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Bunbury to Perth

Friday 1st May. 68 km

We hadn't slept that well and had our cup of tea in bed. There was a clear blue sky and we drove up the road a bit and had our breakfast overlooking what looked like a calm sea. Afterwards we walked down steeply to the beach where waves did crash on the shore but there was a funny phenomenon of seeing them going backwards rather than coming in, but just a flat blue sea, clear blue sky and orangey large grained sand. We drove on a bit further and emptied the loo.
We headed back into Bunbury and spent the morning doing all sorts of oddsey things. First was the washing and we did that all okay and then we walked around the town and found a place which did photo copying. We returned to the van and got the photos and went back and photocopied those that we wanted to and called in at the tourist information which wasn't terribly forthcoming. The next thing was to find a shop, which we did with difficulty, by which time we were both exhausted, Adrian hadn't been able to park and I'd wondered where he'd got to. We went and had a tea and a coffee, and it was then late morning already. We did a very big shop in Coles and in the liquor store where we got 12 bottles of wine and we got a 10% reduction so that was good and boxes to put them in.
So now loaded up with shopping, we headed for the beach where we made up a couple of rolls and walked down on to the sandy beach and ate these, seagulls around us and terns we think there too, not that they were bothering us. A lot of young chaps had come down and in just swimming trunks and with surfboards, but we tried the water and it felt pretty cold, by now the absolute clear blue sky had clouded over a bit.
We then headed for Bunbury swimming pool and stopped and got some diesel on the way. After we'd had our swim, we left and then headed south on the Bussell Highway and had a bit of difficulty in finding our way and with several false tracks of finding nowhere to stay, eventually we stopped beside the sea where it actually said 'no camping' at a place called Forest Beach near Busselton.

We watched the sun make another beautiful sunset of very interesting colours particularly a purple over the sea. We had shark steak for supper and afterwards I got the article ready to send off to Paul Genner and Paul Gallagher [Historic Caravan Club] and collected all the bits together.

Saturday 2^nd May 86 km

It was a clear blue sky, Adrian woke early and we had a a cup of tea looking out to the pink sky as the sun rose. We had breakfast and then watched some ring-necked parrots feeding right up close to the van and we looked onto another lovely view of blue sky, blue sea and white sand, which we walked on briefly before we left at about 9.10.
We drove into the Tuart forest and eventually found a little parking place from where we walked through the forest to a saw pit and round and back again. A very pleasant walk in the sunshine and lots of these beautiful ring-necked parrots and the tall tuart trees which only grow in this forest.

Car park (streetview 2008) and sunset at Forest Beach, Busselton

There was grass underfoot making us think of the New Forest, this being the May Day weekend, and so it all seemed very English, very lovely. When we returned we had our tea and coffee sitting outside at a picnic table and a piece of nice bun, bought yesterday. We drove down to Wonnerup Beach and had a quick look.
We drove on into Busselton, a town that seemed to be growing and bustling, most like a resort that we'd seen, in fact it had a waterslide on the front and a mock lighthouse and a little play park thing for children. We walked along the beach a little bit and looked at the jetty, the longest in the southern hemisphere at two kilometres long. We bought an ice cream, we asked for a baby cone which was $1 and he gave us a normal sized one which was $2.40, rather expensive for ice creams. When I pointed out that we had asked for baby cones, he said okay then and charged us $1. We'd actually asked for maple and walnut, which he'd run out off and so we had macadamia nuts - all told we had done pretty well. We stopped a bit further along where a little river came out to the sea making a little spit on end of it. By now it was hot, and we changed into shorts, and sat on some rocks by the beach for a while. There were some wild flowers growing here, little white busy lizzie like flowers just growing out of the sand and also some scented geraniums with pink flower also just growing in the sand.
We stopped for lunch in a little park area beside the sea, Adrian had a little snooze, while I went onto the beach. It was actually too hot to sit in th the sun for lunch, so we sat in the shade which was quite cool, under the trees, with our table and chairs and then we went back and had laze on the sand. Just as we were packing up to leave a couple came to chat. They were on holiday from New South Wales and we had quite long chat about motorhomes and this and that. We drove up towards Cape Naturaliste, and stopped at a viewpoint to see Castle Rock which looked quite dramatic with the light catching it with its green vegetation, but it was just a rock on the edge of the sea.
We then turned off to Meelup Beach, which we stopped and looked at it, but there were about a dozen people there so we didn't stop long. We located a couple of little places where we thought we might be able to stop for tonight, but as it was only about 3.30 we decided to do a bit more of a tour of Cape Naturaliste. We continued but we couldn't see much of Eagle Bay, so we went back onto the main road and turned off to Bunker Bay. We were now in Leeuwin - Naturaliste National Park so definitely no camping here and this bay was quite pretty with sandy coloured rocks and a coarse grained beach. We just stopped there a short while and then went back onto the road towards the lighthouse. We drove next to the actual Cape Naturaliste where we had a 40 minute or so walk near the lighthouse with views of the sea in almost all directions. There was different vegetation, and a few different flowering plants here. This was a place for seeing whales and dolphins at the right time of year but we didn't see either.
After this we drove to Sugarloaf Rock, on the west southern side of this peninsula.

