West Coast Wanderings

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Here is my first blog from Australia.
It isn't quite as action packed as some of my other blogs, as I was pretty shattered after 5 months travelling, so took the opportunity of staying with some family in Margaret River and taking things at a much slower pace for a bit :D

I arrived in Perth in the wee hours of the morning (2am), and was picked up by my fabulous cousin, Barbara. I was whisked back to the family home, where I was given the bottom bunk of their kids bunkbed (meaning my poor little second cousin was taken from her bed and put in her parents room....felt quite bad about that), where I promptly passed out, fast asleep.

I awoke the next morning to the sound of giggling. My two little second cousins (Bobbie and Georgie) were peeking around the door to see if I was awake. They are both blonde and have the cutest, cheekiest smiles you can imagine. I hadn't seen them in 5 years; when Bobbie wasn't even 2 years old and Georgie was just a tiny baby. Just looking into their smiling faces, I knew they were going to be a bit of a handful, but as I love kids, I looked forward to getting to know them.

We didn't do much that first day, as my cousins were getting ready to move house from Perth to Margaret River (great timing Abbie, arriving at the most awkward time imaginable!), but I went for a walk in the local Star swamp with Sam (my cousin on my Dad's side) and his two little girls. It was so nice to have my first glimpse of the Australian wildlife and plantlife. Absolutely nothing like home. Sam had heaps of fun teasing me about squirrels and drop bears (both of which don't exist in Australia, especially as one is fictional..). The girls showed off how much they knew about the birds etc flying around, and both did a very enthusiatic impression of a Kookaburra (the trick was presuading them to stop being Kookaburras...).

That evening, thanks to my AWESOME friends ( i love you guys!!! And a special mention for Beth who provided the laptop), I got to see my school friend get married in Southampton. I watched it all over skype, me sitting in my cousin's kitchen with a glass of wine in front of my at around 10pm West Australian time, and Beth's laptop perched somewhere in the church, pointing at my friend and her groom. I felt so lucky to be able to watch it all, and my cousins were cracking up as I got more and more emotional (positively correlated with the number of sips of wine I'd had) as the wedding progressed. I couldn't stop exclaiming or commenting on what I was seeing. It was definitely the next best thing to being there.
CONGRATUALTIONS SARAH AND STUART!!! MR & MRS RIMMER.

The next morning I helped my cousins load up the lorry (huge, huge lorry) with all their posessions, which involved a hell of a lot of box lifting. Still, working together it went pretty quickly and I rather enjoyed myself (it was making up for 5 months of not going to the gym!).
On the way over to Barbara's friend's house (where we would be spending the night), Sam and Barbara took at bit of a detour to show me my first KANGAROO! I was more than a little bit excited to see one, although it wasn't as big as I was expecting it to be (could of just been the breed I suppose?).

We drove down to Margaret River (I say we, but I did nothing... :S), and after a three and a half hour journey, we pulled up outside what was to be my cousin's new home. It was beautiful, complete with the all essential pool. Alas, it was then time to unpack the lorry that we had spent the whole of the previous day packing.... Exhausting, but worth it to see the house begin to come together. We were rewarded with a yummy dinner at the pub-like restaurant in town.
That night there was a huge rainstorm. I had never heard anything like it. As the roof was made from tin, the rain was deafening, and I had to put my earplugs in before I could even try to get some sleep. The rain woke me up several times during the night.

In the morning, we awoke to find that the storm had brought down lots of branches and boughers, from trees aptly named 'widow makers'. As we had nowhere to go, this didn't particularly worry us, and we spent a productive day unpacking, and then walking in the local forest. The trees were huge, and subtly different from the trees we get back in the UK. Felt like I was walking through somewhere a bit prehistoric!

That night I had to say goodbye to my cousin Sam, as he would be leaving early the next morning to go up the West coast, back to work on the oil rig. By the time he would be back, I would have already left for the East Coast.

On my first day without Sam, Barbara drove me into town so that I could set about booking some tours and things, so I could experience some of what the local area had to offer. Margaret River is a famous wine producer in Australia, so I felt it was an absolute must to sign up for a wine tour ( 😉 ). I also decided to do a bushtucker canoe tour, which would get me out into the local bush, and allow me to try some of the native delicacies.

