A Visitor from Home

We've had Wendy's Mum visiting us in Albany for the last 5 days. Our van really only caters for 2 people, so she stayed in a cabin in the same caravan park, very close to our site. We'd been saving up some of Albany's attractions so we could do them with her. After recovering from the long journey (5 hours Melbourne to Perth, then a 2.5 hour wait at the airport for the one hour shuttle flight down here to Albany) we spent her first full day in the forests around Walpole, 100km or so west. On the way we stopped at the visitor centre in Denmark, which holds the world's largest barometer. This was amazingly interesting, we watched through several of the instrument's 6 minute cycles, as it pumped the air out of a 12 metre high glass tube, causing water to be sucked up from the 'well' below, until it actually boils at room temperature. Once you've read the air pressure by the level of the water, the vacuum is released and the cycle starts all over again. The creator of the barometer has a web-site which tells all about it, see http://www.bertbolle.com/. The visitor centre has other interesting weather related displays, and we ended up spending quite a bit of time looking around. We noticed in the visitor centre that Denmark boasts a number of food related businesses, so we allowed ourselves to be distracted from our intended course to visit a cheese and fudge maker and a Belgian chocolate outlet, both of which were attached to winery cellar doors. Unfortunately we were too early for the berry farm.



Finally back on our intended course, we made our way to the Valley of the Giants treetop walk near Walpole. The 'Giants' referred to are tingle trees, which are not only very tall, but also very wide. They have a strange habit of forming 'buttresses' around their base, which makes them appear to be hollow for the first 10 metres or so, you wonder how such large trees can balance on what appears to be such a flimsy base. There is a 40 metre high walkway built through the treetops, giving a very different perspective on these giants, as well as a more traditional boardwalk at ground level through the forest. Elsewhere in the forest we did a scenic drive which included lookouts providing sweeping views down to the coastline, plus some more walking amongst the trees and rivers.



To get a rest from all the walking, the following day we did a half day boat cruise. Apart from providing some VERY close up encounters with the local wildlife, our captain proved to be very interesting and informative on the history and development of the region, and was a font of knowledge on the origin of various place names. A stop at a winery for some tasting of the local product gave us an opportunity to stretch our legs, then it was back on the boat for some very tasty damper for morning tea. Out of the dozen or so boat cruises we've had so far on this trip, it was one of the most enjoyable, and certainly the one which has gotten us the most up close and personal with the locals!



On Sunday John played golf while Wendy and her mum did a reasonably strenuous 2 hour walk. For an 80 year old who had a bout of cancer last year, Wendy's mum is remarkably fit, and powered up the hills and along a sandy beach at a pace that would put most people half her age to shame. Mind you, she did snatch a quiet nap afterwards..... Albany is a great place for walks, with many national parks within easy reach, and numerous marked walking trails. The cool climate also means that, at this time of year anyway, it is generally good walking weather. Most days we've been here have been in the low 20s, with only one or two getting to 30 or beyond, even when places just up the road are sweltering in tops of up to 40. The ever present sea breeze gets a bit wearing though.



Albany at one stage was a whaling port, and on her last full day with us, we took Wendy's mum to Whaleworld, the old whale processing station. This was surprisingly well laid out and interesting, with memorabilia, photos and videos giving the history of whales and whaling in general and of this whaling station in particular. It was a very bloody business, with the whales being chopped up and boiled down for their oil and to provide fertiliser and animal feed, and the displays didn't gloss over the realities. The whaling station shut down in 1978, and was the last in Australia to do so. Given how emotional whaling is as an issue in Australia, it is amazing to think that not much more than 30 years ago we had our own industry, and that it closed down not due to public pressure but to the age-old economic pressures of increasing costs and decreasing returns. The town was devastated when the whaling station closed, and many of the men who worked there left with their families and never returned.



We had a great time with Wendy's mum, especially with it being so close to Christmas. WA is a long way away from both our families, so it was really nice to have a bit of Christmas family cheer.



Couldn't resist a photo of dog rock, right in the middle of town. They didn't need to paint a collar on it for you to understand how it got its name!

TV Deja Vu

Regular readers may recall the saga we had with out TV a few months ago, which was eventually resolved by replacing the set with a new one. Well as we turned on the TV on Sunday morning to watch the golf, guess what, no reception! We tried to auto tune again, but the set refused to find any of the channels. Worried that it may be our aerial we took it off to a TV repair place to check it out, but still no reception there either.