Adrian by the sawpit in the Tuart Forest

On the way there, a kangaroo leapt across the road in front of us and another a bit later on. After we'd left Sugarloaf Rock we saw a whole field of kangaroos. At Sugarloaf the sun had just come out from the clouds but the heat had gone from the day by now, there was a very bright sky and after that the most amazing violet sky and almost luminous colours in the sky and really bright pink. The sea had looked a very dark grey blue. We now made our way back to the earlier spots that we had seen at Meelup Beach and had time to see the sky from the beach before it lost the magic of its colour.
I used the minced beef to make some beef burgers for supper and afterwards finished writing up the labels in the photo album of the last lot of pictures and also organised my new organiser, which Adrian had bought to put all the bits and pieces in, such as letters and postcards. After we got into bed, we were happily reading when we had a nasty surprise of finding the largish black spider in the bed!

Sugarloaf Rock

Sunday, 3^rd May 84 km

I woke to the pinking of the sky with the sun coming up, so we sat in bed with our cup of tea, watching this. The sun was behind a tree but we could see it shining down on the water. It was already hot, it hadn't been a cold night, but got hot very quickly. We had breakfast sitting on the beach on the edge of a dune with the tables and chairs and sat there chatting for a long time thinking about Andy and all the other lovely people we had known, and just enjoying this lovely atmosphere. We thought that we might stay quite a while and that we could have a swim and shower, but at that point, a family of noisy Australians arrived just in front of us. Up till then we had the beach to ourselves except for some fishermen some way, away that we couldn't really see, and so we rapidly changed our minds and decided to move on.
We drove back down this peninsula to Dunsborough, and here we located the tourist information which was open despite it being Sunday, so we picked up one or two bits and pieces and bought some postcards. It was rather a flat sort of nothing township, but we'd thought we'd go on to the beach for coffee. This was only just a little further along from where we'd had lunch yesterday, with a lovely sort of green strip all along the front and no development at all. We had this bit of beach to ourselves and although there was some seaweed lying at the edge of the water it was very pleasant and warm. We had coffee and the iced bun that we'd bought the other day and looked at some of these new booklets and then the water got the better of me so I decided to go for swim. The water here was very calm being protected by Cape Naturaliste where we were last night and south of there the beaches are huge surf beaches apparently, so we decided this was the time for a swim but the water was icy cold. Adrian came in and dipped himself quickly, but we felt good afterwards. We thought we'd have a shower, so we manoeuvred ourselves to do all that in our shower cubicle and afterwards we discovered there was outside shower just along from us we could have used. We then thought we would fill the van up with water, by which time the morning had gone, it was now midday.
We drove across to Yallingup, a remarkably beautiful place with white beach, green unspoilt headland right up to Sugarloaf rock, that wed been at yesterday. Deep turquoise blue sea and some contrasting red rocks, as well. We made up rolls and sat by these rocks, to enjoy our lunch - it really was beautiful and really hot.

On the way back to the van, a couple from Perth came up and chatted and went through a variety of subjects in a relatively short space of time and we ended up trying to put the world to rights and finding out quite a lot of their thoughts about Aboriginals and all sorts of other things.
We set off on our walk on the so called Qwenda Trail, which wasn't the best of walks. We set off first of all down to Smiths Beach, which was quite an exquisite, long white sandy beach with some strange formations of honeycombed rocks in sort of cylindrical type forms along it.

The coast at Yallingup, Cape Naturaliste

The only things on this beach were three utes with chaps who'd put out their fishing rods and we're lying down in the shade listening to Aussie the football and we thought that quite funny. That was all there was along this long beach which was actually very hard going to get across because the sand was very deep. At the far end, we went through a bit that was black on the surface, so whether there was a little coal seam that came out there or something because when we got back to the van, I found my feet were absolutely black. I was wearing sandals, which was fine for walking on the beach but hard when going up the next bit which seemed to go up and up. Looking at the map, it went up a short distance but we went up forever and ever and ever, through the sand and it was very very hot. We found we were on the right trail, it was actually a trail that we’d been following, through green undergrowth, like walking through a herb garden and we did see a small snake at one point which slithered away from us, which was the excitement point on this walk. The path back was just like a switch back and up and down and up and down, which was quite exhausting and it was in sand and by the time we got back we looked a bit like two pickled beetroot.
We drove down a road to the so called Canal Rocks, huge rocks which were formed out to sea apparently, with a canal between the two lines of rocks. It was obviously a fisherman's place and a climbing place, and difficult to get anywhere, and there was lots of broken glass around. We could see down to the next cape, Cape Clairault, which was just like a sandy dune, so we returned on the road and stopped at a couple of lookouts. After leaving the first one we realised we should have climbed up to the top of the hill and then we might have seen out better and at the second one we looked back to the walk that we'd done. We then needed to find a campsite for the night or somewhere to stay and made a big mistake. The whole of the coast here is in this park, Leeuwin - Naturaliste National Park, so we knew there was no hope of camping anywhere on the coast except in the actual campsite which we didn't want to do.
We decided to head for one further south at Margaret River which was in our free camping book, but in fact, this was not Margaret River itself but way inland. The trek got longer and longer and we hadn't realised before we set off how far it was. By the time we did realise it was a bit too late - it just went on and on and on making us tired and weary. It then went on to a gravel road which was one of the bumpiest ever, the whole van shook, everything fell open, all my clothes fell out, the oven came open.
Having gone along this terrible road we then went through area where the forest had been burnt and saw a sign saying that they were burning off, but we eventually did find the place, Canebrake Pool, none too soon. It had been burnt in the past, and there was one other camper there so we didn't think we were going to be burnt off tonight. It was then 5.30 and there was a fireplace so Adrian set off to get some wood. We got the fire going and we had a lovely evening sitting around it. We cooked our steak on the fire and baked potatoes and mushrooms and tomatoes and looked at the stars above us and soon found that the evening had gone.

