Well at last we managed to get away, a car accident before Christmas and a combination of studies and visits to specialists have constrained our timing to a couple of weeks away.
We left on Wednesday only an hour or so later than planned and headed south to Bunbury where we had planned to visit some friends, the husband of whom used to work with Roger many years ago, well we worked it out to be 17 years which is actually a long time. We have mutual friends in the UK and have managed to narrowly avoid meeting up in Norfolk on several occasions in the last few years! We had a good time catching up and discussing various illnesses and I was able to watch some beautiful scones, cream and jam being consumed, from a distance of course, though I did try a scone (unadulterated!).
Leaving John and Rosemarie we headed east to a camp site we had selected on the Capel River, called Ironstone Falls. We arrived in good time and set ourselves up for the night back from a quiet road.
The falls are interesting in that they are not part of the river but are created when there a large volumes of ‘run off’ from the surrounding area. Although the drop is only about 3–4 metres they would probably be quite impressive with a good flow going over them.
Thursday 20th February
This morning we just headed south with no real destination in mind, although we did need to drop in at Manjimup to get a new sim card for the mobile internet. The South West Hwy is not our favourite choice of road, whilst it is nice and wide, it is up and down and makes driving tiring. We had decided to try to find another bush camp for tonight but having driven up and down the road and discovered that it was only a slightly wider section of dirt road we decided to abandon that and head for an Eco caravan park a few ks away. This was OK but an emu kept trying to bite my hand whilst I was trying to get the power water and waste pipes sorted out, then we spent most of our time killing flies the size of large bumble bees watched by more emus, roos and the maggies which came to eat the dead flies! Why the hell don’t they eat them before they come to us! However, the toilets were clean and the showers excellent. It would have been a pleasant place to stay for a few days apart from the ‘locals’. Needless to say we decided to move on in the morning.
Today we had a planned next stop, Parry’s Beach, just to the east of Albany. Again the road is hard work for caravanners, not very wide, very winding and up and down. Its saving grace is that it runs through magnificent forests of Karri and Jarrah the former reaching nearly three hundred feet in some cases. They were used for fire watching, there are three that you can climb, the Gloucester, the Centennial and the Diamond, Roger has been up two of them but Pat finds the distance between the pegs a bit too wide for comfort. Essentially, the steps are just iron bars hammered in a spiral up the the trunk of the tree, there is nothing to stop you falling off, so three point contact is of singular importance!
We got to Parry’s just after lunch but were advised to turn round by van coming the other way as the place was full! We should have mentioned that it is the salmon season so some beachside camps are very popular with fishermen both professional and recreational fishermen. We had another couple of options, the first would have been nice and quiet but the sites weren’t suitable for our van so we headed off again and had a look a Cosy Corner. We found a good spot and decided to stay.
There were only a couple of other inhabitants in this section of the camping ground but a hundred or so metres away is the other part of the camp, where the individual sites just behind the beach, are under the branches of peppermint trees, which of course makes for very shady sites which are very popular and it is very crowded, we preferred our quiet spot, especially after joining some of the campers in watching a 1.5 m tiger snake emerging from a hole in a peppermint tree! Apparently there a few of them there.
The beach is very nice and relatively safe for the kids but we didn’t make the effort to do any fishing so can’t comment. On Saturday morning we drove into Albany and went to the Farmer’s Market, we have been here before and have always enjoyed browsing the stalls and stocking up on fresh veggies and other local produce, this time we tried some local bacon.
Sunday was a quiet relaxing day a swim before lunch a highlight.
A couple more vans arrived during the day and fitted themselves into their sites, on chatting to one we said that we planned to leave tomorrow so he decided he was going to move into our space when we went.
Monday 24th February
Got packed up and ready to leave, our friends across the way were all ready to leap into our space, so we didn’t hang about. We had a plan but on turning into the road to Bremer Bay, Pat found another bush camp site on her map called Miller’s Point and we decided we’d go and have a look at it. A fairly typical bush campsite, no water, no power but then we don’t need either, so we thought we’d give it a go for a night. Basically it’s a spur of land that sticks out into the Palinup River estuary, a wide expanse of water, separated from the sea by a low sand bar, which I would imagine gets breached in the winter. The water is a greeny colour rather the blue of the sea but it’s OK for swimming and fishing, although again, I couldn’t be bothered to get the rods out.
Tuesday, we decided to go and have a look at the bush camp site that we initially set out for yesterday. It’s 25 ks further on and quite a way off the road. A very new site, all the amenities are really clean but it has been laid out like any other camp ground with the bays all quite close to each other. A great pity ‘cos there’s loads of space and could have made it a real bush camp. Also because it’s new the shrubs and everything have yet to grow, plus a bush fire two years ago burned quite a lot of the surrounding trees.
Having investigated that we thought we’d have another look at Bremer Bay, we first visited here in 1987 and then it was a small fishing village really with one camp ground and a village store. Now it’s a small town, housing development everywhere, however, i suppose if you have to have development its better that it is under control rather than haphazard. The bay itself is still the most beautiful place and I make no excuse for putting these photos in.