So now the TV is at the manufacturer approved service centre here in Albany awaiting a new mother board to be sent from Melbourne. Hopefully it will arrive in a few days and resolve the issue. Why does this always seem to happen when the cricket is about to start!

Settled in Albany

We're now in Albany, on the south coast of WA. We're planning to stay here a month, as there is a lot to see and do in the area, plus they have a very nice golf course. Although the golf club doesn't have a temporary membership, because we said we would be coming regularly for a while they have welcomed us into their competitions, and given us a note to say we can have reduced green fees. We've already played several games each, and for the first time since Darwin have actually managed to win something, albeit only a couple of NTPs for Wendy and a ball down the line for John. Still, we're hopeful for better by the time we leave.

Albany was the first town settled in WA, and is the port from which the ANZACs departed on their way to the battlefields of WWI. We did an interesting heritage walk around some of the early buildings, although the brig shown above with John at the wheel is a replica of the one that brought the first group of settlers. Albany is also quite hilly, so there are several spectacular lookout points over the large sheltered harbour. It is quite a large town, providing good shopping and a weekend farmers market, where we have stocked up on beautiful fresh vegies, fruit (in particular some gorgeous cherries) and fish.

In between games of golf we spent a day at the Porongorup National Park, about 30km north of Albany, doing a fairly strenuous walk up the massive granite outcrops (and down and up again). The tree in the photo on the left with Wendy at the base has grown straight up through a rock, it must have taken a lot of force to push its way through. The views from the top of the outcrops were spectacular, north to the Stirling Ranges NP (site of another walk we intend to do before we leave) and south to the distant coastline. Like many of the parks in WA they have a problem with a fungus called 'dieback', which attacks the roots of plants and causes them to, well, die back. We dutifully cleaned our shoes at each of the control points, using the very manky toilet brush supplied - it seemed to transfer more dirt to our shoes than it got off, but at least we tried. For a change of pace, on the way home from Porongorup NP we stopped in at a couple of the wineries in the area and picked up some excellent riesling, we'll have to make a return visit before we leave Albany if the supplies start to get a bit low.

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'?

Southern Forests

We're currently staying at Manjimup, about 300km south east of Perth. We originally planned to stay a week here then a week at Wagin, but decided that there is so much to do in this area, and virtually nothing on offer at Wagin, so we have decided to stay 2 weeks here and scrap Wagin altogether. Besides, there is a nice golf course here and the one at Wagin has sand greens....

Manjimup is surrounded by the Southern Forests, vast tracts of forested land that have been logged for over 100 years. There are now many national parks, some with 'old growth' meaning never logged but many with regrowth after past logging. The 3 main timber trees here are Jarrah, Karri and Marri, with beautiful hard wood used extensively for building, and lately also for hand crafted furniture. Jarrah in particular was especially sought after, and many roads in London and Berlin were paved with Jarrah blocks before the era of bitumen. The forests provide a beautiful backdrop to the region, and the national parks have many lovely walking and driving trails. The drives in particular are very well set up, with FM radio transmitters set up at significant spots, so you can stop and listen to commentary on the car radio.

Karri is one of the tallest trees in the world, and from the 1940s on fire spotting platforms were built on the top of strategically sited extra tall trees. While these were decommissioned in the 1970s when planes were introduced for spotting fires, a few are back in use to cover the gaps when planes aren't in the air. Some of the old fire spotting platforms are now open to the public, you have to climb 50 to 60 metres almost vertically on spikes driven into the tree to form a sort of ladder. Wendy tried her hand at one, and found it much harder than she had imagined, she made it only about two thirds of the way up and her legs are still stiff and sore a day later. It certainly gave us respect for the fire spotters, who have to not only climb up the tree every day but then sit for up to 12 hours in a tiny hut built on the top of the tree in all sorts of weather. Pretty scary stuff in the middle of a thunderstorm! One of the stories we read about involved a spotter who radioed back to base that he was going to climb down as a massive thunderstorm was approaching. The controller requested he stay put, as the lightning could cause fires that would need to be spotted. To reassure the spotter, the controller said 'there are plenty of trees left in paddocks that have survived many thunderstorms'. The spotter apparently retorted 'there are more of the buggers lying on the ground!' and climbed down.

Manijimup itself is a bustling country town servicing a population of around 5,000. While it doesn't offer much in the way of tourist delights, there is a heritage park with information and displays on logging and timber. John was delighted with the old steam train engine on display, giving free rein to his inner three year old. The park also has pioneer buildings, including a heritage school house, forestry office and police lock-up, and an excellent timber history museum.