Adrian on a walk to Smiths Beach, Yallingup, Cape Naturaliste

Monday 4^th May 0 km

We'd heard some drops of rain in the night. We woke up late, I awoke first at 7.30 and made a cup of tea and I thought it was foggy or misty, but in fact we thought afterwards it was smoke lying in the trees which cleared after quite a while. The sun tried to come through but it was cloudy but warm. Adrian went off to get some more wood to rekindle the fire and got chatting to the other couple who were here who were travelling around with a tent. We had breakfast of bacon and egg, mushroom, fried bread all cooked on the fire and looked absolutely delicious. Unfortunately we hadn't rinsed out the frying pan, which must have had some bits of sand in, so we had a gritty taste with our meal.
We had wondered whether to go for a walk, we knew there was another site some kilometres further on, but on looking at this we decided it was too far, so we just walked around this area.
We found that the river was just across from where the other people had been. They had left this morning and we decided unanimously that would stay here today and for some time have a lazy day catching up and just enjoying the absolute stillness, just so still, the only sounds were birds - a kookaburra was tuning up and then off he went. We decided that we'd take the pitch that the other people had been in - the river meanders right around us, but it was too late last night for us to realise this. We moved the van across to the other side, their fire was still smoking a bit and Adrian busied himself happily collecting wood. I got down to the river and thought this was the time for a swim, so stripped off and had a cold, but enjoyable swim. We thought we would just enjoy this day being here in the forest and the morning was soon gone.

Another couple had arrived in a motorhome supposedly Australian, but his accent told me he wasn't, and he and his wife had both been born in Scotland and he then moved down to the Midlands. He had an accent which was a mixture of both and some Aussie thrown in - a very chatty person. I tried to make a damper and we cooked this in the fire and which tasted good, but so much of the outside of it was burnt there wasn't a great deal to eat. We'd also got some muffins which we toasted on the fire for lunch and they were good. The afternoon seemed to similarly go as quickly as the morning had.
Adrian washed the van over making it look sparkling and clean. I wrote to Harry and Maureen and a card to Tom. The other people gave us an English newspaper, which I read and before we knew where we were, it was time start getting supper. We got the fire going well and we cooked pork steaks and baked potatoes on it and had some wine. I'd made a fruit salad and cream for afterwards.

Herons and reflections at Canebreak Pool

A great downer at this time, was the neighbouring couple who had put on their television which was outside and loud and just disturbed the peace and tranquillity that we'd been experiencing. Fortunately at the end of the news and weather they turned it off but during the time that it was on, which seemed a long time, it was very unpleasant. Adrian later went over to invite them over for a drink but he was apparently was going to have a couple of hours sleep, so he could wake up for the 11 o'clock football and she was going to read. So that didn't happen and we sat on our own by the fire and looked at the stars coming and disappearing with the clouds coming over them. We heard just the sounds of the forest, possibly birds possibly bats, we didn't know what the sound was we could hear. We came in about 10.30. At Canebrake Pool.

Adrian by the campfire at Canebreak Pool

Tuesday 5^th May 88 km

We'd heard some rain in the night, some of it quite heavy, but we awoke to a fine morning and enjoyed our tea in bed looking out on this forest and the stillness of the river and reflections. It soon clouded over and a few spots of rain fell, so unfortunately we had breakfast inside. We found the tablecloth that we'd left out, although it was plastic, was dripping wet as was the net hanging from the door but the skies cleared again, so very variable, the clouds seemed to move very quickly.
We left just after nine o'clock and made our way back to Margaret River. The road didn't seem as bad as on the way up but later we went by a slightly different route. Margaret River was a busy little town obviously the centre of the tourist industry there, vineyard, caves and surfing beaches. We shopped at Super Value which wasn't brilliant, went into the tourist info, to the post office and posted off a couple of letters, a camping and everything else shop, absolutely cluttered so you couldn't see anything and another camping shop with just about nothing in it. It turned quite hot, with varying amounts of cloud. It was now almost midday, we went back to the van had tea and coffee and a piece of cake and rang for the post to go to Collie and had a message on the phone, it now being in range, which hadn't been. The message from Lyn and John was to say they were leaving Turkey. We tried to ring them but couldn't get through. We filled up with diesel and then had trouble finding the road out of Margaret River down to the towards the sea. Not many roads here are signposted, and those that were, like Ireland, were boggled with so many signs telling you about cottages and attractions and this and that, that you couldn’t see the wood for the trees.
We ended up by the Margaret River itself, which was the old homestead and a museum so we stopped off there and walked across a bridge to it and found it was a paying place and we didn't think that we needed to see it. There were walks out from here too, but one was a walk along the river and back and the other one didn't tell you how far it was or about it. We made our way back into the town of Margaret River and saw that there was a petrol station selling gas, so Adrian did the job of filling the bottle of gas, and the nasty job of fitting it back under again. He wasn't happy with it and didn't think it was properly full. That had given me time to see where the road went out from in Margaret River, so we took that road down to the mouth of the river and viewed the ocean first of all, and then drove down to the actual river mouth. This was again, a sand split right across the mouth. So the river came out on one side and the big waves ot the ocean, on the other and lots of surfing. A surfing group were having their instructions whilst we were there.