The next dawned bright and beautiful.......HAH! I wish! Still, as I was going on a wine tasting tour, the rain wasn't really going to effect me all that much, as I would be inside with a glass of wine in my hand for most of the day. The first winery was Femoy, a winery that got recognisition when the Prince of Denmark married an Australian lady, Mary, from Tasmania. On of the wines at the wedding reception, specially chosen to complement one of the dishes, was from Femoy.
The wines were delicious, but I hadn't realised we would be trying quite so many wines in such a small space of time. Add to that that the lady pouring the wine was quite generous, then you might understand how I was well on my way to being merry after only one hour. The next few wineries also had lovely wines, but they were starting to blur together a bit.

I thought I was going to be given a brief reprieve at lunch, where we would be trying some bushtucker, but a lovely Scottish guy and Irish lady decided that I would be helping them to drink the bottle of wine they'd just bought......
Our Australian lunch included wild turkey, kangaroo, and numerous chutneys and dips made from all sorts of indigenous fruits and nuts. Three of us (including me!) opted to try a bit of wit juti grub (if you have seen 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here' you know exactly what it looks like). It tasted very earthy and had quite a lot of moisture in it, however, it tasted much nicer than I had been expecting. The only real negative to it was the really odd texture it had....kinda chewy...

We rounded off the day with one more winery after lunch, and then a stop at a dairy food producer (yummy passionfruit yogurt) and a chocolate factory.
I was then dropped off back at my cousins' house a bit red in the face and with the start of a headache.... I blamed it on all the mixing, not on my patheticness.

I awoke after a refreshing sleep, sans headache, ready for my next tour. It was another wet day, which was a bit worrisome as my tour was an outdoor thing. So armed with a lot of waterproofs and a plastic bag to put my stuff in, I set off to the meeting point.
The tour started at Prevelly beach, which was looking a little bit wild when we arrived, waves crashed against the shore.

We walked over to the mouth of Margaret River, where the river met the sea, and after continuing a little way up the side of the river we arrived at our canoes. In we hopped, and off we set. It was quite rough until we managed to paddle round a bend into a sheltered area, where it then proceeded to rain on and off.

As there had been so much rain recently, Boogaloongar Island, which is covered with these fascinating Tea Trees complete with paper bark, was submerged. This was awesome as it meant we could canoe through the trees, creating a very swamp like feel (though thankfully minus the danger of crocodiles), with branches we had to duck under.

While canoeing we saw an osprey, and next to it was the first ever house built it Margaret River. A beautiful house, overlooking the river. We were told the story about the people who live(d) there and how some of the old occupants became local heroes when they rescued 50 people from ship sinking just off Red Gate beach.

Our bushtucker guide took us through a bit of bush, pointing out local plants and telling us which ones were edible or what we could use them for. There was a plant called the peppermint plant, and if you rub it's leaves over your skin, it keeps mosquitoes away.

For lunch we were giving smoked kangaroo, Emu, wit juti grub pesto, some funny Australian pinenut, and much, much more. For pudding we were given murtle and wattleseed on some bread, covered with honey. As the wattleseed tastes a lot like chocolate it was pretty delicious.

Next we went into the cave, where the survivors from the ship that wrecked just off Red Gate beach stayed for a while. The roof was really low, and our guide scared the cr*p out of us by going into a further mini cave and making a sound like a dingo growling. The girl in front of me practically bolted; never seen someone move so fast!

It was then back into the canoes to head back to Prevelley beach. We had a bit of an issue doing this was the wind was so strong that we were struggling to paddle against it. Whenever we tried to get around the outcrop of land sheltering us, we were just blown backwards, and our canoes would spin round, causing us to be facing the wrong way. Eventually, our bushtucker guide got out of his canoe, into the water, and dragged our canoes behind him as he walked up the river. The poor thing was wadding through waist deep water, that was freezing. And just to make sure we were all really cold, it started to hail. At least it wasn't too long before we were in a warm bus on the way back to town with a hot shower almost in sight.
That evening we headed back to Perth to spend the weekend sorting out the last few things with the house.

