Busselton and beyond

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From Augusta we headed North (our 3rd time through this particular part of WA). Arrived at Busselton and after checking with very unhelpful Tourist Info staff found ourselves a basic cabin ($50 per night) on a campsite only 5mins from both the town centre and the beach. Bussleton's main attraction being the latter - it has a huge sandy beach sheltered from both the prevailing wind and the huge waves of the Indian Ocean so the only thing you have to worry about is jelly fish (and they even have nets up to protect part of the beach from them).

First day there I discovered my camera wasn't working so took it to local camera shop where the owner (Nice helpful guy called Ken) informed me I had a virus on my memory card he directed me to a nearby computeshop where they managed to clean it up.
Temperature in low 30'a so went to beach for swim but whenever you came out of the water you just baked.

The following morning it was a bit cooler so we went for a walk out the pier, the 2nd longest in the world - only Southend is longer. Walked the 1.8km to end and where there's an underwater observatory. You simply pay your $15 and descend a circular staircase to the ocean floor some 8 metres below. The staircase has large windows at various points where you can see the marine life outside. What you see is dependent on whatever fish etc swim by as there are no bars or cages involved. Saw lots of corals, thousands of yellow tailed somethings, various other fish, including Wendy informs me, Australian herring, a seal and a couple of cormorants pursuing the fish under water.

Decided to head out to Cape Naturaliste ( the headland that protects Busselton fom the Indian Ocean) to escape the heat. Went for a walk round the headland but still incredibly hot! Saw whole flock of black parrakeets but was glad to get back to car and it's air conditioning.

Wendy went for another swim whilst I made dinner - (makes him sound like a drudge - but he didn't want to go for a swim - too worried he might disolve).

Later the weather changed and we had quite a thunderstorm.

Woke on Weds to find it reminiscent of a day back home, in a word dreich. Anyway packed up and headed north to Freemantle.

Suddenly there were other cars on the road (and they weren't logging trucks, campervans,utes or road trains). We were obviously returning to civilisation.

We headed up the coast to Fremantle, where we booked into Rosie O'Grady's Traditional Irish Hotel, for want of any other available accomodation (and it was a "traditional" Irish hotel). The weather was still unsettled, with squally showers forcing us to run for cover at frequent intervals. We settled for a tour of the town by a free bus that looped round the city centre and along the prom. (An excellent idea: they have them in Perth too and in several other Aussie cities: used by commuters, schoolkids and tourists.)

A word about school girls - the many private schools in Australia seem to compete with each other to find the least attractive, most unstylish uniform, least flattering to teenaged girls that it is possible to find: beige ankle socks, nylon overall-style A-line dresses in various horrid shades of blue and green, straw hats and the kind of sensible sandals that Marks & Spencers used to sell to primary school kids in the 1960s.

In Fremantle, we went out for a meal for the first time since Melbourne (unless you count fish and chips). I had a very disappointing chicken Parmigiana, which wasn't a patch on the one we had in St Kilda (Melbourne) and cost twice as much. However, the wine we drank made up for this disappointment.

This morning we moved the 20km or so to Perth and checked into the YHA. Weather is still cool and showery. We've returned the Mouse to Thrifty Car Rentals, washed and dried all our clothes and sent another 5kg parcel of books, clothes and other junk back home today: it'll take 3 months to get there, so we should beat it home.

Today we also finished the last of the "100 Auraucaria crosswords" in the book: they're all annotated with the place we completed them and the date, so will be an odd kind of souvenir.

We're going out for a last curry tonight before we leave Australia for Singapore, (where they probably do a superb curry anyway).

Farewell tin roofs, kangaroos, koalas, surfer dudes, single-ply toilet paper, gum trees (all 600 plus kinds including white, reds, bkue gums, tingle, karri, marri and jarrah) and thongs.

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