Adrian getting water to wash the van at Canebreak Pool

We made up rolls and sat on the beach to eat them and then walked along the sand spit along the river side and back along by the waves watching with various surfers. We'd seen a bird which I couldn't decide what it was - I thought it was like a petrel, it kept flopping in the water and seemed as though it didn't know how to fly. We drove down to Red Gate Beach first to a lookout where Adrian had a snooze and then the beach itself which was quite windy and a party of schoolchildren arrived just as we left.
We now passed Mammoth Cave and then Lake Cave both of which closed at 4 o'clock and it was just approaching that time and being in the park, we couldn't camp here. We located a site on a river rather like last nights site, but not quite as far inland and not very far south at Chapmans Pool on the Blackwood River this time.
The initial bit of the road was rather like last nights, but we found the site by the river at about 4.30 and you could do a double take of the previous place. Adrian immediately began collecting and chopping wood and again we had fire, it was quite chilly but alright when we sat by the fire.

The Margaret River mouth with the sand split right across it (streetview 2018)

We cooked fillet steak which was very tasty and we sat round, and called this bonfire night as it is the 5th May and 6 months to 5th November. We had two more of the sparklers from my birthday and videoed it.

Evening meal around another campfire

Wednesday 6^th May. 0 km

A very cold night and we weren't early in surfacing and when we did so for a long time we couldn't decide what to do, where to stay or whether to go on to visit another cave in the area, and if so whether to backtrack to ones we passed yesterday or on to another one. By the time we had discussed all this, the sun had come out and we made the tentative suggestion to stay an extra day and get off earlier in the morning.
Again the morning disappeared, we trimmed each others hair. We decided to try out the solar shower and had just gone over to get some water for this from the river, when the chap from the other caravan that had arrived late last night came over to chat and that was the end of the morning. Two other couples had arrived to use the place as a picnic spot and then gone for a walk and we had a brief talk to them. The other chap chatted and chatted and by then it was one o'clock and time to get some lunch, so I got a stew mix together. We had lit the fire but I actually cooked it indoors.
We kept the fire going and Adrian spent the afternoon collecting wood and getting it ready for the fire. We washed our hair and I wrote several letters and suddenly there it was dark and time for something to eat again. We sat out for another evening around the fire and toasted muffins, with Adrian's toasting fork which he had made and we didn't come in until about 10 o'clock.

Thursday 7^th May 118 km

It was a very warm night, in contrast to the previous night and it rained a bit during the night. We didn't have a good sleep and got packed up and left on a damp morning at 9 o'clock. We continued on a little circle of this road southward and back towards the Bussell Highway. The dampness and greyness made us think even more of England.
We very soon came out of the forested area that we were in, went into more areas of varying types of trees along this route. We backtracked a bit to the Boranup Forest Drive through another of these big forests just far enough to go to a lookout. Unfortunately, with the poor visibility there was today, we couldn't see as much as we'd like to have seen but we could see over a vast area of forest and cultivated land, and to the sea, which we could hear. A Park Ranger came and spoke to us just as we were leaving, we then set off on our way back south again.
We drove down to Hamelin Bay where there was a campsite and a vast amount of parking and we briefly looked at the turquoise sea, it was grey and warm and windy. We found some public toilets were Adrian emptied the loo. We got to the Jewel Cave in time for the 10.30 tour and this was prettiest cave we had ever been in. The tour lasted an hour and we had a delightful young chap as a guide who loved caving and was pretty knowledgeable and didn't give you all the claptrap that you often get. The interesting thing in this cave was the long things called straws which we'd never seen before and also a lot of bits of stalactites and stalagmites and all sorts of formations and growing not just up and down but in all sorts of directions making it look very pretty.