On the Sunday, just before driving back to Margaret River, we stopped in Kíngs Park, so that I could have a look round. It was lovely, and I decided then and there to make sure to go back and explore it properly when I came back up to Perth later the next week.

The next day was spent quietly at the house, and then on the tuesday we headed down to Augusta to go whale watching. We stopped en-route in Boranup forest, this spectacular forest full of the tallest trees I have ever seen, reaching tall, and straight up towards the sky, the trees sometimes seemingly impossibly close together. No picture I took of them could do them justice. You have to see them to understand what I mean!

Once we got to Augusta, it was turning out to be a day like all the others I'd had since arriving in Australia (meaning it was raining!). We pulled into many a bay, so that we could peer out over the sea, looking for the tell-tell spray sent up from the whales blow-holes. Alas it was not meant to be, and if there were any whales out there where we were looking, we weren't skilled enough to spot them.

So we decided to go look at the Leeuwin lighthouse. It is the tallest lighthouse in Australia on one of the most dangerous Capes in the whole country. It is right where the the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean. I really enjoyed the tour of the lighthouse, and it was nice to hear the stories of the old lighthouse keepers, and hear of the shipwrecks that occured over the years. The lighthouse provided us with this fantastic view out over the water. However it wasn't enough, as we still failed to spot any whales.
But it was still a great day :D.

The next day I was taken on a flying (not literally) tour of Dunsborough, Busselton and Yallingup. Busselton was the first place we stopped at, and we headed to the wharf so I could see the famous jetty jutting out into the sea. We were especially lucky as the sun decided to make an appearance as we were staring out at the kinked jetty, making it look even more picturesque. Georgie was excited about being there and found some cuttlefish that she wanted to take back with her to decorate her room.
We didn't have time to walk on the jetty as it stretches out over the sea for several kilometres, and we had a time contraint as we had to be back in Magaret River in time to pick up Bobbie from school.

We then whizzed over to Dunsborough, where Barbara showed me the beaches and the lovely houses in around the town. These houses had far more character than most of the Aussie houses I had been seeing.
We then went to a delicious little cafe for lunch, and spent some time exploring the shops. Dunsborough is full of quaint little boutique-y shops, full of lovely things that I would have loved to have bought and used to decorate my future house.

There was just enough time to swing by Yallingup on the way back to Margaret River. It has some lovely beaches and areas with rocks right on the sea, which the waves crash against. It really reminded me of parts of the Devon and Cornwall coastline, with it's rugged beauty. I hopped out of the car to take a few pictures before we rushed off.

The next day was my last day in Margaret River, as I was catching a bus to Perth in the afternoon. I went about repacking my bag for the first time in over a week (what a luxury to not of had to repack it every two days or so!!!) and posted home a load of stuff I felt I no longer needed.
Then it was a last coffee with Barbara and the girls and before I knew it I was Perth bound, and going solo again!
Arrived in Perth quite late as it took over 5 hours to get there on the bus, so literally checked-in and got ready for an early night, as I was getting picked up early the next day to go to Rottnest Island.

I didn't sleep all that well that night, as I had been paranoid about over sleeping, and missing my pickup. - an unwarranted fear as it turned out that just about everyone in my dorm was getting up early, and they would have woken me up anyway.
So feeling pretty tired I got all my bits together and got driven to Hillary Habour. It took about 45 minutes on the ferry to get over to Rottnest, and suddenly I had a whole day to fill. I was feeling pretty adrift after leaving the security of my cousins, and had got out of the habit of planning and filling my days, so other than getting to Rottnest, I hadn't thought all that much about what I would do there. Before arriving I had thought I'd hire a bike, but I found it was cheaper to get a bus pass instead. My bus driver was pretty amazing, and as I was just about the only one on the bus, she drove me all the way to this seal colony, even though it wasn't on the bus circuit, saving me a 3km walk there.
She made another detour to this place where we could see the seal colony but not get to them, and she pointed out the pathway I would have to find to get to them. She also told me to look about for dolphins and whales, and literally as the words left her mouth, we saw a pod of about 10 dolphins, and there in the distance beyond them we could see whales shooting up water as they breathed! It was AMAZING.

