Blogs from Augusta, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania

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

With almost 2 weeks of leave over my least favourite season (summer) for the Xmas and New Year break I was going a bit stir crazy. What to do? Where to go? Where could I go that wasn't going to cost much and wasn't going to kill me with heat stress? Well... with lowish summer temperatures down south for the following week, a very impromptu 7 day solo 135 km trek from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin seemed to fit the bill. ... Impromptu, as in... decide on Wednesday night, prepare on Thursday and leave on Friday. I'm completely kitted out for this style of trip now and usually have a few homemade dehydrated meals kicking around for last minute trips like this so it just took a small amount of preparation to be ready. On ... read more

It wasn't quite the introduction either of us had been hoping for. We had met up in Brisbane over the Easter long weekend - Linda, the wide-eyed 22-year-old working holiday-maker from Germany; and me, the 34-year-old eternal wanderer from Australia – and then flown to Perth together in time for Anzac Day, where we wound up at the Wicked Campers' Perth depot on a Monday morning (28th April) and handed over almost $3000 to secure one of their famous brightly-painted camper-vans for 43 days. To say that the paint job on our van left a little to be desired would be an under-statement – it was pretty clear that 'Jolly Roger' (as our van was known) had fallen from the ugly tree and hit every single branch on the way down. Linda and I immediately agreed ... read more

Geo: -34.3159, 115.16Margaret River is something of a Mecca when it comes to tourism in WA but a big part of that draw is the many surrounding wineries that dominate this SW section of Oz. With neither of us drinking, and having done a number of winery tours in other parts of the world (once you've toured a Cambodian winery, you've pretty much seen it all?), we spent a couple of hours wandering the town itself. It's another of those Aussie towns that has done a great job of maintaining their heritage buildings and it makes for a wonderful visit.The Jewel Cave was the third and final cave of the Big Three in this area so we were off to spend a little more time underground. DH is really getting into this spelunking thing after these ... read more

Awaking to the sound of the ocean crashing against the rocks on Day 6, we quickly got up, showered, cooked a hearty breakfast of beans and bread and flattened the campsite. About two kms from where we had camped were Niglgi Caves! First tour was at 10.30 and sure enough we were ten minutes late for that so we had to wait another hour an hour for the next one! We were quite excited to see these caves as we’ve all seen how much fun and mischief Fr. Ted and Doughal got up to in “The Really Dark Caves”. The caves themselves were impressive enough with two kilometres of unground to be trekked looking at stalagmites, stalligtites, stacks and straws which were between 3000 and 6000 years old, but the icing on the cake was “The ... read more