This morning, we were booked on the 2.5-hour Super Pit Tour. We had to be at the Kalgoorlie Tours & Charters office on Hannan Street 15 minutes before our scheduled 8.30am departure. Erring on the side of too early we were at the office by just after 8.00am. The staff greeted us and we checked in and received our hi-viz vests and safety glasses. We were all dressed in our wrist to ankle clothing as stipulated on the website. The same could not be said of other tour participants who rocked up in shorts and T-shirts and had to return to their cars to change into suitable clothing. Seriously, the website was very clear about the dress standard. Despite wardrobe adjustments everyone was ready and on board the bus on time for an 8.45am departure. Ha, ... read more

We had the vehicles re-packed and ready to go by about 8.10am this morning. We drove back out to the caravan park to hand our keys in, parked the vehicles and then took the short Wave Rock Walk to view the iconic rock feature that certainly does look like a wave about to break. Damn, we should have aimed for even earlier because there were other tourists there even just after 8.00am in the morning. At least we were ahead of the coach tours visiting from Perth! With a bit of patience and some judicious cropping – and no doubt some photoshopping later on? – we managed to take some good photos of Wave Rock. We had to laugh at the Chinese girls taking posed photos. Lots of different poses! The photographer was instructing her subject ... read more

This morning, we drove back up to Busselton to visit the iconic Busselton Jetty. Stretching 1.841 kilometres into Geographe Bay it is the longest timber piled jetty in the Southern Hemisphere. Built in 1865 and extended several times the jetty played an important role in the early years of European settlement allowing ships to make port in Busselton to transport the grain, livestock and timber grown, raised and felled in the surrounding districts. Geographe Bay also became recognized as a bountiful source of whales and American whalers called regularly at the port. The jetty was used commercially for more than a century and serviced 5,000 vessels over that time. When the port officially closed in 1973 all shipping ceased, and government maintenance was withdrawn. In 1978 Cyclone Alby wreaked havoc on the jetty and it was ... read more

This morning, we drove out to the other lighthouse on this ‘horny’ bit of south-western WA, the Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse. When we checked opening times last night, we discovered that the lighthouse is currently closed for maintenance and that we would not be able to do the lighthouse tour. That was disappointing! But before we drove out the Cape Naturaliste Road, we pulled in at the beach almost opposite where we are staying (a few streets back from the beach) to check it out for possible swimming. It’s a bit confronting when you are walking onto the beach and there is a ‘Shark Watch’ sign on which can be recorded the date and time of the last shark sighting. Most shark attacks are in SA and here in WA after all. For the record there was ... read more

Our first stop today was at Jewell Cave arriving just in time to pay our $22.50/head to book onto the 9.30am tour. Jewell Cave is the largest show cave in Western Australia with lofty, cathedral-like proportions. Our guide, Georgia, led us through the cave’s three vast caverns pointing out the huge stalactites, flowstone and shawls adorning the caverns. She showed us the original entry to the cave which was discovered relatively recently in January 1957. The original explorers slithered down a twelve-metre, narrow hole in the earth suspended on the end of a rope! Wanting to share the cave with visitors unable, or just disinclined, to enter via a rope, efforts were then started to raise funds to make the cave accessible. At the end of 1958 the Government agreed to provide $10,000. With nine Augusta ... read more