Once off the bus, I found the path straight away, and walked overto where the seals were. They were really comical as they were floating there in the shallow water with one flipper sticking out of the water. No idea why, but they were all doing this, occasionally rolling over in the water and sticking the other flipper out.
It was really peaceful sitting there, just watching them, and the sun was shining, making it pleasantly warm when the wind wasn't blowing. Before I knew it I was laying down and having a little bit of a nap, only to be jolted awake when I heard what I thought was a dog growling right next to me......it was only the seals! But my heart wasn't half pounding!

Feeling refreshed, I walked to th bus stop, as I wanted to go back to Thompson Bay (where the ferry had dropped me off) so I could see some quokkas. I'd seen two when I'd arrived but not many as they are nocturnal creatures, so I was hoping a few more would have woken up and be hopping around. Quokkas are these cute little animals, that look a bit like a cross between a rat and a wallaby. They are also how Rottnest got it's name, the first person to arrive mistook them for rats, thus he called the island 'Rat Nest' Island. They are marsupials, and I was lucky enough to spot one mum with a little quokka joey in her pouch.

Rottnest Island offers several free walks a day, so I went on the settlement walk to learn how Rottnest had once been a prison for Aboriginal Prisoners; how they'd suffered terrible conditions, heard about ships wrecked off the island, and learnt all about the early settlers. I thought it was great that they offered these free guided walks, perfected for someone on a budget who wanted to find out more....just like me!
That was it for my day on Rottnest, and I'd had a pretty darn fab time!

I had decided to spent the next whole day exploring Perth city centre, as though I had technically been in Perth twice already, I'd seen just about nothing of it. I got up early-ish, found a nice place to have a cup of tea and then walked over to the Perth Mint for 9am with the intention of going on the 9.30am tour. However, when I got there, the gates were still closed and there was no one in sight. Thinking i was perhaps a little too early I found a bench to sit on and decided to wait a little while (I knew the mint was supposed to be open that day as I'd checked online the day before). Before long other tourists started to turn-up, just as perplexed by the closed gates as I was. A lady suddenly come out and told us that because of a technical prolem, the first tour of the day wouldn't be until 11.30, and to apologise she gave us wristbands that would get us onto the tour for free! Woop woop!

I suddenly had 2 hours to burn, so I decided to go to the next place on my list, the Swan Bells, right by the water front. It was a very modern building, the only one of its kind to be purpose built so that you can watch both the bellringers and the bells. As it was only 9.45, and the place didn't open until 10am, I wandered over to the ferry companies to see what they offered and how much it would cost to go to Fremantle.
I knew I wanted to go to Fremantle the next day, and I had been going to take the train, but had been told that a cruise up the swan river to Fremantle was a nice way of getting there, so thought i would check out the times and prices, and I needed to do everything in time to get back to go to the airport and catch my plane over to the East Coast. Finding a company that seemed nice and reasonable, I bought my ticket, then went back to Swan Bells.

Swan Bells is home to most of the old bells from St Martin-in-the-Fields, the bells sung about in the nursery rhyme 'Oranges and Lemons'.
I also learnt how bells get made and rung (ringing bells is far more dangerous than I had ever thought it could be! You can get crushed on the ceiling if you don't let go of the rope at the correct time!) and was told that if I came back between 12 and 1, I could see the bell ringers ringing the bells.

So I rushed off to do the Mint tour, hoping I'd get back in time to see the bell ringers afterwards. I enjoyed the MInt tour, especially as I was doing it for free. We learnt all about the biggest gold nuggets found in Australia, and heard who found them, and what they sold for. It was interesting hearing about the gold rush of the time, and fully realising why WA had so many mines dotted around everywhere.
We got to pick up an actual gold bar (though it was bolted down so you can't walk off with it) so we could feel the weight of gold (pretty darn heavy!), and got to see a huge nugget, as well as lots of little ones. So pretty but they are full of little pieces of rocks etc.
There were these special scales that you could go on to see how much you'd be worth if you were made of solid gold. I was only worth about 14 million or so 😞.

