Blogs from Nannup, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania

GRUMPY OLD MEN April struggle in the mud I was invited to attend a short men only getaway trip, called “Grumpy old men”, we had only taken over the house sit the night before so I wasn’t that keen to go, but Caroline said how much she was looking forwards to a weekend on her own and of course it would be good to get out in the truck and do some off roading. I had the swag rolled and in the truck, along with all the usual bits and pieces, Chainsaw, petrol, sleeping bag, food beer and so forth. Our meeting place was at the bakery in Pinjarra, initially all the guys met in Byford, so I was not going to go 40K’s in the wrong direction to come all the way back. It was ... read more

A bit of a slow start this morning as we were up quite late enjoying the celestial spectacular. We took advantage of the facilities and took very long hot showers (I’m ashamed to say that my hair now makes me look like the mad professor out of Back to the Future!) We also had some housekeeping tasks that needed doing - me getting the washing in and John sorting the van: loo, water and grey waste. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the kangaroos this morning which was a little disappointing. However, the wonderful smell of eucalyptus can be guaranteed to lift the spirits. We set off and visited 2 historic churches. When we say historic, it’s a little lame ... the one at Dingup was built in 1893 and the one at Quinninup was only ... read more

We didn't mean to go to Nannup: we were actually heading for Margaret River, but realised that we weren't going to have enough petrol to make it, so we turned right instead of left after Donnelly River and went to Nannup. Nannup had two petrol stations, which was sheer luxury as we hadn't seen one in about 80 miles. In Nannup we stayed at the Black Cockatoo Hostel, a lovely hostel, with individual rooms/huts/caravans/camping set in a lush garden, well provided with comfortable seats and with piles of interesting magazines, (things like the Guardian Weekly, New International, Rolling Stone and my favourite Earth Garden Australia, which was full of articles aboiut green energy, straw bale building and growing vegetables organically). We had a very pleasant evening, sitting around drinking wine and chatting to other residents. The ... read more

Jewel Cave was next on my agenda after the whale-watching, and as luck would have it I ended up with the same guide as I'd had at Lake Cave. She clearly had a template for her cave spiel, as there was roughly 90% commonality between her description of Jewel Cave and her description of Lake Cave. Unfortunately that also extended to her jokes. Jewel Cave was significantly larger than Lake Cave, and contained some formations not seen in the other, e.g. shawls (wafer-thin sheets of limestone), however I soon realised that I was becoming caved out (presumably better than caved in), and it's unlikely I'll be visiting any more caves in the near future. There was a short "karri walk" near the cave, which I wandered along. Karri trees are a type of eucalyptus (like almost ... read more