We also spent a full day at Pemberton, another logging town about 30km further south. This is a very pretty town with a much more tourist focus than Manjimup, although it is also much smaller. We were delighted to find local produce available at the information centre and stocked up on cheap, fresh avocados, lemons and peas, as well as smoked trout at a local trout farm. (We had bought some of the first of the new seasons cherries at a farm gate near Manjimup, they are likely to get some more business from us before we leave here). Pemberton has a tourist tram which runs on the old lines built for transporting timber before the age of tractors and trucks, we had a lovely couple of hours travelling through the lush forests of the region, with several stops to explore the rivers and trees.

Busselton

We've had a very pleasant 2 weeks at Busselton, although the weather has been a bit iffy. While the east coast has been sweltering in record high temps, down here in Australia's south-west corner they're still waiting for a decent Spring to get started, let alone anything resembling Summer. Still, we scheduled touristing rather than golf on the wet days, and managed not to be too badly impacted.

This corner of Australia is home to Margaret River, and there are over 100 wineries in the area. Many of them have cellar doors open 7 days a week, and being only a bit over 2 hours drive from Perth the roads were heaving on the weekend with people trying to fit in a visit to every single one of them. We visited a fair selection, and while we didn't buy very much table wine, we couldn't resist a case of some excellent sparkling, so once again the van will be sitting down on the hubcaps. Like many wine areas, the concentration of visitors draws other tourist and gourmet businesses, so we also visited a chocolate factory, several cheese producers, an artisan brewer and a fabulous ice cream shop, as well as having a couple of lovely lunches in vineyard restaurants. Ice cream joke: an ice cream van has its music playing and lights on, with kids milling around, but no-one is serving. A policeman goes to investigate, peers into the van and sees the ice-cream man lying on the floor, covered in chocolate topping, 100s & 1000s, chocolate sprinkles and those little jelly things. He ushers the kids away from the sight, then radios the station. 'Quick, send someone down to the beach, the ice-cream man has topped himself!'

One of the area's sheep stations has also decided to cash in on the flood of visitors by running a sheep show each day. The farmer has his patter down to a fine art, and is very amusing. As well as a shearing demonstration, we had his dogs round up some of the sheep (necessitating an excited kelpie leaping across the sheep's backs) and the kids in the audience were able to hand feed some very young lambs. While the kids were thus distracted, the adults were treated to a demonstration of how the lambs' tails are docked, which isn't as gruesome as it sounds as it just involves putting an elastic band around them, so they shrivel up and drop off of their own accord. We'd been a bit dubious as to whether to attend this show, but in the end we really enjoyed it.

As well as the wineries, this corner of Australia has abundant natural attractions. There is over 100km of limestone coast which is a mecca for surfers, and is also pitted with caves. We visited 2 of the 6 caves that are open to tourists. The first was a standard guided tour, with all the speleotherms (limestone formations such as stalactites and stalagmites) lit up and given cutesy names. The second was smaller but much less developed - they had laid down a boardwalk but there were no lights, you were issued with a helmet and a torch and got to wander around on your own. It probably wouldn't have been very terribly impressive if it was crowded, but we were virtually on our own and the quiet and darkness is very affecting. When we got to the deepest part of the cave we sat on the bench provided and turned off our torches, no matter how long you'd stayed there your eyes would never have adjusted, you couldn't detect any different quality in the darkness even when you brought your hand right up in front of your face.

A lighthouse guards the southern and northern tips of the limestone coast, we did the tour of the northern lighthouse (Cape Naturaliste) but decided to just walk around the grounds of the southern most one (Cape Leeuwin). They are both still in use protecting shipping from the rugged coastline, although there is no longer a lighthouse keeper to stay up all night refueling a kerosene lamp and winding up the mechanism that turns the lens. Cape Leeuwin marks the point where the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean meet, from here on we start to head back east, having travelled the entire west coast of Australia.

Of course, land that is good for grapevines is also good for golf courses. We played a couple of extra games at Busselton as well as competing in last weekend's tournament, and also played at Capel, Dunsborough Lakes and Margaret River.

