Manjimup

We've very much enjoyed our time here at Manjimup, and this isn't just because we've had 5 games of golf while here. The lush farmland and spreading forests provide a very pretty backdrop, although the overly friendly flies are a bit of a drawback.

As well as several games of golf, we've also had a couple of tourist days out since our previous post. The relatively high rainfall in this region, as well as enabling the aforementioned farmland and forests, also means there are quite a few rivers. Where there are rivers, there are, of course, river cruises, and we do like a good river cruise. This one was down the Donnelly River, through the D'Entrecasteaux National Park to the Southern Ocean. The boat ramp where we boarded the cruise is the last road access to the river, the boat then cruises downstream through mostly wilderness forest to a wide, deserted sandy beach (shown in the photo at left). Unfortunately the Southern Ocean is way too cold and wild for a quick dip, but we had a nice walk on the sand. The home made muffins for afternoon tea on the way back upstream were pretty welcome too!

On our other tourist day we headed to a place called Windy Harbour, which luckily didn't live up to its name for us. This is a collection of weekender and fishing shacks, slap in the heart of the D'Entrecasteaux NP. They date from before the national park was declared, but the government has allowed them to remain. However, there is nothing else there, not even a general store. The wild coast line is pretty spectacular though, and we spotted a migratory whale coming up for air. On the way home we stopped at a town called Northcliffe, which has an unusual sculpture park. We aren't terribly arty, but we enjoyed walking around spotting the sculptures set into the native bushland, accompanied by an audio tour with the artists explaining the intent of each sculpture and how it was created. After all, if you weren't told would you have guessed that the welcome archway shown at right 'embodies the colours of the bush, including flashes of red from the tails of parrots'?