10th Jan - Vege out day and Wineries

Spent the morning veging out, then went for a leisurely cruise around the neighborhood. First stop was the Berry Farm, I was expecting some nice fresh berries, but no, they had a great range of conserves, jams, condiments, sauces etc., AND berry wines, ports and liqueurs.   The first place we have seen with a sign, due to responsible service of alcohol, they only allow 6 tastings per person, what the??  I didn’t want to seem like a glutton so I only had 5 and they were yummy, very fruity and drinkable.  Stella Bella winery the next we visited, not far from where we are staying. 

Stella Bella - 2 down

Swallows Welcome winery was fantastic, Tim and Pat are both artists, Tim is the wine maker and this is the smallest winery in Margaret River.    They have a Chapel of the Flowers, which displays Pat’s exquisite works of over 500 SW WA region wildflowers.  Tim also dabbles in music, what a great couple, very friendly and welcoming.  We had a look at Pat’s studio, she has written books and also illustrated quite a few.  They built the chapel, cellar door and house themselves all out of mud bricks.  They host weddings and concerts in the chapel and around their gardens.  

Inside the Chapel of Flowers, Pat's artworks

Lots of good times had here

Tim's artworks in his cellar door, all based on events - this series the process of the winemaking

Pat recommended if we wanted to visit an Estate go to Voyager, which we did.   This was the other end of the scale, a large property with manicured lawns, gardens and rose beds.  The owner, we later found out was the ex partner to Lang Hancock and apparently has that much money he doesn’t know what to do with it.   And he is a non drinker!!  The winery is just a tax dodge, refurbishes every year……poor man!!   The afternoon seemed to fly and we ended the day with cleansing ale at the tavern in town.

Voyager Rose Garden

The biggest Aussie flag we have seen

Me amongst the vines again....

9th Jan - Cape, cave and beach

We travel up to Dunsborough today, the town before Cape Naturaliste the northern end of Margaret River Region, there is a walk the whole length of the coast line, from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin, approx 135kms long.  We opt not to do this but we do short sections.  One of which was around the Cape Nat lighthouse, more fees to tour the lighthouse, we choose not to do this one.  We into over an hour, middle of the day, hot, flies…….it was good to get back to the car.set off for a leisurely wander on the loop around light house, via the whale lookout.  Darl sets a cracking pace, then looking at the map says this way to the whale lookout, but it wasn’t, it was the long way round another loop walk, but worth it as the views were spectacular.  So a ½ walk turned

That's my Darl down there centre

A beautiful fine day it was

Ngilgi Cave the next stop, this is by far the best of the 4 caves we have clambered into.  They have a lot of lighting features which is great for taking photos, some photos just don’t do these caves justice, they’ve all been spectacular, but we got a couple of good ones here.   After the caves we went out to Yallingup, checked out the beautiful beach, bugger we didn’t bring the cozies.   Drink at the Yallingup pub with the “Jane” lookalike twin barmaid before heading home, another big day out.

If a 73 yr old lady did last week, we could do, kiddie crawl - I nearly got stuck

Looks like........  forest trees

Some little straws, shawls and suspended stalactite

How old would this one be???

That was a big hole, great to get back to fresh air

Beautiful Yallingup Beach a very popular spot

8th Jan - Margs - Beaches, Shells

Today we ventured out to the coastal areas. Gracetown and Prevelly are beautiful and  very popular surfing beaches.   We did walks at both beaches, Gracetown a few surfies out there, this place was the scene of a terrible tragedy back in Sept, 1996 when 9 people died when a 2000 tonne sandstone cliff collapsed on them during a school surfing carnival, a couple of sites mark some moving memorials to the tragedy, 5 adults and 4 kids died.    Also a young guy, 31 taken by a shark here only 17 months ago.  We hope the future is brighter for this picturesque beach side town.

Part of memorial to lives lost in cliff collapse

Gracetown beach and township

Another more recent tragedy at Prevelly Beach and surrounding areas when 40 homes were destroyed in bush fires.   Very sobering and scary to visit this area, but all businesses are open and if it weren’t for the burnt out landscape and the destroyed homes, you would think life was normal, lots of people about on the beach and local cafes, great to see.

Looking a bit sad, so close to a lot of houses

Prevelly Beach, nice spot

Hamelin Bay was a treat, I heard this was where you go to see the stingrays, we didn’t really know what to expect, but when we got down to the beach, we could see the crowd up along the beach, so on closer inspection, we could see all the stingrays milling at the shoreline.   It was awesome to see several large stingrays, apparently they live here and feed off the pollops, small shells, worms etc., in by the shoreline.  I did put my hand to one, it was soft and a little slimey….    

Lurking in the shallows and a little eerie!

Hamelin Bay a beautiful spot, though a crappy day

Waving good-bye............

We had a look at Augusta, another little pretty seaside retreat, then onto the Bellview Shell Museum near Witchcliffe.  OMG!!  40,000 shells in this private collection so far and they are still collecting.  Peter is the collector and Kath is the duster, poor Kath what a job.   They have built an extension onto their home to display the collection and it is amazing.  Kath is a bit of a character also.   I thought that Peter would be well travelled collecting from all over the world, but no, he has only personally collected in WA and purchases shells overseas by mail order!    Well worth a visit for anyone travelling through.

Augusta

!

How many shells in this photo??? There's a prize!