Tournament almost success at last

Busselton is in the south west corner of Australia, an area known for surfing and wineries - Margaret River is just down the road. We arrived on Wednesday and as is our custom once we were settled into the site we went to check out the local golf course. The pro told us that the course was closed on the weekend as they had a big mixed tournament, news that of course made us prick up our ears. He laughed when we asked if we could enter, as it 'was filled ages ago'. However, when we did some checking on the internet that evening we found that the posted timesheet had a gap in it - obviously a couple had cancelled. So the next morning we called into the golf club office and they were happy for us to be late entries and fill the gap.

People who have been following this blog would know that we have a very poor record in the tournaments we have played in during this trip, but this being a mixed event, and given we have been playing a bit in the last couple of weeks, we were hopeful that we could do better. We were quite impressed by the format - individual stableford on the Saturday, played in men's and women's groups but then the partners' scores aggregated, and 4bbb on Sunday. The tournament winners were the pair that had the most points for the weekend, plus there were daily prizes. Our optimism was soon proved to be misplaced - John scored a respectable 31 points on Saturday but Wendy had a total wreck of a day and could only scrape together 24 points. (A mitigating factor for this is that Wendy was quite ill and wasn't sure she wouild even be able to play) However we fronted up full of hope on Sunday morning at the crack of dawn (unfortunately the pair we had replaced had obviously requested early tee times - we were off at 7:41) and played the four-ball like champions, coming in with a very good 45 points. John did most of the heavy lifting, we reckon he would have had 43 if he'd been playing on his own, but Wendy also played much better than the day before, we had plenty of holes where we would have both scored 3 points.

After lunch at the club (provided as part of the entry fee both days, as well as dinner on Saturday night) we came back to the van to watch Tiger blitz the field at the Masters, then headed back to the golf club late in the afternoon for the presentations (and the ample supply of afternoon tea nibblies also provided as part of the entry fee). First were the overall winners (with a very impressive 120 points for the 2 days) down to 5th place, then the individual stableford winners from Saturday, down to 3rd place, then the 4bbb winners. 1st and 2nd - 47 points. 3rd - 45 points - but not us, we lost out on a countback. So still no tournament success, but very, very close. Next time will be ours!

Rockingham

Our time at Rockingham hasn't been entirely spent playing golf. Apart from a pleasant beach front, the main local claim to fame is Penguin Island. This is a reserve populated, as the name suggests, by little, or fairy, penguins. The penguins spend all day at sea and only come back to their nests in the evening, so you don't actually get to see them. However, there are 10 penguins that live in an enclosure at the visitor centre on the island, due to injury or other causes that makes them unsuitable to be released back into the wild. They are hand fed 3 times a day, during which the park ranger gives a talk on all things penguin related. The little fellows are really cute, but they treat their human keepers with quite a lot of disdain, some of them even having to be coaxed to have a few fish for breakfast. Apart from the penguins, Penguin Island is also home to masses of other sea birds. Pelicans have created huge rookeries on the tops of several hills, and terns, seagulls and various other birds nest on every square inch of the small island. We spent a pleasant half day wandering around, although you couldn't afford to be too fussy about what you stepped in. If you expand the boardwalk photo above you can see what happens to every horizontal surface with so many birds about.....

On another day we caught the train into Perth city. As we mentioned in our previous post, Perth has a wonderful new train service. It took only half an hour to get to town from here, and trains run every 10 minutes in peak hour, every 15 outside peak. They have designed the system so that the stations aren't too close together, so the train doesn't have to stop too often, but the stations all have huge carparks and bus terminals so you can connect easily from the train to all local destinations. It only cost $8.80 for an all day ticket on the entire system, with the restriction that you couldn't start before 9am. Perth is a lovely city, lots of imposing buildings from the gold rush days in the late 18th century and lovely wide streets to allow the camel trains to turn around. We spent hours walking around looking at the various historic sites and lovely buildings. The photo to the right is of an arcade built in the style of Ye Olde London streetscape, quite a contrast to the rest of the city. John was particularly impressed with the waterfront bar where we had lunch - as well as the tv screens showing interminable sport around the bar, they had a screen above each urinal, so he didn't miss a ball of the one-day cricket replay!

Of course, we spent most days playing golf. Last weekend John played in a 36-hole tournament at Rockingham, with Wendy offering loyal caddying support. Unfortunately he wasn't a lot more successful than Wendy had been in her tournament a week earlier, so we haven't managed a single prize, or even ball down the line, between us. For those interested, we have played the following courses in and around Perth while here: Royal Fremantle (Wendy only), Rockingham, Kwinana, Secret Harbour, Kennedy Bay and Joondalup (including the famous quarry nine). While the scoring hasn't been great, we have had a wonderful relaxing time, and feel we're just about ready to win big.

