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Published: December 2nd 2009
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Day 216 - Lane Pool Reserve (Dwellinup) to Walpole via Bridgetown!
What a good nights sleep that turned out to be! We weren’t sure we’d done the right thing, going to bed just before 9pm when campers elsewhere seemed to be taking the party to the next level. A young lady squawked (I’m sorry, there are no other words to describe it) her way through a song declaring joyfully at the end “I’m really good at this” which had us both groaning in a laughing, shaking our heads kind of way! Our heads hit the pillow though and we were both out like a light despite the glorious serenading!
The birds chattered this morning and it was lovely to wake up in a forest for the first time in months, we’ve missed huge, tall trees! The kids are up pretty early and soon Darryl is cooking up tasty pancakes for everyone … but wait, could this be true …. the kids are saying they don’t like his pancakes! WHAT!?! Put more lemon, sugar and maple syrup on them and try again! There you go kids, beautiful! Well I liked your pancakes Hun so don’t worry too much!
We
wandered down to the river within the reserve, it’s just glorious here and we watch the water tumbling over the rocks and then chat to a guy catching yabbies with his son. Now we’re half tempted to stay here more than just the one, rather rushed night but decide to motor on with our half a plan to make Walpole later today.
The rangers are up early and already manning the entry station to the reserve so we happily pay our $7 per person for our night - it was late, nearly dark and looking like ‘Free Friday’ when we arrived! Darn those early rising rangers! We’re only joking of course; it’s a pleasure to part with money when it’s a worthy cause and the campgrounds are kept clean and tidy.
We’re on the road nice and early for our five hour journey but we’ll be breaking it up with little stops for fruit n veg, gas, diesel, toilet, bread and anything that takes our collective fancy.
Our journey takes us through the most glorious small towns, they’re just divine. Harvey and Donnybrook where we stop for fresh fruit and bread respectively until we reach Bridgetown where
Simone shouts out about the Agricultural show on the 28th November - that’s today!! Goodie, now we’ve got an excuse to stop and enjoy this beautiful town a little bit more. There’s plenty to do once we get inside the showground and a lot of it is free which always brings a smile to our face!
There’s wood chopping, tree climbing, sheep shearing, sheaf tossing, free tasters from locally produced wine, olives and ciders (!), a puppet show, dog obedience, snakes to hold, chooks to judge and lots of novelty rides for the kids! Awesome! The next few hours are spent wandering through it all checking out the prize chooks and tasting the produce from many boutique wineries, not a bad way to spend a Saturday!
With a whole area dedicated to olive produce Darryl was in his element but I was enjoying the tag along and would soon be very pleasantly surprised. I’m not a big fan but even I have to agree that the samples offered, in particular from the team at Welly Boot, were outstandingly tasty. Just a little piece of bread dunked in olive oil and then dunked in Dukkah, gorgeous! There were plenty
of other local companies with very similar product yet we kept returning to the Welly Boot team of David and Pat! In fact Simone favoured their olives, I loved their Dukka and Darryl thought their olive oil was heaven sent so all round it was a huge thumbs up from the group! We bought ourselves some Dukka and fully intended to return for a bottle of olive oil before we left but that was one thing we did forget to do so we’re now pondering a way of visiting their Lowden based farm on our journey back towards Perth. It shouldn’t be too much of a drama; the area is stunning so the trip will be worth it for the oil, the olives and the view!
The second tasting session of the day was left to Simone and myself, the non driving team - we were on to the wines! Organic wines, boutique wines, estate wines and finally cider saw us stagger from the other end of the marquee looking for something to eat! Olive bread perhaps?!
It’s unbelievable how many wineries are in this area, we should have employed a driver for the day or camped here
overnight!
There was a lot for the kids to enjoy here too, a great, fun show by the Scitech team was enjoyed by all of us as we learned a bit more about bubbles, how they’re made and what creates the rainbow effect in them! What a fun job he has travelling around and entertaining the kids with science. Awesome!
We were so pleased that Simone made the call to stop at the show, what a great way to spend the afternoon but it was time we got on the road if we weren’t staying here tonight and with no organised entertainment we’d decided to move on and make our own!
The journey takes us through stunning scenery, you could easily be forgiven for thinking that Western Australia is all about the stunning coast but there’s so much more and this is why we’ve chosen to come inland for a short while to give ourselves a bit of a taster and today has been pretty tasty!
Tom Tom is having a bit of a fit as we follow the directions it gives us, trees don’t seem to help it very much and it seems convinced that
we should be on a different road and specifically one which we don’t think exists!
Our campground for the night is within the Shannon National Park and boy do we end the day on a good note! It’s always a bit of a risk when deciding where to camp for the night, especially when you’re travelling in a group and have to consider others aswell as yourself which is something we’re not really used to. Today we get it just about right though, the camp ground isn’t too busy so there are plenty of spots to pick from and the facilities are just about the best we’ve seen in a National Park yet. Flushing toilets, wood burning hot showers and on the pitch that we’ve chosen a hut containing bunk beds and a belly pot plus outside of that is a fire pit and a huge picnic bench. Terrific! We’re all very happy sitting here surrounded with huge Karri trees as the natural light fades away and we’re left with just the light from the campfire.
The kids are doing their journals, Simone is reading the paper, Mark & Darryl have gone to collect firewood and I’m doing
the blog. Life is good!
There’s only one thing wrong with where we are tonight and that’s that we haven’t got phone reception or internet connection so can’t contact Ed, Ray, Gos, Em, Lisa, James and Ben to congratulate them on their amazing trophy sweep this year at the drags. They will be collecting the majority of the awards tonight at the Wild Bunch presentation dinner dance. We cheered throughout the evening guys and raised several glasses in your honour, hope you really enjoyed your awesome night and we’re sorry we couldn’t be there to share it with you. Good luck with all the dusting Em!!
From deep in the bush
Dar and Sar
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Pat & David Waddell
non-member comment
Welly Boot Olive Grove
Hi Guys, Was really great meeting you both thanks for the photo s and kind words regarding our Dukka and olive oil. Please just email us and we will forward some oil onto you.Again nice meeting you have a safe and happy trip. Regards, Pat David