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Published: March 17th 2010
Hi all
From the Stirling Ranges we drove north. Our first stop was at a Lily Dutch Windmill - a 16th century replica, with sail length 24.6 metres. Lunch was at Lake Grace, and we passed quite a few salt lakes and grain silos, as we entered the Wheat Belt. There were also lots of roadtrains transporting grain to Albany for shipping. It got hotter, the further north we went. We stayed at Wave Rock Caravan Park which was great, so we could walk to Wave Rock at sunset and again early in the morning. We walked all over the rock, which was much bigger than we expected. It had small walls 2' high above it to direct rainwater into the reservoir. In the morning we walked again to Wave Rock and on to the Hippo's Yawn, an unusually shaped granite tor.
Next we headed west, and had our next night all by ourselves at a lovely free park at Gorge Rock, another big granite rock, that also had a reservoir. We continued on west to Corrigin, saw the big dog, then on to Brookton. From there we started to head south again and had a night at a free park
that again was nice and quiet, with one other van. On Sunday we drove south on the Great Southern Highway, a tourist route, and stopped at Wagin. There we looked through the Historical Village - more old tractors and machinery and rebuilt buildings! We had our lunch at a park beside the Giant Ram. There was some drizzle on our afternoon drive down to Borden, to the freepark there. The area certainly needed the rain as it is very dry.
On Monday we headed back to the Sterling Range Retreat, dropped off the van there, and drove the tourist scenic drive around and through the Stirling Range National Park. The cloud was low on some of the peaks. We arranged a late checkout for Tuesday, so we were up early, to do our walk up Bluff Knoll. We drove to the carpark at the base of the mountain, and climbed the 656 metres , up a very steep track with high steps and loose shingle. It is the tallest peak at 1095 metres in the southern part of WA and regarded as one of the 25 best walks in Australia. It was a cool morning, and the track, a grade
4 , was quite hard, but we made it (with some rests along the way). In the afternoon we drove back down to the coast at Albany for 2 nights. The camping ground here put on an Irish night dinner with Irish Stew and lemon delicious pudding last night, which was appreciated as we were tired!
Today we had lots of sorting out to do - Telstra, Etolls, trying to reinstate our automatic payments, Chris had a visit to the doctor, we both had haircuts, washing , etc etc.
Tomorrow we head east, probably to Bremer Bay and will gradually work our way to Esperance and finish "doing" the south coast of WA.
Cheers
Lynne and Chris
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Tony Crump
non-member comment
Melbourne
Hi Guys, Just to let you know I will be in Melbourne with Andy 23,24,25th April if you were around there. Not sure of your plans. I thought I might hire a car and do the Great Ocean Road with Andy.