Golf at last!

Last week we spent a long day driving from Mt Magnet to Rockingham, which is about 45km south of Perth. However, with the massive amount of development that has happened all down the coast south of Perth (thanks to the WA mining boom and a very efficient new train service), Rockingham is now effectively a Perth outer suburb. We chose to base ourselves here for a couple of weeks because we have reciprocal rights at the Rockingham Golf Club, based on our membership of our club in Melbourne, which means we can play there for free.

Some time ago we found by chance that the Australian Women's mid-Amateur Championships were being played at Royal Fremantle Golf Club, starting 2 days after we arrived. Given our lack of play in the last few months Wendy was unsure whether she should bother entering. However, we threw caution to the winds, and Wendy went ahead. We're proud to say that she had a top 20 finish, although with only 21 players in the field that was almost assured. She didn't come last but unfortunately not far off. Oh well, it was a chance to play at a lovely course that she wouldn't normally be able to get on. John caddied for 2 of the 3 days, on the other day he played in the men's comp at Rockingham.

We have quite a few other golf games planned for the rest of the time here, we'll both play at Rockingham again this week (Wednesday is ladies' day, Thursday men's), plus we are exploring some of the other wonderful golf courses that Perth has to offer. Luckily we are both improving with the practice, today we played a nearby course called Kwinana, and managed 36 points for Wendy and a massive 40 for John. Obviously class will always shine through, even without any practice!

We have also done a bit of touring about, drove out to the Perth Hills to have a look around and visit a winery. We also went to Mandurah, which is about 100km south of Perth, but like everything else around here is really the edge of the Perth sprawl. Both Rockingham and Mandurah are not considered part of Perth and both are much larger than we expected. Mandurah has a population of around 75,000 and Rockingham about 85,000. The other thing about both is that they are expanding at a frantic pace. Everywhere you look there is a new housing estate being touted or already in the building stage. We reckon there will be another 30,000 or so in the two centres within 10 years.

Leonora - Mt Magnet

From Kalgoorlie we headed north into the northern goldfields, staying at Leonora one night. Just south of Leonora is the old gold mining town of Gwalia, home of the well known Sons of Gwalia mining company. In case, like us, you ever wondered about that name, apparently Gwalia was a poetical name for Wales, and the original gold mine was discovered by a group of Welsh prospectors. One of Gwalia's claims to fame is that after the original owners sold the claim, the mine manager who actually developed the mine was Herbert Hoover, who later went on to become the 31st president of the United States. The mine closed down suddenly a week before Christmas 1963, within 3 weeks the population went from 1500 to about 40. Most people just walked out with at most a bag, all their possessions were just left behind. The mine is once again operating today, but most of Gwalia is a ghost town. The only substantial building left is the old State Hotel, which is now the office of the reopened mine. It was interesting to wander around the tumble-down miners' shacks and think about what it would have been like to be told you'd lost your job, and had to leave within a week with only what you could carry.

From Leonora we headed back to Mt Magnet for another couple of days, 5 weeks after being here last time. We spent most of a day looking around Cue, another gold mining town that has seen better days. The picture at left here is of the original Cue masonic lodge, a very impressive corrugated iron building. Apparently corrugated iron was a very popular building material on the goldfields, as it was light and could be easily transported by camel train. We also went to have a look at Walga Rock, which has some interesting aboriginal rock art, including a graphic picture of what is quite obviously a sailing ship, 500km from the coast! Apparently scientists believe it was painted up to 300 years ago, and represents one of the Dutch sailing ships that visited Australia's west coast before Captain Cook decided he liked the look of the place. There was a very energetic goanna at Walga Rock, determinedly trying to push his way through the rabbit proof fence, but having no luck with his big belly. Also in the area is a small crater made by a meteorite several thousand years ago, but to the untrained eye it was pretty indistinguishable from any other hole in the ground.

Mt Magnet represents the end of the current stage of our around Australia trip. It is the last place we will be in the outback until we cross back east across the Nullarbor Plain early next year. For the next few months we will be making a much more leisurely pace through the cooler, more civilised south west of WA, getting back to playing some golf and, hopefully, getting away from some of the flies.

