Australia's South West Corner

We've spent the last 2 weeks in Busselton, in WA's south west. Our timing here revolved around a mixed tournament at the Busselton Golf Club, the Leaney Cup, which was held over the first weekend we were here. Although we both played reasonably well, we didn't manage to feature in the prize giving.

Having spent some time here last year, we had done most of the major attractions on offer in the area. However, working on the principle that you can never have enough wine, even in a caravan, we spent some time revisiting various wineries in the Margaret River area, stocking up on both still and sparkling wine, and enjoying lunches at several wineries. We also revisited the local chocolate and cheese factories - it would be a sin not to really!

The coast off Busselton is on the whale highway used by whales to migrate between their feeding grounds in Antarctica and their breeding grounds in the tropics. At this time of the year they are heading southwards and we spent half a day on a whale watching cruise. We did one of these a couple of years ago at Coffs Harbour on the east coast, and while at the time we had been reasonably happy with our glimpses of distant whales, this tour provided a much closer experience. One mother and calf not only got close to the boat - they actually swam right underneath it! You could just about reach out and touch them, and the water was so clear that you could easily see the markings and barnacles on their backs. Further out to sea a group of juvenile males were leaping about and having fun, crashing their huge tails into the water and competing to make the biggest splash. Boys will be boys!

Busselton town is on Geographe Bay. At the western end of the bay is Cape Naturaliste, then the west coast stretches for 135 km down to Cape Leeuwin, where the Southern Ocean meets the Indian Ocean. The Cape to Cape walking trail has been constructed between the two. We certainly didn't do the entire stretch, but Wendy spent several hours walking the first 14 km section. For the most part it was very enjoyable, with terrific views of the coastline cliffs, sandy beaches and surf. The little critters in the photo at right littered the waters edge on one beach, we're still not quite sure what they are. John decided not to do the walk, but provided car ferry services.

The coastline between the two capes is a long stretch of limestone pitted with numerous caves. Last year we visited two of the caves that are open to the public, this year we went to another. Lake Cave actually has a stream running through it rather than a lake as the name suggests. It is much smaller than it used to be, apparently about 700 years ago a large part of the cave roof collapsed - they can tell when this happened by the size of the trees that have grown up in the resulting sink hole. There are 300 steps down to the base of the cave (and 300 steps back up again) but it is a pretty walk down through the leafy green to the rubble at the bottom. The exposed stalactites are no longer pristine white but covered in dust, lichen and spider webs. Inside the cave itself the most striking feature is a suspended upside-down 'table' that hangs above the water. This was apparently formed when a change in the stream flow caused the sand that was underneath the formation to erode away. The estimated weight of the formation is 5.5 tonne, so the stalactites holding it up must have a very firm grip on the ceiling!

As well as the Leaney Cup, the two of us also played in the Busselton Golf Club's competition days, plus we had a hit at Margaret River. Unfortunately, John's shoulder has been giving him increasing trouble, and he got to the point during our stay here that he could barely lift his arm, let alone swing a golf club. He's now been given a cortisone injection into the affected area and we are hopeful that he will shortly be back on the greens.

Still in Perth

We've done quite a bit of exploring of Perth in the last week. King's Park is a wonderful area over 1000 acres in size, walking distance from the city centre (as shown in the photo on the left). It is a terrific reflection on successive city councils that the park has remained intact, I'm not sure that other governments would have resisted the temptation to nibble bits off here and there for housing and other development. We spent half a day walking various trails, admiring numerous memorials, fountains and gardens, and being stunned by the spectacular views across the Perth city and suburbs and out to the far hills and sea.

On another day we caught the train into town and did a boat cruise down the Swan River to Fremantle. The trip included a circuit on the tourist tram around the historic port city, then lunch on the boat back up river. It was very enjoyable and compared well with the other boat cruises we have done on this trip. While at the Fremantle jetty waiting for the boat

for the return trip, we were quite taken by the series of whimsical sculptures depicting various aspects of Perth and Fremantle life. At first glance the one pictured here is just a cute diver, but the title of 'Bottom of the Harbour' and description of it being a businessman taking his briefcase for swim would bring a wry smile to the face of any Australian who remembers the tax avoidance scandals of the 1970s.

We also visited several more wineries here in the Swan Valley in the last week, as well as the local ice creamery. It hasn't all been fun though, we spent a morning washing down the outside of the van, the first time it had been done since we were in Port Lincoln 8 months ago. Hard work, but the white bodywork gleaming in the sun gave us quite some satisfaction.

Of course, the main thing we've done here in Perth is play on some of the fabulous golf courses in the area. For those interested. in our 17 days here we have played The Vines (both courses), Rockingham, Mt Lawley, Hillview (both courses), Kennedy Bay and Lakelands.

Swan Valley, Perth

We're currently staying in the Swan Valley, in the northern suburbs of Perth. Last year in Perth we stayed at Rockingham which is well south of the city, so we thought we'd check out the other side of town this time. We're planning to stay here for nearly 3 weeks and to spend a lot of days playing golf, but we are also doing some tourist things.

The Swan Valley is renowned for food and wine, we've visited a couple of wineries so far with more planned. We've also checked out a couple of breweries and of course the local chocolate shop.

The town of Guildford is at the southern end of the Swan Valley, and is of such heritage value that the entire town is classified by the National Trust. We've done the heritage walking trails around town, and were suitably impressed by the gorgeous old houses and civic buildings and the magnificent plane trees.

For a change of pace, we visited the Gravity Discovery Centre about 40km further north. This is attached to the brand new Australian International Gravitation Observatory, a high tech facility that is part of a worldwide project to try and measure gravity waves, which have been hypothesised but never actually observed or proved. The Discovery Centre had all sorts of weird and wonderful displays, plus an outdoor scale model walking track of the solar system. Poor old Pluto has been removed after its demotion from planet status a few years ago.

When we were in Kalgoorlie last year we visited the Charlotte reservoir, where water piped over 500km from Perth is stored. This week we visited Mundaring Weir, where the water originates. There was a very interesting display in the original No 1 pump house at the weir covering not just the physical design and construction of the weir and pipeline, but the political shenanigans as well. There was so much public criticism and ridicule of the grand scheme that the chief engineer, the now universally admired C. Y. O'Connor, committed suicide only a few months before the opening of the pipeline. We spent a lot longer here than we had expected, and found it very interesting. It makes you wonder what government in Australia would attempt such a challenge these days, they are much too risk averse to tackle such huge nation building schemes.

Unlike the cold and wet south east of Australia, Perth is still in the grip of drought, and Summer has well and truly started. To escape today's 37 degree heat we went to an air conditioned cinema for the morning screening of 'Let Me In', a so-so horror flick. We had the cinema entirely to ourselves, so maybe everyone else had seen some poor reviews that we hadn't. We had a fun time, it was just like having our very own giant home theatre!