I suppose that's where it got the name Jewel Cave, because they looked like jewels hanging down. We thoroughly enjoyed this tour despite my claustrophobia.
When we came out we had tea and coffee and a cake in the little cafeteria place at the entrance, excellent, real tea, no tea bags. We then went on a little kilometre walk from the cave entrance, it was sort of damping, very humid, quite warm, lots lots of birds overhead and a very pleasurable walk. We saw the real entrance to the cave which was very small, not the man made entrance we went in by and we also saw the entrance to the Moondyne Cave which was here too, and you could go on a two hour real caving type expedition. All told a very successful little stop here.
We now headed for Augusta where we went first into a chemists as I'd just finished a film, but they didn't do matt in there. Adrian asked about the sore on his arm where he'd scratched it several days ago and it hadn't healed very well and the chemist suggested he ought to see the doctor. We did a shop in the Foodland next door and Adrian bought another pair of glasses as he keeps losing them. We then located the doctors with difficulty, it was next to the hospital and got an appointment for 45 minutes time so decided to go for some lunch. We stopped first at the post office and posted off the cards I'd done. We were on the estuary of the very picturesque Blackwood River, so we headed down there on the last bit of the road and sat beside the water and had a hurried lunch.
Just as we were getting back into the van to head off to the doctor's Adrian realised he'd been stung by a bee, probably the one that had been hanging around at lunchtime. He seemed to have been rather in the wars lately as he had also bashed his legs a couple of times recently. We then headed for the doctors and his comment was that Adrian was probably okay. We stopped just afterwards and photographed some pink flowers which seemed to be growing wild, like we'd hoped to see in Western Australia and then just afterwards we bought a bunch of flowers for the Lions Club, bright yellow Van Gough looking daisies, gazanias or something for $1 - they decorate the van beautifully.

Inside the Jewel Cave

We then headed for the lighthouse. We stopped at the Flinders Memorial to commemorate him sighting and mapping this land in 1801. We continued to the lighthouse and walked out to Cape Leeuwin . A very grey day, and we didn't ascend the lighthouse - Adrian's bee sting was our excuse. We had the Southern Ocean on the left of us and the Indian Ocean on the right of us all looking very grey and very bleak as lighthouses often do.

Pink flowers near Augusta which we didn't seem to find out what they were called

We also viewed a waterwheel here which had been made at the turn of the century from a spring coming out of a rock and we then set off on what was a scenic route which we also called the kangaroo route as it was very bumpy. We could view the lighthouse well from there. We took an easier scenic route to the other side of this little peninsula and it was just where the Blackwwod River came out to the sea and we found a water tap where Adrian filled the van up with water.
We then headed for a lookout a few kilometres north of Augusta, which turned out to be a long way. On a fine day it would have been superb, as you could see quite a long way along the coast and it had markers telling you where the South Pole and Canberra were etc. We found our way on a short stretch of unsurfaced road back to the main road and turned off this pretty soon and rejoined the road we had driven down this morning.
We found a site at Alexandra Bridge which we'd known was picnic site and also campsite. It was just a few kilometres south of where we were last night. This one seems to be a fee paying place, it was on the Blackwood River which was bigger at this point, very calm and very beautiful. We arrived about 5.25, just time to set ourselves up and Adrian sorting wood for a fire. I walked around and saw a duck and a heron and then got a nasty shock when when I saw what turned out to be a sort of guy made on the ground but all I could see was two legs sticking out - very scary. We had another lovely fire and cooked lamb chops on it, very peaceful as we are the only people here. I tried to make a creme brulee which didn't really work, and we still sat out until 10 o'clock.

Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse, Augusta

Rosie at Cape Leeuwin - the meeting of the oceans, Augusta

Friday 8^th May 144 km

It was a mild night but a still grey morning, with just a few drops of rain now and again and initially wonderful reflections across the river. We sat outside and had our breakfast and left at 9.20

Maidenhair ferns were growing everywhere, obviously just sprouted after the rains and we stopped and looked at a Karri tree that you could walk through. While we were looking at this tree a big branch fell off a tree nearby, we didn't see it, just heard crashing down. We drove on into Pemberton trying to find out about a steam train journey. We tried to locate the tourist information but first found the forest information. We then found ourselves at the railway station and found that a train was running tomorrow. We went to tourist information as well and we had lunch sitting outside there, where I came over feeling not very good. We hung around in Pemberton and managed to do the washing in a laundrette there, so that was good. We sent some post off, one to Douglas for his birthday and one or two cards. By now it was quite late in the afternoon, and we drove out south and we went down a track to the Cascades and we had a little walk around and saw some more little waterfalls there amongst the tall trees. We turned off to the drive which was in the Warren National Park and it was called Heartbreak Trail and halfway round the trail changed his name from Heartbreak Trail to Maiden Bush trail.

We headed towards Pemberton and found that the Stewart Road had been made up, it wasn't marked as such on the map, and that made the going very quick and easy. We stopped for an early cup of coffee on the road some miles before Pemberton. We went on a little drive through the Beedelup National Park, there were huge trees again and we stopped to walk to the Beedelup Falls where there was a circular walk via a swing bridge one way and one tree bridge the other way.

Early morning at Alexander Bridge

Us & the Platybus in Beedelup Falls NP near Pemberton

I thought it was a bit like Hope changing her name to Sheila but at the point it changed it said said not for buses. It did look steeper and worse than any other track that we'd been on [Looking on streetview in 2023, the Heartbreak Trail went on to a 4WD river crossing!]. We stopped and looked at a 70 year old tree which was 75 metres tall and was made a big thing about and we then stopped at a lookout over the river on the trail. The day had been very dull all day, rather like I was feeling, very humid and quite warm, so it seemed dark although it wasn't that late yet. We were heading for somewhere to stop a bit further south. We missed the road at first and came back to Rose Road and to Brockmans Saw Pit where we first walked out and had a look at this old saw pit which was just a little hole in the ground and then we sat in the dusk for a short time.

