday saw us head to Cape Naturaliste and the lighthouse.We took a lengthy walk around the lighthouse through the ocean heath land, sighted a couple of whales on their S migration and totally enjoyed the environs.

Following this exercise we headed down to Surfers Point where we had lunch on the headland watching board riders catch breaks 100’s m off shore in around 3m waves.

The coastline in this whole Margaret River region is just spectacular, but the region itself is so different to the rest of WA that I have experienced. I keep repeating to Robyn that this is nothing like the rest of WA.  It is quite lovely with forests, grasslands, wineries (lots of wineries) and small villages.

Margaret River is the largest town, but it is the whole region from Bunbury/Busselton in the N down to Augusta in the S and then across to Albany (not actually in the MR region).

Margaret River has done a lot to promote itself, but it is the region as a whole that is fascinating. Nothing is too far away if you have wheels. So the last two nights we based ourselves in a campground about 15 minutes N of MR and headed out from there for sightseeing, wineries, chocolate factories, olive oil soaps & vinaigrettes, etc, etc, etc.

Today, 7 days since Robyn arrived we are in Augusta for the night. We spent time walking through Mammoth Caves (fabulous limestone caves, one of many sights on this limestone coast), had lunch by the Hamelin Bay (very windy so we ate in the van), walked around Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse (the tallest in Aust) and the SW most point of mainland Australia, where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet.

 

 

The weather has been superb spring conditions, the days in the mid-20’sC and the nights around 9C. We have had sunshine all the way, just a continuation of the fabulous weather that I have experienced on the whole trip. Everywhere is lush and green, but the locals say come summer this will all burn off and become quite dry. They have missed a lot of the usual rains over the winter months and are concerned about the water shortages.

Robyn has said that she is unexpectedly enjoying the surrounding. She had not thought that the landscape would be as beautiful as it has been. She says that she has a feel for just how vast this land is, and I can only agree especially when you contrast this to the N of the state.

So for now, I hope you have a sense of this last week, the natural beauty of this region, and the joy that I feel having Robyn with me to experience just a small part of this great land.