Motorhome Adventure in WA

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Well I’m terribly sorry to say that I have not been in a “blogging mood” for the last 2 weeks. We have been cursed with lots of rain and if it’s not raining it is cloudy, windy or cold and usually a combination of all three. I can count on one hand the number of decent days we’ve had since being in the motorhome these last 3 weeks. We are getting super fat sitting around in the van waiting for the weather to improve so we can go outside and DO something. In fact I think this is THE worst holiday we’ve done in the 32 years I’ve been dragging Noel around the globe. We did have really bad weather in April 1989 when 2 cyclones wiped out far north Queensland, while we road tripped up to Port Douglas and back. However we were young lovers then and endless hours cooped up inside was not a problem for us then…if you know what I mean (wink wink). I’m sure I’ve just freaked my sons out hahahahaha!!

Our other problem is that we have managed to perfect the ability to visit attractions that are closed or broken on the only days that we are available in that area. People keep saying “come back tomorrow” or “we’ll be open on the weekend”. Not helpful when we only have one and a half days at each stop before driving to our next destination. Even the freaking dolphins are not co-operating at the Dolphin Discovery Centre in Bunbury. They advertise that the dolphins come right into the shoreline “most days” for interactions with visitors. So we delayed our trip north so we could go see them after being turned away the afternoon before (closing at 3pm!!! Who closes at 3pm???), only to be told by a volunteer that it’s nearly winter so the 70 dolphins are staying out near the ocean to chase fish. Surely there are still fish in the freaking huge bay for them to eat? Anyway, yet another disappointment.

Ok enough whining. Now I’ll let you know about some of the things we have managed to do in between all the bad weather and closures.

We swam in the cold Indian Ocean at Green’s Pool and followed that up with a very yummy cheese and fruit platter at Duckett’s winery and cheese factory. Noel climbed the huge Gloucester tree that just has rebar spikes, as hand and foot holds, winding up the tree trunk with NO safety net to catch anyone who slips through the bars!! YIKES. The tree is 58 metres high and is used as a fire lookout over the forest. My heart was in my mouth as I watched a family with 4 little kids climb down. The spaces between each bar were quite big and the kids had to take huge backward steps to climb down. I really did sigh with relief when they all got down. We did a tree top walk in the Valley of the Giants. Noel takes great delight in making the big walkways bounce while I’m 20, 30, 40 metres off the forest floor, which freaks me out. It was so high up that we found out that a couple actually snuck in and base jumped off the tallest span. Noel and I saw them sneaking out into the carpark while we were on a walk. They didn’t want to get caught or fined so just traipsed on through the bush that had signs everywhere saying “stay on the path” so the wildlife wouldn’t be trampled. We were not amused.

We visited Jewel and Mammoth Caves near Margaret River. The good thing about caves is that not much rain comes inside when it’s pouring outside. On the way from Margaret River to Busselton we stopped at a place called Dunsborough. It’s not a huge place and it was raining pretty hard…yet again so after checking out the myriad of eateries, which is about the only thing to do in Dunsborough, Noel decides he feels like Subway. I stay in the van (to keep dry) and when Noel gets back he says “You’ll NEVER guess who I just ran into”. It turns out that in the exact same 5 minutes that Noel is in Subway, 4000 kms from Sydney, he bumps into a guy that we had a 5 minute chat to while on a shuttle bus from Sydney airport parking when we went to Cairns, back in April!!! Can you even believe it? And the guy doesn’t even live in Dunsborough. He lives in Perth and decided to have a day out in Dunsborough… 250 kms from home. Bizzare.

We managed to squeeze in a tram ride out and a 2 km walk back, along the famous Busselton jetty which is the longest piled pier in the Southern Hemisphere, just before the skies opened yet again. After being “out of the water” the day we wanted to do a cruise we delayed our drive to Lancelin so we could go on a dolphin cruise in Manduah. We did actually see some dolphins here and they even came along the boat and surfed the wake in the harbour. The cruise took us through the lovely canals where million dollar homes are built on million dollar blocks of land. They nearly all have huge cruisers parked next to their personal jetties. Very much like the Gold Coast canals. There is even a section called the Venetian canals and that is exactly what they look like, except with brand new buildings along the canals instead of ones built hundreds of years ago. Mandurah is a beautiful small city. It’s our favourite place so far. Noel beat me at mini golf here but only by 4 strokes, so I was happy with that.

Lancelin was a disappointment. The caravan park was ok but the beach it fronted was full of seaweed and it smelt dreadful. The massive one hour thunderstorm and rough seas at bedtime, stirred up the beach and seaweed and the stench permeated the entire van all night. I couldn’t sleep because the storm was so loud with lightning and thunder really close and the rain was hammering the whole van. I was praying so hard that hail didn’t start happening and we’d lose our $5000 bond. Kudos to Noel though, who managed to snore through the ENTIRE storm… and the stink.

The Pinnacles near Cervantes were visited twice. The first time in pouring rain and again the next day when we had a 15 minute window to take photos of them with sunshine on them before being hammered again with more wind and rain. Drove to Hangover Bay which looks like it would be really beautiful if the storm surge was not making the beach a washing machine.

We had half an hour of sunshine in Geraldton while we explored a very moving memorial to HMAS Sydney II that sank with 645 souls aboard in WWII. The list of names showed that there was a Gwynne and a Davey (my maiden name) on board when she went down.

So today (Tues 1 June) marks 3 weeks in the motorhome and we woke up to a bluebird sky!!!!! Not a cloud to be seen. We are hoping that we have seen the last of the bad weather and hiccups. Today we drove to Kalbarri via Hutt Lagoon (pink lake). Kalbarri got hit by the cyclone last month but it looks pretty perfect today even with lots of buildings boarded up and tarps on roofs everywhere. The drive here was lovely today. Green shrubs for miles in every direction. We are a bit surprised at how green the country side is. A huge bright blue ocean with no whitecaps for a change. Everything looks so much nicer in the sunshine. Fingers crossed the sun stays out now.

Off to bed now because we are getting up at 6 am so we can watch the sun rise through “Nature’s Window” which is a 45 minute drive away followed by a snorkel at Blue Holes, we hope!

Hope you like the photos.

Stay well everyone. xxx

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Comments

[olga]

Wow
The photos are great.. hang in there with the weather.. enjoy.. missing you...Olga