Trees on the heartbreak trail (Streetview 2025)

We'd heard a little bit of bird song, and a Kookaburra and bats were flying overhead, but we paid for this by me particularly, being rather badly bitten, in just those few minutes, and I came up with huge great lumps. We came inside for the evening and started getting up to date on diary writing, etc. The evening was rather disturbed as the wind was blowing and we'd heard a strong wind warning on the radio and as were under these huge trees we decided that we ought to move, which was quite a difficult manoeuvre in the dark. But we did make it and then were a bit more out in the open so that we shouldn't have had branches falling on us. The night was rather disturbed still, not so much with the wind which seemed to die down again but some very heavy rain at different times during the night.

Brookmans Sawpit (Streetview 2025)

Saturday 9^th May 95 km

We emerged having been woken again by heavy rain, to a damp looking place, but it didn’t look too wet to get out of. There was some blue sky around but the forecast sounded pretty variable. We left just before 9 o'clock by which time the sun was shining. A kangaroo leapt out across our path as we went down the drive.
We drove back into Pemberton and along to the Gloucester Tree which was another tree lookout, and for some reason, the most famous and the most visited, although no different from any of the others we'd seen. There was already quite a lot people there although it wasn't even 9.30. We took a photo of it and everywhere was looking lovely, the sun shining on all the wetness. We had a short walk around of about 400 metres and I chatted to a lady who had once lived here and left in 1927 and had come back visiting, just for the day.

We drove back to the station and had an early cup of coffee and waited for the train. While we were doing so the sky blackened and it rained torrentially. The steam train left supposedly at 10.30, but it was rather late in leaving and it wasn't much fun sitting around in the rain waiting for things to happen. The chap who seemed to be the owner of the train came and told us what was happening and then we all got on to it and off we went with the chap driving his engine with one other person on the footplate. We quite soon stopped at a house and picked up a little boy of five or six presumably his son and those were all who were running the train. It was meant to be a round journey of two and three quarters hours, but we actually didn't get back until getting on for two, so that was three and a half hours. We didn't go a great distance, but it did get up quite a good speed and it was through pretty country mostly wooded, but fields as well. Adrian loved it because it was full of events. We stopped at one point on the way and everyone got off the train and they did one or two things to it. I don't know what and then we all piled back on (no guard to check us) and went to the Diamond Timber Mill and luckily there were loos here because there were none on the train, no provision for food or drink either. Luckily I had thought there might not be anything so had taken some lunch which we ate on the way back and we were very glad to have. At the Diamond Mill we all hung around while they picked up some trucks with huge tree logs on.

Adrian in the early morning in Gloucester Tree NP

Rosie climbing the 60 metre Gloucester Tree (4 rungs)

Luckily the weather was sunny most of the time, it did rain a bit while we were at Diamond Mill, but mostly fine and sunny. On the journey back we went up a hill which the train was having great difficulty with getting up as the wheels were slipping and so it was a real bit of - I think I can, I think I can, I know I can, I know I can, I told you so, I told you so. When we got back, the engine driver (the owner) came back and apologised, he said it was gum on the rails. It was two o'clock by the time we got back to the coaster. We set off now for Big Brook Arboretum, going on the Rainbow Trail which evidently was an old logging track. First of all we came to the Big Brook dam which was very picturesque with the sun shining on the dam and it shone for the rest of the afternoon. We drove around to the arboretum where there was a camping site and it came over a bit black but I had at that point that decided to go for a walk, but it was a bit of a trail, so off I went on this trail running for a lot of the way in case Adrian wondered what happened to me. He in his turn was sitting watching a kookaburra, which I photographed on my return.

Rosie on the engine and at the Diamond Timber Mill

We then decided to set off for another campsite also an arboretum but that was some way north, so this meant going back towards Manjimup. We sidetracked a little to go through a place by the name of Middlesex. We went through the township of Manjimup, we’d just gone past on the main road when we went to it before, and then in a north-westerly direction. Very pretty with varying amounts of trees and past Donnelly to Willow Springs Arboretum near Nannup. I had a short walk out around the arboretum and Adrian got a fire going and we had supper. We sat out until 9 o’clock when it got cold

Kookaburra at Big Brook Arboretum

Sunday 10^th May 107 km

We awoke to a beautiful fine morning, clear blue sky but very chilly and deep in the trees. We left in brilliant sunshine and stopped fairly soon along the Brookman Highway in the Jarrah Park they called it and we had a pleasant hour or so walk there with the sun shining down through the trees.
We then set off for Bridgetown, where we stopped at the River Park that we had stopped at 10 days ago and filled up with water again and had our coffee stop there. It was very tranquil, pleasant, quite autumnal and quite a lot of deciduous trees in this area.

We went into the tourist information, which also had a huge collection of made up jigsaw puzzles from around the world and a little museum bit and stayed quite a while in there and it was 12.30 by the time we left.
We took the road towards Boyup Brook and stopped to have a picnic lunch beside the road in front of a gateway in mostly sunshine and then Adrian had a snooze. We continued to Boyup Brook a large sleepy town with large streets. We had planned a walk around the river here but it didn't look that exciting, so we continued on our way towards Collie.
We stopped quite early at the Glen Mervyn Dam near Bokal and had a walk around the reservoir where the water was very low.. This resulted in Adrian getting wet foot when he tried to jump a stream at one point.