Kalgoorlie-Boulder

Kalgoorlie and Boulder were gold rush towns founded in the 1890's, only a few kilometres apart. They finally succumbed to the obvious and merged into one town but kept both names, however most people do the easy thing and know the place just as Kalgoorlie. The individual underground mine workings have now been swallowed by 'the superpit' - a giant hole in the ground that is growing deeper and larger by the hour. Kalgoorlie still has all the swagger of its frontier town roots, with lots of pubs advertising scantily clad barmaids and imposing civic buildings. Because of the history of the town, there are actually two town centres, each with a town hall, post office and court house. We spent a pleasant half day wandering around each main street, admiring all the imposing buildings. We also did a free tour of the old Kalgoorlie town hall, going behind the scenes to the council chamber, theatre backstage and various offices and dressing rooms.

The main problem for the early miners out here was a lack of water, but this was solved by the building of a new dam in Perth and a pipeline nearly 600km long. This massive engineering feat was completed in 1903, and Kalgoorlie is now as green and leafy as anyone would wish. There is a really nice lookout over town at the site of the reservoir built to store the water once it arrives after its long journey.

About 35 km south of Kalgoorlie is the town of Coolgardie. This was also founded on gold, a couple of years before the first strike at Kalgoorlie. The first gold strike at Coolgardie was at a place they originally called 'Fly Flat', which gives a fair idea of what it's like. Like Kalgoorlie, Coolgardie has lots of pubs and very impressive public buildings, however the gold started to run out in Coolgardie after about 20 years, and it is now a mere shadow of its former self. All but one of the pubs has closed down, and only small corners of the public buildings are still in use. The hugely wide main street (built to allow camel trains to turn around) has more empty lots than buildings standing, and the whole place is quietly sinking back into the scrub. Its a salutary lesson for Kalgoorlie, the citizens of which don't appear to be giving too much thought to the fact that the superpit is estimated to run out of gold in less than 10 years.

The other thing we did here is visit Kalgoorlie's Miner's Hall of Fame. As well as the usual recreations of miners' huts and such like, they had reasonably interesting displays explaining the history of the exploitation of various minerals in Australia (who'd have guessed how many different things we dig up and ship overseas - we'd never even heard of wolfram before!) plus tales of various mining pioneers and characters. The $2 entry fee was a definite bargain given the couple of hours of entertainment we got.

Southern Cross

Southern Cross is a small town about 400 km east of Perth. It is at the eastern edge of the wheat belt and the western edge of the WA goldfields. We filled in a day here exploring all the rock formations in the area, including Baladjie Rock pictured left. This involved a very steep scramble to the top, where we got good views over the nearby salt lakes. We proved not to be the seasoned travellers we had been imagining, arriving early Saturday afternoon we found that the local supermarket had closed at 12:30 and wasn't opening again until Monday. Luckily we had enough supplies to cover our meals, but we could have been caught out as we hadn't planned for it.

Toodyay

We have now left the WA coast and headed inland, happy to be away from the constant coastal wind. On our way we stopped at New Norcia, which is a monastery settlement built by Benedictine monks in the middle of the 18th century. There are now only about a dozen monks, but the monastery still owns all the land in and around the town, and the only residents are the monks themselves and the people the monks employ to do all the work. The mission was founded to minister to the local aboriginal people and to provide an education to both the aboriginals and the settlers' children. At one stage there were four completely separate schools run by the monastery - aboriginal boys were taught to be farm hands and tradesmen, aboriginal girls trained as domestic servants, white girls taught refined arts such as sewing and music and white boys actually given what we would consider a proper education, including such esoterica as reading and arithmetic. Over time the schools were merged and the overt discrimination was dropped. Once the supply of teaching monks started to dry up in about the 1970's, and the monks had to hire lay teachers and actually pay them a salary, the schools became uneconomic, and the buildings are now hired out for things such as school camps and company seminars. We did a tour of the town, which included entry into one of the monastery prayer rooms, the town church and several chapels in the old school buildings. The nativity fresco on the wall of the church (shown above) has a distinctly Australian feel!

Toodyay (pronounced 2jay) itself is only about 90 km east of Perth, and has all the hallmarks of a weekend getaway and Sunday lunch town - lots of cafes and museums in quaint restored buildings, all with lovely big verandahs. There is also a rail connection for commuters into Perth

which runs morning and evening. The Avon river runs through town, and through a national park about 30km west of town. We went to the park thinking there'd be interesting walking tracks, but apart from one not very interesting lookout there was virtually nothing to see. You certainly couldn't do any bush walking - notwithstanding the flyer on the park boasting of its 'wilderness values', in fact the area was an army firing range mid last century, and there are signs warning you not to leave the road due to the possibility of 'unexploded ordinance'. We didn't have to be told twice.

