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Published: April 23rd 2011
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Busselton Jetty -
completely renovated and looking splendid! On Sunday morning (16th), at breakfast time, I reached into a cupboard for the jar of honey and my hand came out covered in tiny ants! We all experience the little blighters from time to time but I don’t like them in my cupboards. So everything had to come out of the cupboard and Graham eventually traced the real source of the problem which was underneath a storage area at the back of the caravan. Everything was pulled out of there too and we gave the area a good dose of repellant. But we weren’t convinced we’d solved the problem so, just along the road at a hardware store, we bought some poison blocks that hopefully will solve the problem in time – not too long I hope! We put the blocks down in various places and left the ants to it for the time being. We are tempted to exterminate any that we see but they have to be left to their own devices for a few days or the poison blocks won’t work. So we have a few uncomfortable days to look forward to and the honey will live in the fridge from now on.
After doing what
we could to discourage the ants we drove into Margaret River and had lunch in a fairly fancy restaurant. Then we drove out towards the coast again but this time we went north towards Gracetown and Yallingup. We knew nothing about them except that, yesterday, the American had said he’d tried surfing at Yallingup but the waves weren’t consistent enough. Our first port of call was Gracetown, about 5 kms off the main road, and a very pleasant seaside place it was too. It wasn’t very big but had a nice beach area, a boat-ramp for the keen sea-fishermen and a coastal walk which went out to a headland. We viewed each of these for a while but then made our way to Yallingup. We were quite impressed with Yallingup which was twice the size of Gracetown, with a café complex, a bigger beach, some surfing waves which we thought looked perfect (but what do we know?) and a lovely area in which people were snorkelling. We watched the snorkellers for a while and got chatting to a lady, no youngster, who had just spent an hour or so in the water. She was from Perth but reckoned Yallingup was
one of the best snorkelling spots she’d been to – easy to get in and with a lot of coral and fish variety. We didn’t have our gear with us but made a note so that, if we had some spare time when in Busselton, which is actually nearer than Margaret River, we would find our way back to Yallingup for a snorkel.
Our return trip was straightforward, passing yet more wineries (some of them looked very inviting). We checked to see how our ant battle was going. At that time I’d have to say that the ants seemed to be winning but we needed to give the bait we had placed time to activate. So after a small bite to eat we settled down for a peaceful evening – or as peaceful as the ants and some rowdy campers would allow.
Next morning we were up bright and early (I wonder why) having dreamt about ants. We were moving on today to what was our favourite place from the last trip – Busselton. We packed up at our leisure (our journey was almost embarrassingly short at less than 50kms) and reflected on our time in Margaret River.
A very English scene -
deer farm near Margaret River It certainly impressed us more this time around compared with last time – perhaps we hadn’t given it a fair go before but because we’re not very interested in wine tasting we still didn’t get everything out of the area that we could have.
Busselton beckoned and we were keen to find out if our memories were reliable. We had been warned that Busselton had grown enormously since our last visit and that it may not be as charming as we remembered. It didn’t take long to complete the journey so we decided to front up and enquire at the Big 4 Caravan Park what time we could check in. It was only 10:30am but they were very accommodating and invited us to set up when we were ready – even giving Graham guidance to park the caravan. I stood by in awe as a young slip of a girl told Graham “to put his right hand sharp down” etc etc! I think he found it a bit intimidating but he did as he was told (more or less!). (If only I had the knowledge and the confidence to guide him like that!) It was a lovely big site
on a concrete block – the kind we like – and everything was soon in place. I thought I had booked a different caravan park from last time but on wandering around to check the facilities we found it was the very same park as before, but because we remembered it fondly we didn’t mind. It was fairly quiet but we knew that, with Easter and the school holidays just around the corner, things would change dramatically. Today, though, the sun was shining, we were in place early and we had the rest of the day to explore Busselton.
We decided to use our bikes to cycle into town. The beach and a brilliant cycle path were just at the end of the road and Busselton Jetty was about 3 kms away. The cycle path followed the beach right up to the jetty and it was exactly as we remembered it. Yes, Busselton had grown with much more industry and housing, but its beautiful tourist heart had not been changed. We were thrilled to think that we could relive our time from 8 years ago and with the weather so good and the sea so calm we knew it
would continue to rank as one of our favourite places we had visited in the world.
The jetty was a hive of activity with a popular underwater observatory at its far end – a staggering 1.8 kms away – and a small train taking people backwards and forwards. It is the longest timber piled jetty in the southern hemisphere and it was a huge decision to save it as the refurbishment was a major undertaking and cost $27 million. The jetty has a fascinating history and was almost demolished in 1972 after the area was closed as a fishing port. Cyclone Alby swept along the shore in 1978 and parts of the jetty were damaged beyond repair. A fire in 1999 did further damage but by then the Federal Government had raised some funds towards the restoration. The local council and community raised more money and eventually extensive maintenance work started in 2009 and took nearly two years to complete - the jetty was only re-opened on the 6th February 2011. With the reopening of the jetty, the observatory has become accessible again. The underwater observatory originally opened in December 2003 so we just missed having the chance to
visit it as we stayed in Busselton in October 2003. Then, though, the old supporting wooden piles were still in place and we remember snorkelling around some of them just off the beach and seeing a wonderful and unexpected array of beautifully coloured coral and fish. People can still snorkel around some of the piles but because many of them are new the coral hasn’t had a chance to grow there yet and won’t cover them for another 6 or 7 years.
If this part of Busselton had changed at all it was only that more people are taking advantage of its facilities than before. There was a charge to visit the observatory and even to walk on the jetty before 6:00pm and we enquired about buying some tickets. Sadly, the rest of the day’s observatory trips were full booked so we bought tickets (which included the train ride) for midday the following day. We had a very pleasant lunch in a nearby restaurant and cycled back to the caravan. We decided it would be nice to see the sunset from the jetty so we relaxed until about 5:30pm and then drove the short distance to the jetty and
awaited what turned out to be a glorious sunset – how lovely it was to be back! We had just arrived back at the caravan when I spotted a huge yellow globe – a full moon was now dominating the night sky. I watched it come up over PIE and then as the caravan park was quiet and peaceful we had an early night.
As we are a few days behind with our blogs we'd like to wish everyone a Happy Easter!
Best wishes to you all,
Jan and Graham
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Hi folks I read the other day that bay leaves are a good ant repellent. Never tried it myself but a good 'green' alternative to poisons. Let me know if it works. Love the photos that you are sending now, though the effects of the fish and chips and pies are showing Graham!