Making tea/coffee in the van at Bridgetown

We had a shower and hairwash in the van but didn't have a fire tonight, we stayed inside and got up to date with one or two diary type things.

Adrian looking happy despite a wet foot at the Glen Mervyn Dam

Monday 11^th May 63 km

Rather a chilly morning. The sun was out, but then it came over grey by the time we left, just after 9.00. We drove into Collie and went to collect our post. We had to several letters, one from Jane, one from Simon, one from the Sankeys, one from Renee and Lena, one from Martin and one from Cleveland Family History. When we had read these, we went shopping and also I took some photos in, so got the next set of photos done. That was the morning gone. We came out, had tea and coffee and looked through the photos and by then it was actually 12.30.
Adrian then stopped to get some gas and we then set off on the so called scenic drive around from Collie following the Collie River. We stopped for lunch beside the river and sat there for quite long time enjoying our lunch and chatting about things. We soon joined the main road for a short distance and then took the road down to the Wellington dam to the west of Collie. We stopped a bit by the actual dam and got out and went to a lookout and we actually looked down and saw cormorant.

It was a very deep sided and deeply wooded area and we followed along the Collie River until we came to the place where we were going to stay called Honeymoon Pool, a wonderful name and obviously a popular camping site in the summer. There was no one else there when we arrived but there were a lot of camping pitches along beside this river. Having located the spot we were going to stay at, Adrian collected some wood. There were several walking tracks out from here but all too long for us at this stage of the day, so we set off on a walk beside the river, which was very pleasant, the river was flowing and very pretty. As we set off on the walk we saw a Kookaburra, right there in the tree in front of us and I managed to take a picture of him, and a black cockatoo. We'd hoped that we could cross the river and come back on the other side and we did actually manage this. Adrian was quite impressed by the antics we did to get across, there were large rocks in the river, and with a bit of moving them in the middle, we made it to the other side. It was quite a walk in the end, well over an hour.

Wellington Dam (streetview 2018)

We came back past the campsite and walked up the other side by which time it was getting towards dusk and time for Adrian to get the fire going and for me to prepare food and we then spent an evening outside. The sun had gone early, so although it was still a blue sky, it got chilly early and it was a very, very cold evening. The full moon came up later on but took a long time to rise above the trees. Our meal was very much interrupted. We'd found the baked potatoes weren't cooked and put them back in, so we had the steak and other vegetables, but as we started to eat we had one bit of wildlife after another and there were two significant animals.
One was a little Quenda, which was a type of bandicoot and he came quite briefly, but prior to that and then again for the rest of the evening were these little animals called a Chuditch or Western Quoll. We looked on the notice board to find out about them, and they are a marsupials, rather pretty with white spots on a brownish back and a dark brown tail. They had a pretty little face and you might think it was a cat coming or rather squirrel like.

This is a streetview picture of the little river at Honeymoon Pool, but I remember Rosie leaping across rocks like the ones on the bottom left to get across

We thought it was just one and the we realised it was two and then three but in fact there were lots of them. They are carnivorous and so they didn't eat the little bits of skin and vegetable, but they suddenly started licking out the pan where a steak had been. They all had a go at doing that and one young one came and took the slice which had been in the pan and in stages carried it quite a distance away, until we finally retrieved it. This made quite wonderful watching in the torchlight and we photographed and videoed them and kept ourselves warm by the fire. We didn't come in until 9,30 and then, only because it was so cold, and the moon was up by then, so quite a brilliant evening.

Another Kookaburra

A Quenda - a type of bandicoot

A Chudditch - Western Quoll

Another Chudditch eating the fat out o our frying pan

Tuesday 12^th May 157 km

It was a chilly night and a grey morning, and we stayed in bed reading the letters again and the Cleveland family history magazine and it was 9.30 by the time we left. It was very autumnal as we drove up out of the forest, with the sun trying to shine through the mist and the trees, but as we headed out of the forest, it was actually into clear blue sky. This was just in time to see the wonderful views as we emerged from the hills, seeing all the forested slopes, lots of pine trees, green grass, and right down over the sea just north of Bunbury and to Australind where we were heading and along the Leschenault inlet.
We reached Australind a very lovely location with an interesting history. Someone had tried to start this in the 1840s as an Australia and India exchange port but it didn't work as well as hoped and it failed and now the town is just growing as a little tourist town. There was a tiny church there, an old wooden church, it is meant to be the smallest in Australia and we looked at a monument to the early settlers.