Having got so close to the city we decided to drive to the suburban outskirts, and experienced our first big city shopping centre since leaving Darwin nearly 3 months ago (and Darwin isn't really a big city anyway). We felt like country cousins, getting excited by so many shops in one place! We also filled up the Patrol with fuel, diesel was the cheapest we have seen on the trip since long ago Port Augusta, and 10 cents cheaper than even here at Toodyay.

As well as doing the history walk around Toodyay, we also drove up the Avon Valley, which is quite pretty and green, dotted with historic towns, and several wineries. It was certainly a much more civilised tourist experience than most we have had so far on this trip!

Jurien Bay

Jurien Bay is only 250km North of Perth, so is well and truly in holiday and weekend away distance. When we arrived it was still the end of the WA school holidays and the park was heaving with families and kids, 2 days later we were almost the only people here. We had been hoping to have a game or two of golf while we were here, but found that the local course had sand greens. However, John was so desperate to get a club back in his hand he decided to play in the club's Saturday competition anyway, a bit of an experience for someone who has only ever played on grass. Interesting, but probably not to be repeated in the near future!




Just south of Jurien Bay, Nambung National Park is home to The Pinnacles, a collection of weird rock pillars sticking up out of the desert. Elsewhere in the area it is scrub and grassland, including heaps of wildflowers, but just in this one patch it is classic desert country. There was a brand new visitors centre giving both Aboriginal and scientific views of the rocks and native flora and fauna, and very well set up walking and driving trails, winding their way around and through the rock formations.



The whole area around Jurien is classified as a 'bio-diversity hotspot' and there are more species of plants in the area than in a tropical rain forest. Accordingly, there are several national parks set aside to preserve the various ecosystems. One such park is Lesueur NP, where we did an interesting 8km walk to the top of a flat-topped mesa, providing panoramic views across the countryside and down to the sea. We also went to Stockyard Gully Reserve and did a walk through a cave cut by a creek - luckily dry at the moment. The part through the cave was about 250m long, pitch black of course. We only had one torch with us so held hands tightly to make sure neither of us wandered into a wall or hanging stalactite (or got taken by monster bats). Unlike our previous cave walk at Tunnel Creek (see Derby), we were the only ones there, so we weren't helped by other people's torches. It felt a lot longer than 250m before we turned a corner and saw the glow from the other end of the tunnel!



We also had an its-a-small-world experience while in Jurien. As we were driving out of Stockyard Gully, on a VERY rough 4wd track (probably the main reason why not many people visit) we came across a camera bag, just sitting in the middle of the track. It looked like quite an expensive camera, certainly a lot flasher than our little pocket job. There was no name or phone number in the bag, so we handed it in to the police station at the nearest town. The next day we got a phone call from the owner thanking us for handing it in. As John was on the phone Wendy could hear the conversation in stereo - it turned out the people who lost it were in a tent right behind our van! They hadn't even realised the camera was missing - he must have put it on the bumper bar of his car after they had done the walk at the cave and then driven off with it still there. The police had looked at the photos on the camera and recognised one of the people - it turns out the camera owner had visited his brother recently and taken a couple of family snaps, the brother was a policeman and one of the police at the station we handed the camera in to recognised him from a training course they had done together. How lucky was that!



We have updated the mailing list at the bottom of our blog slightly, please note for correspondence.

Dongara

Dongara is a small fishing and tourist town. The main industry is rock lobster fishing, but unfortunately the season doesn't start until November, so we didn't get to try any. They have a Larry the Lobster Big Thing at the entrance to town, but it is very much a little brother of the one at Kingston (see our post on Kingston SE - Murray Bridge for a photo of that Larry). We only spent one day here, just enough time to have a game of golf and do the history walk around town.

Kalbarri

Kalbarri is a tourist resort at the mouth of the Murchison River, surrounded by the Kalbarri National Park. It is now school holidays in WA, and the town and caravan park are heaving with families and kids, who seem to all start screaming with excitement at 6am. We spent 3 days here and could have doubled that, particularly as it has quite a nice golf course. However, we only got in one game of golf, and spent the other days exploring the national park.

