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Published: February 12th 2011
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For Easter, I went for a 5 days road trip down South with 5 other French people Agathe, Sophie, Jerome, Damien and Pierre-Yves. We had hired two vans, the famous wicked campers, very successful with backpackers.
We left Perth on the 1st of April in the evening and after a drive of 175 kms, we spent our first night in Bunbury. We had brought some food with us in order to prepare our own meals. We found easily some barbecue areas where we could cook.
It was hard to fall asleep in the van for the first night and I was a bit afraid that some rangers would have kicked us out but as long as we were leaving early in the morning, it was ok.
At dawn, we journey down through the majestic ludlow Tuart Forest and on to our next destination, the Busselton Jetty. We drove to Margaret River, renowned for its wineries. Unfortunately, as we were there on Good Friday, we weren't allowed to do any wine-tasting, it is a shame! Instead we went to the factory to eat some chocolates, which was quite nice. Actually I had a lot, so hard to resist!
Then, we stopped
to some famous surf breaks of Margaret River.
After having a look at Cape Leeuwin, the most south-westerly mainland point of the Australian Continent where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean, we spent our second night in Augusta.
On Saturday morning, we drove on the coastline. First we make our way towards the Karri forests and we stopped to see the Bicentennial Tree, the highest tree top lookout in the world. Then, we went to the Valley of the Giants and the Tree Top Walk, where we took a walk through the canopy of the ancient Tingle forest, 40 meters above the forest floor. We had an impressive view of the forest. Then, we drove until William Bay National Park to see the large granite formations known as Elephant Rocks near the clear waters of Greens Pool. Then, we headed east to Denmark and Albany. We went to The Gap and Natural Bridge where I had been the previous week while I was in Albany. I had been there during the morning and this time it was during the sunset and so the colours, the lights, made a different panorama of the rocks and the ocean.
Then
we were getting tired and after a dinner at Hungry's Jack in Albany' city center, we (at least me and the girls Agathe and Sophie) really wanted a hot shower. So I got the idea to go to Emu point at the camping I had stayed with my work as the bathroom was pretty good there. We enjoyed so much this shower but during this great time, the boys were waiting for us in the van and were getting bored and very angry with us. Actually, there was a misunderstanding as we thought while we were enjoying our shower that they would try to find a place to spend the night but in fact they were waiting for us.
As we couldn't find any place in Albany city, the boys asked for following them. They took the highway and drove in the outback for quite a while. It was a bit scary as it was the first time we were driving in the dark and were wondering where we would sleep. Moreover, we were a bit afraid of knocking down some kangaroos as we had met so many so far at the roadside. We couldn't ring the boys to know
where they were going to as there was no signal.
Then they stopped in a place where they were a few lights, a camp site and so maybe aorund 100 people around. We were furious and didn't really want to sleep in this lost place but we didn't really have the choice. The boys blamed us for not being enough in the spirit of a road trip...bad atmosphere that night and we didn't park the vans together, boys vs. girls...I guess it is part of a road trip to go through some arguments sometimes.
Sunday was a new day and little by little everything went better with the boys after talking. This day we drove hundreds of kilometres. along the way we drove through Stirling Ranges. Here we pause to take in the sites of the National Park and surrounding countryside. We spent the night on a football ground in Esperance. It raint very heavily during the night and I couldn't sleep at all. (At this place, we had the opportunity to take a hot shower)
On Monday, it was sunny and after a short swim in Esperance and hello to Samy the seal, we went to Cape
Le Grand National Park and I think it is the most beautiful place that I have seen during this road trip. We stopped at Lucky Bay where the water was so turquoise and the sand so white and fine. I could have stayed in this place forever just contemplating the beauty of this place...unfortunately we had one day left before going back to Perth and we had such a long road again.
We spent our last night in a petrol station where we met two Australian brothers working in the mines around.
For our last day we went to Wave Rock, one of Australia's most famous landforms, a giant surf wave of multicoloured granite about to crash onto the bush below; something that we wanted to see but it wasn't exceptionnal.
Wave Rock, a granite cliff, is 15 metres high and 110 metres long. Its rounded shape has been caused by weathering and water erosion which has undercut the base and left a rounded overhang. This happened about 60,000,000 years ago when it was exposed. Water from the springs running down the rock during wetter months dissolve minerals adding to the colouring of the wave. In 1960, some crystals
from Hyden Rock were dated as being 2700 million years old, amongst the oldest in Australia.
After hundreds of kilometres, we are back to civilization in Perth. We did more than 2000kms in 5 days and so were quite tired. I enjoyed this road trip and it was nice to spend time away from the city. I slept in one of the vans on Tuesday night as we could keep them for an extra night. I hope I will have the opportunity to go for some other road trips like this during my stay down under. It is the real adventurous life and a good way to discover the country!
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making others plans."
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