Then the best bit of the tour was getting to watch a gold bar being made from liquid gold. So fun to watch, the colour of the crucible when it comes out of the furnace was this bright, glowing red! And the gold inside is glowing too, bubbling away. I'd never realised how quickly gold cools, and in only 20 seconds or so, it went from liquid to a solid gold bar!

After the gold demonstration the tour was over, so I rushed back to Swan bells to see and hear the bells being rung. Because you are watching through special double glazing glass, it is really pleasant to listen to, not horrendously loud like you'd think.

Then I walked over to King's Park, as I really wanted to have a good walk and explore it. I got there in time to have a quick drink before joining the free guided walk called Widerness and Wild Flowers.
It was great having the native trees and flowers pointed out, and explained, and I got to see lots of birds too; collared parrots, white-tailed black cockatoos, wattle birds and many more. The walk was only supposed to take an hour and fifteen minutes but we ended up walking round for over two hours.

I then had to rush back and shower, and pack my bag as I was meeting a friend I'd met in Thailand who lived in Perth, for a few drinks.
It was great to catch up and have a friend in Perth, somone who I could be out with on a Saturday night. We also found that we would both be in Fremantle the next day, as she was gonig on a first date there and agreed to try and meet afterwards if we had time.

The Sunday was my last day in Perth and on the West Coast!
I walked from my hostel to Barrack jetty to catch my ferry to Fremantle. While floating up the Swan River we had stories of the river area told to us, and had the houses of famous people pointed out to us. Just before we arrived in Fremantle we saw some dolphins swimming together!

It was overcast in Fremantle but that didn't put me off, I thought it was fantastic there. It has this covered market which reminded me of a cross between Tiverton Market in Devon and Borough Market in London, as they had so many interesting stalls selling everything, and there were some particularly good food stalls. I decided to have a tasty nutella crepe to munch on while wandering around all the stalls.
Then I headed out the back entrance of the market to get to Fremantle prison.

Fremantle Prison has a long history as it has been a place where POM convicts were sent to from the UK, and was then a place of encarceration for people who broke the law in the WA area itself. It only closed as a prison in 1991.
I really enjoyed my tour around the prison, getting to hear about some of the inmates, about the riots that took place there, and as it was a cold, wet day, it was easy to imagine how miserable it must have been for the inmates when they were shoved out into the exercise yard in all weathers.

We went into the eery room which houses the old gallows, and heard about the only woman hung there ( she was a real evil step-mother, poisoned her stepchildren!) and also about the last man executed there, Eric Cooke.

After my tour of the prison, I wandered back to the Market for one last look around. I was already running out of time, as the prison tour had taken 1 1/2 hours. However I decided to whizz down to the Esplanade and go to the Shipwreck Gallery there.
I loved it inside the gallery, even though I only had about half an hour to rush around it. Still, it was great to read the stories about mutinies, shipwrecks leading to cannibalism, and about what the first Europeans really thought of Australia when they were wrecked along it's harsh coasts long before they had been settled on.

Alas I then had to get back to the Jetty for my cruise back to Perth. As I was catching a plane that evening, my friend, Sarah, had kindly offered to cook me dinner (as we hadn't had time to meet in Fremantle), so she picked me up as soon as I got back to the hostel.
We sat and ate chicken caesar salad while chatting away. Because of my flight it ended up feeling a little rushed, but I was so pleased to have been able to spend more time with her.

I went off to the airport, only to find that my flgiht had been CANCELLED!!! GRRR!!!! Thankfully, I had been automatically rebooked on to some Quantas flights, so I still flew out that night, but it added 4/5 hours onto my journey, as I had to stop briefly in Brisbane.
At 9.30am, after travelling all night, I arrived in Cairns............


And that's it for this blog. Will be writing about what I've been up to on the West Coast soon enough, as I've already been here two weeks.......But it wont be for a least a few days as I am going on a 3 day boat cruise of the Whitsundays tomorrow!!! Can't wait!!
Let me know what you think!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

p.s. sorry for the lack of pictures. The computers here are blocked from letting me upload them, so will try and do it in 4 days or so when I get back on dry land :D.

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Photos

Busselton
Super long jetty

On my bushtucker tour
Some local plant that can be used as soap