Day 11 Albany to Banksia Camp

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Day 11
We packed up in the rain. Miserable cold rain. We left around 9.30am. We fuelled up 1.58/litre. Stocked up food at IGA and drove around to look at the town. Linda wanted to see the blowhole. It was a long steep walk to the blowholes but well worth it. It blew that day and the scenery around that area was fantastic. Apparently 4 fishermen have died this year from fishing off the rocks. Climbing back up to the car park was an effort though. We drove to whale watching centre but didn’t do the tour. We headed along the scenic route towards Denmark. We had patches of rain along the way. The SW is really very nice. There are taller trees and every corner is a hill and valley which provides great vista. We passed through Denmark. We noticed a few cottage industries along the way. In hindsight we should have stopped in and have a look. We went into Forrest walk near Norlup. We paid $10pp to walk this bridges that goes up to the tall Tingle trees. Surprising my boys weren’t scared. They loved it. Linda though was terrified. It didn’t help when the boys wanted to jump on these bridges. The bridges sway when you up higher. I enjoyed the tour especially looking at the old Tingle trees with burnt out holes in them. We asked the ladies at the Tree walk centre where we can have some nice coffee. They suggested us to go Norlup at the Teahouse. So we stopped in there. It was a nice quaint place. We ordered coffees and cakes. I can tell you the coffee was great. We passed Walpole another lovely looking town with a river running beside it. We headed towards Crystal Springs which is just to the west of Walpole. We intend to camp there. When we reached there we totally missed the camp spot which is just off the highway, we instead kept driving along the dirt track. We came to a sign pointing the camp grounds. It also told us to drop our tyres pressures, which we did. Unbeknownst to us at that time we were going to a camp site not listed on our map. The track leading in was soft sand and great off road driving. The Odyssey camper and Patrol did great. We reached to camp grounds called Banksia Camp. It had pit toilets and a little wooden lodge for those who don’t want to pitch tent. We camped at No1 which was huge area. The ladies complained about the smell of the toilet but it was just because it didn’t have ventilation. That evening we had communion there and sang some songs.

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Photos

Tree Top walk
Linda is terrified