Part of one of the rooms filled with shells, a great collection

7th Jan - Margs Caves - Lighthouse

We had a great day today, got the pass for all 3 caves, Mammoth, Lakes and Jewel plus Cape Leeuwin Light house, works out cheaper to get an all in pass.   Mammoth a self guided tour with individual MP3 audio players with commentary.  We were excited to be entering our first WA cave, when my Darl realized he locked the keys in the car, with a look of horror…..  Don’t worry bout it now I said let’s just enjoy the cave and work it out later.

All set to go....

Eerie.........Mammoth Cave

Lucky Ling had left her window down a couple of inches and it took a good 15 minutes to break in, Darl must be losing his touch…..

Go Darl!!

From here we went to Lakes cave – features include descending into the doline where the cave has collapsed leaving a gaping hole lined with Karri trees, limestone cliffs and weathered stalactites, and here also is the “suspended table” and numerous cave’s reflections in the underground lake.  Next was Jewel Cave, the largest show cave in WA and home to one of the longest straw stalactites found in any tourist cave in the world.  We've learnt about stalactites, stalamites, straws, shawls, cascades etc.  They estimate it takes 100 years for straws to grow 1 cm, just how old are these caves??   The days drive took us through the Karri forests, growing to 40 metres tall.

Suspended Table - Lake Caves

Forest along drive to caves

One of the early visitors to the Jewel cave, when there was water

Stalactite - Jewel Cave

We ended the day with a walk to top of the tallest lighthouse on mainland Australia at Cape Leeuwin, situated at the furtherest South West point of Australia and at the meeting point of two oceans, the Indian and the Southern.  8000kms to South Africa and 4,500 kms to the south pole.  The lighthouse’s 1000 watt, 120 tungsten lamp flashes every 7.5 seconds with a warning light that is visible from over 47 kilometres on a clear night.

What the hell is a cow doing at a Lighthouse???

Almost forgot about the water wheel, built back in 1800's to supply water for building of the lighthouse and then to supply the light house keepers' residences.  Fed by a natural spring down the hill into a trough, through the water wheel, piped to a windmill that pumped the water to the Cape, or something like that.   Anyway the main structure still stands today, although looking a little worse for wear...

6th Jan - Margaret River

We checked the Camps 6, made a few calls to parks, one was booked out, the other $44 a night! and another only had unpowered sites.  So we decide to stay at Big River Camp site, the weather is looking dodgy so we make a bee line to set up camp only about an hour from Bunbury.  It’s blowing a gale and raining but we decide to put the annex up, this will be a test for us….  I just bit my tongue and Darl did a bit of huffing, but we got there in the end.  Cheapest fuel ever at Bunbury before we left 127.9c/ltr, when we got to Margaret River it was 151.9c/ltr!!  When we left home it was 141.9c/ltr.

We really like it here, a working sheep farm, lots of rolling hills and big open spaces.   A great camp kitchen and shared ablutions (with a sign on the showers saying Do Not Blow Nose in Shower due to fellow showerers and people cooking in camp kitchen on other side of wall)…..  My Darl did not like that idea as he can not shower without the nose blow!  

Camp kitchen right, shared ablutions, laundry left

1st to 5th January 2012 - Off to Bunbury

Well after much merriment and celebrations NYE, we had a very quiet day, especially my Darl who was a little wounded.    We veged out and had a nice dinner with Alana and Ian as we are sadly parting ways tomorrow.    Packed up trailer on 2^nd and left at Waroona and we went to Mandurah for the night to catch up with Rusty, Kell and kids at their holiday house.   Another quiet night and we have decided to give the grog a break for a while, wonder how long we will last……

Beautiful mosaic entry to Yarloop township

 Back to Waroona to collect camper and mail.   Took a pic of the painted sofa, we have 4 now (Dwellingup, Harvey, Pinjarra and Waroona), apparently there is about 9 painted sofas and we are sucked in to finding them.   We drove to Bunbury via Yarloop where we found another sofa.  Yarloop a very cosy little country town with a big timber history.  Booked into the Discovery Park, right on the Bussellton Highway so it is a bit noisy with traffic and it’s pretty windy here too.  

Watch ya finger Darl!!

What the, where's the houses?  Well covers actually...

We are here until the car gets fixed and hopefully, all fingers crossed this is the last time we need to get it fixed.   Had the gear box done, but it is still not running right and we think now that maybe it wasn’t the gear box after all.    Anyway, I am having computer problems too, so call the friendly computer guy to come out and fix.  Apparently you have to get computers serviced every 6 mths, ah well it’s only been 3 years, so probably overdue for an overhaul.  A couple hours later all sweet and this should last till we get home  now.

Black Swans on Leschenault Inlet

Random, different entry to estate Bunbury

Who's a clever boy then, more like show off!!  I'm just jealous..he's been practicing a while

We had a beauty storm here Wednesday morning, it cleared in the arvo so we took the Suzi for a spin in search of another painted sofa.  Over to Astralind, via the Leschenault Inlet and past Astralind, Darl you have to go back otherwise we will be on the highway to Perth……  Called into info centre, after a phone call, that sofa is in Guppy Park, Bunbury off we went to Guppy Park no sofa, asked young fella passing if he knew, oh yeah that’s down in Victoria Park, no, no sofa there….By this time I was getting a bit over it.  Off to the tourist info  in Bunbury, it should be in Guppy park, went back again for a double take, NO it is not there.   Found out next morning it was vandalised and removed some time ago, well it killed the arvo anyway.   So we have to be happy with our 5, missed the ones at Kwinana, Rockingham, Mandurah, Bunbury.   Bring on the trees and the caves!  4 AFD's



Our first at Pinjarra

2nd Dwellingup

3rd Harvey

4th Waroona

5th Yarloop