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Published: April 14th 2011
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Pemberton to Margaret River via Augusta
This day was to be the day of hell for our quad muscles – as we embarked two vertical climbs above the land, and two massive descents below the ground level.
We started at Glaucester Tree – climbing our way up around 200 feet (58 metres), hanging on to the steel pegs that had been rammed in to the side of the tree. These were our steps. No security railing, no nearby hospitals, clearly not safe – but this was the daily walk to work for a fire-spotter before fire planes were in use. Sheree overcame her fear of heights and made it to the top in around 7 minutes, white knuckled but proud as punch.
We explored Cape Leeuwin waterwheel and hiked our way up 176 steps to the balcony of the 40 metre tall lighthouse. Not only were we standing at the most south-western point of Australia, we saw the dividing point of two of the world’s major oceans – the Southern Ocean and Indian Ocean.
We visited Hamelin Bay, which is well known for its’ friendly sting rays which frollick around the shallow waters near the boat ramp. They surf
along the waves that crash on the sand, and play around the ankles of some very game tourists, seemingly larger in size than sting rays we normally see at the Whitsundays.
We continued to the Boranup Forest, which had a stretch of trees which were quite demanding to the eye, such a great height it was hard to fit in one view on the camera!
We stepped well below the surface (around 60metres) to discover the ancient Caves such as Jewel and Lake Cave – where we learnt how stalictite and stalicmites form, seeing beautiful staligtites such as the ‘Organ Pipes’, the ‘friendly ghost’, and most spectacularly, the ‘Suspended Table’ – which demonstrated amazing reflections in the lake.
We have spent the past few nights at Big Valley Campground about 10km’s SE of Margaret River. The owners run a small farm here, with a few hundred head of sheep in a paddock nearby, and for $25/powered site a night is a perfect home base for the area.
Lach has spent a bit of time mucking around with our battery system to the car, hopefully now we have 2 Anderson clips from the ute to camper, and the fridge and caravan
battery will charge a bit better while the 7 pin plug will stop melting. (Thanks for the advice Jez).
Got a little diesel before our day trip at Rosa Brook - 26L @ 157.5c/L.
We visited more breweries and wineries – including Bootleg, Stella Bella and Brown Hill.
The Margaret River dairy company had some great vintage cheddar, but the winner of the day would have to be Margaret River Chocolate Company... mmm...
We were originally going to limit ourselves to taste testing, but couldn’t resist the chocolate fondue – with marshamallows, licorice, apricots, honeycombe, glazed cherries and more!
Km’s from Pemberton to Margaret River and around 469
Km’s this trip 6333.3
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Tot: 0.08s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0397s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
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Lisa
non-member comment
chocolate
there is definately a recurring chocolate theme to this trip !! wish i was there :)