The Inland Sea Turtle

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Dunsborough and we have internet again. From Dwellingup we had a quick skip across to Bunbury to visit friends for a night, as always a night turned into two. Not much happened in Bunbury, it was a place to do some washing hang out with our friends and have real showers again – very nice. Our adventure started again when we left nice and early to slip into town and see the dolphins at the dolphin centre, unfortunately the dolphin (note the lack of plural) had been and gone by the time we got there so we philosophically shrugged our shoulders and headed out of town. In the defence of the dolphin centre, by all reports it is usually very good, they are dealing with wild dolphins and on our day we just got unlucky.

Upon leaving the dolphin non viewing we got slightly lost and did a big loop before finally getting our bearings and hitting the highway again. I figured fuel would be cheaper here on the highway then where we were going and I also wanted to check the radiator as I suspected I could smell coolant. With this in mind we made a quick stop at the servo where I filled up and popped the radiator, much to my delight the radiator gushed a nice load of hot water and radiator coolant into my face and arm, the smell was terrific. To add to the insult we couldn't find the radiator cap again and spent a good 15-20min searching around for it. I think my temperature was higher than the radiators when Belinda finally found it down on the steering rack.

So after much stuffing about we eventually got underway and headed for Nannup via the inland road. This made for a great trip, the inland road to Nannup from Bunbury is quite picturesque and winds through a fair number of quaint little towns, one of these being the township of Donnybrook. Donnybrook is the home of the Granny Smith apple and to our surprise had a really awesome playground that we just had to stop at and let the kids have a play. It was a truly surprising playground, with three of those play things like you find at McDonalds only bigger and better without all the greasy food spilt on them and loads of all the newest playground equipment, the kids loved it and Bel took the opportunity to post off some stuff and check out the op shop. I feel the op shop deserves a mention because we were looking for a polyester rash shirt for Lachlan and I was sure we'd get one in an op shop (it's usually the other way around, Bel is queen of the op shop) and Belinda was convinced we wouldn't get one, then in little old Donnybrook we found one first time. Anyway, that achieved we headed into what looked to be some pretty poor weather for Nannup.

As we travelled the road got progressively prettier until we passed through a little place called Ballingup which was a really quaint and quirky little village, very pretty tucked into a valley. Quirky with little hippy shops and a couple of giant concrete toadstools, giant as in 5m high. We turned off here for 41km of winding road (really pretty) and the climax of our audio book “Nims Island” which very conveniently finished just as we arrived at Nannup. Nannup is another lovely little town that we really liked, there's not much there but it's old and pretty with a very helpful visitor centre where we got the info we needed to head to our camp site Barrabup pool.

Barrabup Pool is about 10km out of Nannup in the St Johns Brook Conservation Area, the camp site is really well set up with limited sites (5) each with it's own picnic table and fire place. This was the first camp ground that we had been to since we left Cairns that had chopped firewood laid on – total fire ban, and it was raining. On the plus side, we figured there was little to no chance of any partiers bothering to come out here and the Barrabup Pool itself was sensational, see the picture. Deep, cold, clean and with a purpose built platform for jumping off. After setting up the tent, hmmmm should tell about the tent. It was about this time I decided that I hate our camper trailer and would love to have a bus, caravan, motor home or anything that doesn't require me driving tent pegs into rock. I decided it so much that I decided to be grumpy for a while, which I quite enjoyed.
In my defence the ground was so hard that we couldn't put up the annex which then tormented us for the next two days as it kept showering on and off and we had nowhere dry to sit.

Once set up we headed down to the pool, a 200m walk through the bush down the side of a quite steep hill. As we stood in the cool looking at it, Lachlan stripped off down to his undies and took a running jump off the platform without even testing the water first. We were very proud. He then continued to jump off several more times, Zali stripped off too but wasn't quite so brave, while I watched Lachlan and Zali Belinda stripped off behind me and she too went and took a running, pregnant and topless jump off the platform. It was all very funny and I was so proud of them, but I didn't get in.

That evening as we prepared dinner a family turned up and camped in the site next door, these guys were from NSW also and had two kids the same age as Lachlan and Zali. Our four children then spent several hours building sculptures out of the chopped wood in the wood pile, that was good for nothing else with the fire ban on. As darkness fell we cleaned up for bed and as we all got in for reading and sleeping some young people who had turned up a little earlier started their party. I couldn't believe it!! Here we were 10km from town in a place no good for parties and there they were, music pumping, girls squealing, boys shouting and the beer flowing. I was very determined to not let them bother me but when the possum started going through our pots, pans, food and rubbish my sleep was shattered. We did manage some sleep, but it could have been better, kids slept like logs.

Our plan for the next morning was to rise early and set off on a 6km round trip walk to the old sleeper hewers cabin. Barrabup Pool is on St John's Brook which was where there was a railway built some time during the 1800's for timber cutters, further down is Workmans Pool where the workers washed while Barrabup was set aside for the land owner. From our camp site it is an alleged 3km walk to the old Sleeper cutters cabin, in reality it is more like 5-6km up giving us a good solid 3hrs of walking. Zali and Lachlan were great and didn't complain once and although it was a good deal further than expected it was a very nice walk with our lunch at the cabin and then the long walk home.

Once back from the walk we made some dinner, the kids made more sculptures and we went to bed, rainy night. This morning was still raining for the pack up, I hate packing up wet tents and Belinda has this infuriating habit of being totally unconcerned about the one thing that really bugs me when travelling. See, I spent a lot of time getting the trailer and car organised and packed in a way that makes it easy to pack and unpack each time and access things during short lunch stops and stuff. Everything has a spot and if everything goes in it's spot then the car and trailer are balanced and tidy and everyone is happy. Belinda however, doesn't care and is forever trying to just throw things in anywhere and really annoying me and then wondering if I'm ok. Well no, I'm not okay, I am really annoyed and hate packing up but once in the car and driving my mood immediately improves and it's all fun again, and I don't hate the trailer anymore – again.

Leaving Barrabup we head for Busselton where we stop for lunch and watch the Bussleton Ironman Triathlon for a while, these guys (men and women) do a 3.4km swim, 180km cycle and then a lazy 42.2km run to finish it off. They made me feel very lazy and fat, but what do you do? On the way to Bussleton we had just one stop to make, the “Cambray Sheep Cheese” factory. It is not so much a factory as a farm where they make cheese, yoghurt and jams etc. We were amazed to see how many awards they'd won including a first prize at the Perth Royal Show for one of their cheeses. We tasted about a dozen cheeses and they were all sensational, the problem with cheese tasting is I always feel I should by one, these were so good I bought two cheeses, a quince jam and a dozen fresh laid eggs. All in all a lovely collection and a highly recommended stop over in my book.

So now, we are here in the Wyndham Worldmark resort for three nights, 5 star luxury, YES. Amber and Ross should be here in ½ an hour or so and we will have a lovely time, so until then, this bit is done, bye.

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