The park has 2 quite distinct sections - inland around the Murchison River hinterland, and a spectacular section along the coast south of the town of Kalbarri. The river has cut some spectacular gorges, and there are numerous lookouts and short and long walks. The most famous feature around the river is called Nature's Window, being a natural loop worn through the rock that gives a view along one of the river gorges, we only had to queue up for a little while to get the above photo without any other tourists in it! From there we did an 8 km loop walk, which was probably just 1 km too far. The walk went along the top of a ridge, then dropped down to the river before climbing back up to Nature's Window. We were both drooping severely by the time we got back to the car park.

As well as going for walks, we also decided to do a canoe safari down the Murchison River. We were taken by 4wd from town to a spot up river, given some brief instructions, then sent off downstream in canoes. The two of us shared a canoe, and we managed to paddle downstream as a team without too many cross words. Being school holidays, the tour was full, and the other canoes all had some combination of Mum, Dad and the kids. Typical overheard remark was 'paddle faster Dad' from the 6 year old sitting snug in the front while Dad did all the work at the back of the boat! After about 45 minutes we pulled into the bank where the organisers had barbecued a major breakfast - eggs, bacon, baked beans, toast and hash browns. Very welcome after our hard work! Then it was back across the mud (note how far down John's feet have sunk in the photo at right) and into the canoes for another 45 minutes, after which we beached the canoes and were taken back to town. We had a great time, although it is going to take a few days for our shoulders and arms to recover!

The coastal section of the national park has spectacular limestone cliffs, with sea stacks, natural arches and secluded beaches. We did a couple of interesting short walks, deciding not to do the longer walk on offer as the constant sea wind was just too wearing. All in all Kalbarri has a lot to offer, and may well be on our revisit list for the next trip around Australia!

Denham (Shark Bay World Heritage Area)

Denham is the only town on the Peron Peninsula, most of which has been designated a World Heritage Area for outstanding natural and historic values. Denham is also the most Westerly town in Australia, so after this we will be heading gradually eastward again.

The most famous thing about the Shark Bay WHA are the wild dolphins that come into the bay at Monkey Mia daily to be fed. There are apparently around 16 dolphins that visit regularly, but only about 6 of these actually get fed. The Department of Environment and Conservation have worked out a strict feeding regimen to ensure that the dolphins still get the bulk of their food from hunting, so they do not lose their wild instincts. DEC have also cannily worked out that dolphins tend to hang around in family groups with a dominant female, so they only actually feed a few of the matriarchs and still get the benefit of the whole family visiting the beach. School holidays have started here in WA, so there were heaps of people at the dolphin feeding, unfortunately we weren't one of the lucky few chosen to actually hand over a fish but it was still lovely being there so close to these beautiful animals.

Dolphins aren't the only wildlife in the waters of Shark Bay, it is also home to 10% of the world's dugongs, as well as turtles, rays and, as the name suggests, lots of sharks. Dugongs are large marine mammals, supposedly the basis of the mermaid myth, but having seen the rotund beasts in real life we can only think that those sailors must have been out at sea a LONG time to mistake them for beautiful women. We did an afternoon cruise wildlife spotting, and saw quite a few dugong. The cruise company was offering a deal whereby we also got a free 1.5 hour sunset cruise included with the afternoon wildlife cruise. We figured as it was free we might as well go along the following day, although we weren't really expecting anything special. We should have read the brochure more carefully, the boat was originally built as a racing catamaran and in the brisk evening breeze we hurtled across the water with spray flying. Exhilarating!

Another, more sedate, feature of the area is the stromatolites, spongy rocklike formations created by blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, representatives of the very first life forms on earth. Nearby are areas where layers of shells up to 10 metres deep have hardened and bonded to form a rock like substance that looks just like a pile of shells. Early settlers quarried this for bricks, some of the very first buildings in Denham were made from these bricks and can still be seen.

Until less than 20 years ago the peninsula was a pastoral property, and the original homestead is now open to visitors. Wendy was going to pose for a photo with her legs in the tub filled from the water drawn up from underground springs under the property, but the artesian water was so hot that she couldn't get more than one foot in it! A very sandy 4wd track leads from the homestead to the very tip of the peninsula, where a walking track gave magnificent views into the shallow waters of Shark Bay. We saw rays snuffling in the sandy bottom, dugongs wallowing, sharks circling and a dolphin chasing, and ultimately catching, some prey fish. All in all we had a terrific time in one of the world's truly magnificent natural wonders.