I think I may have mentioned, I brought some UK friends here about ten years ago in August and we counted about seventeen Southern Right whales and calves just down here.
This is called Back Beach, which is the other side of the headland,
We stayed another day at Miller’s Point, probably could have stayed longer but we had sort of a plan. It’s not a bad spot, facilities are sparse, one pit toilet for the whole site, we have our own loo of course but will use site facilities if available and useable! There are lots of paperbarks around the shoreline which have amazing root systems. There are also some little beach sections which would be quite safe for the kids.
This one might give you something to think about – al fresco ironing whilst keeping your feet cool?
Wednesday 26th February
Needed to shop today so found an overnight camp by the King River, got settled in, had some lunch and then off into Albany. Not much else to say about the campsite, clean toilets. hot showers, etc. and we topped up the tanks and recharged the IT stuff.
Thursday 27th February
Made our way up through the Stirling Ranges to Mount Trio, a bush camp which boasts good facilities – and they are good. Used the camp kitchen tonight for dinner. At the moment it is very quiet but there is a long weekend coming up so we will see what happens tomorrow.
Friday 28th February
Not getting anywhere with the last two clues in the Times cryptic, so decided that a walk might be a good idea!
Our campsite is to the north of the the Stirlings which are, as usual, difficult to photograph as a whole, so we do it in bits! The bit on the right is Mt Trio.
We’re going to Castle Rock, which is in the Perongerups, a granite range about 50ks south of the Stirling Ranges. The walk is 4.5ks there and back but rises 600 metres in that distance. The walk is through the jarrah and karri trees and generally pretty easy going, although we should have started a little earlier because it was beginning to warm up a bit by the time we got to the top.
Above left a happy hiker, a balancing boulder and a view at the bottom of the nearly vertical 6m ladder. At the top of the ladder a viewing platform has been stuck on the side of the granite outcrop.
The viewing platform and the view, looking across to Albany, the coast is nearly 100 ks away.
Above left, the viewing platform, going up, looking down.
Having achieved our objective, the next stop was the Castle Rock winery, which we wanted to visit because they are reputed to make a three parts decent pinot. They do indeed and there are half a dozen in the cellar which we will try in a few years time along with some chardonnay.
Finding somewhere for lunch in this area is hard work but we eventually arrived at Meleeya’s Thai cafe. The lunch wasn’t bad but overpriced – welcome to WA! The way home, which included a bit of shopping in Mt Barker, took us through Red Gums Pass in the Stirlings, this road is sorely in need of a visit from the grader!
Sunday we went for a ride round, into the Stirlings and to Bluff Knoll at 1073m the only place to ever have snow in WA and then very rarely! Here we found an excellent signal and sat in the carpark downloading some e-mails.
Above left Bluff Knoll and the Stirlings to the west.
Trying to find a coffee is just as bad as trying to find lunch. We actually rocked up to The Lily a deconstructed and reconstructed Dutch windmill, c 16th century, beautifully restored. It is the only working flour-producing windmill on mainland Australia, specialising in wholemeal stone ground flour. Round the back was this old DC3 but couldn’t find out much about it as the coffee shop had been closed since 2007!
Looks a bit incongruous and a long, long way from the water.
The DC3 in need of some TLC and the bush camp at Mt Trio.
In the end we stayed at Mt Trio until Tuesday morning when set out again heading for York to visit some friends.
We travelled on the Great Southern Hwy today, through Katanning, Poppyunning and Wagin, a route we haven’t taken before but we will use it again if it works for us, as it is a much easier drive than the Albany Hwy. We stopped to get some diesel at Wagin and filled up only to find that the EFTPOS was down, fortunately we had enough to cover the bill in cash. We decided to go to the bank to top up funds and possibly get lunch in a cafe but the bank with no ATM was closed for lunch (quaint country custom!) and the cafe had no EFTPOS! So we had lunch in the caravan and went to the bank when it reopened.
We turned off the main road at Yornanning and made for the dam for an overnight camp. It has been made into a very pretty recreation area with plenty of room to manoevre and we found a place away from the rather green coloured water. That night 2 other RVs also chose to stay there and whilst they set off early next morning we took our time.
Then we headed off to York to refill our 10 litre container with York olive oil and to set up camp in our friends’ garden.
Arnaud opened the door to the York Olive Oil Company premises for us even though he was officially ‘closed’ so that we could purchase his olive oil. The last time we were there he was a prize winning chocolatier but he’s moved on to making prize winning ice cream so we were shown the equipment and told all about this new sideline. His next project is to build a special oven and bake bread at weekends and he showed us the beginnings of the oven and explained the design. He is so precise over what he does and he spends a long time researching the best way to do things. We came away having refilled our 10 litre oil container plus some ice cream!
We set up in Paul and Helen’s garden and spent the late afternoon and evening catching up with them. We provided the fillet steaks from the Plantaganet butcher in Mount Barker for the barbie which were washed down with some good red wine. A great day.
Our final leg home next morning was an easy drive on good dirt roads through the forests. We arrived back about noon and when we opened the car doors and the heat hit us. Nothing had changed!
Alloveroz 