We stopped there beside the Leschenault inlet looking across to the Leschenault peninsula, which was a conservation area and now has no roads on it for access by vehicles. There was an absolutely clear blue sky and the water reflected blue and for the first time for a while we felt really hot, and we realised that this is what we'd been missing. So we had a coffee stop there and looked at maps and located ourselves for our next bit of expedition, which is travelling north.
We turned off just after a place called Binningup, or a road to it, onto another road, which supposedly went down to the coast but it was a very bad road. We stopped at what could possibly be called a camping place, it said it was 300 metres to a lovely golden sandy beach. We had different opinions of which way to go, Adrian was right, so we ended up doing the long trail up and over dunes to no avail. When we went on the correct route, we found a fisherman with his van on this long, truly golden beach [probably Myalup beach], so we didn't stop and returned to the van. We had seen some pretty blue flowers growing on a prickly bush, and we'd also seen a trail of furry caterpillars end to end like we'd seen in the Flinders. I was in vest and shorts for the first time for quite a long time, it was really hot.
We pulled off for lunch at Old Whitaker's Mill picnic site, but we couldn't find any sign of Old Whitaker's [Timber] Mill. It was semi shady under a lot of pine trees and there was a whole flock of ring-necked parrots here. We drove off the road down to Preston Beach, a long sandy beach again and it was pretty cold, when I dipped my feet in and Adrian emptied the loo here. We returned to the main road stopping briefly at Lake Hayward which was rather low on water, but nice to be out in the sun.
We were now looking for somewhere to stay although it was still quite early, and there was a lovely lot of water around here, the Harvey Estuary and the Peel Inlet, almost totally enclosed by land with Mandurah at the north. We drove down to Avalon and along to Falcon. At Avalon, there was a place we could have stayed, but we weren't that impressed although we had a walk on the beach. We tried one or two other places, but got nowhere, so we ended up in Mandurah in the tourist information and found a leaflet on the Peninsular Caravan Park [now a posh development, there was no Rosie picture of the campsite and now it has gone!] just around the corner which we made for. This site wasn't especially exciting but it cost $13 and that was with electricity. We sat outside in the warm sunshine, had a cup of tea and then went out for a walk around this little bit, which was called the peninsula. We could walk around the waterfront right into Mandurah itself which we did and found a pedestrian street [It is now a very posh area being so close to Perth]. Adrian bought a phone card and as we went to walk back the sun had just gone down, but the sky was a beautiful glowing orangey colour. I then prepared veal steak and vegetables, which I did in the microwave, something I'd not done before at all since we'd been away because we'd only had had electricity a couple of times. I then made a fresh fruit salad for afterwards with some cream, which cost 99 cents about a week ago for a great big pot. We looked at all the leaflets for the ongoing Perth-Fremantle area.

St Nicholas church, Australind (streetview 2019).

Wednesday 13^th May 80 km

A rather dull morning - there had been some sun, it was warm and we'd had a few spots of rain in the night and just a couple in the morning. After breakfast we took advantage of being on a site to have showers and wash our hair and do the washing which was very cheap and didn't leave until 10.00. We stopped for gas on the outskirts of the town, because the person two lots ago at Margaret River hadn't filled the bottle properly and there was virtually nothing in it, so by then it was 10.30. We'd also bought some fish - fresh whiting, just outside the campsite.
We proceeded north, it came over grey and rained for a bit but it soon cleared up and was sunny again, and we diverted to Rockingham and had our coffee overlooking Penguin Island where there were supposed to be little penguins again, and it was quite windy. We drove on to Point Peron where we had a quick blow on the beach and then continued with the tourist drive, where we could see the power station and the docks to the north of Rockingham!

We continued on into Fremantle, and looked at the three caravan sites there and stopped just after the first one and had lunch in the carpark beside sea, but couldn't see it although we had a quick look at it after. We then went on into Fremantle and we had a look around, the weather deteriorated and it rained quite a lot. We located the Rottnest Island Ferry and then decided to go to the Maritime Museum, where we spend an hour and half or so, looking around. They had part of the ship the Batavia, the timbers of the Batavia, which they had pulled up from under the ocean and I found that bit quite moving. They had found stone blocks on it which they had used as ballast and which was going to make a stone portico in Jakarta, which I realised was Batavia and lots of other things to interest us as well.

View at Peron Point (streetview)

We then walked on round to the round tower, Freemantle made me think of Portsmouth as it did have some old stone buildings.
We decided to look into the campsite nearest to Fremantle, Fremantle Village site, which was like a French Municipal site and was in fact, the cheapest. We arrived there at 5 o'clock, by which time it had stopped raining and there was a moment of lovely sky as the sun went down. It was very wet everywhere but later we walked around the site, although there was nowhere to go. We spent the evening in the van.

Stone arch destined for Jakarta and part of the boat which sank in 1628 now in the Maritime Museum, Perth (pinterest)

Thursday 14^th May 27 km

We awoke to a clear blue sky, but quite a chill feel to the air and left about 9 o'clock. We were very close to Freemantle and we soon located the swimming pool, which was open, and there was a 50 metre outdoor pool. The so called indoor pool was just like in a large greenhouse and there was also a spa pool. We had a jolly good swim, it seemed to be running and jumping along in the water that people were doing. The outdoor pool was actually just as pleasant as the indoor pool and we left there and drove down to the Swan River to have coffee.
We then headed for the Mormon Centre and spent the next couple of hours or so in there doing research into the Lawsons in the Marquesas. We had to wait a while to get in, people were coming in with queries and there was only one person at the desk at the time. We had problems getting the computer programme to run properly, but we did find out some details and printed out quite a few bits and pieces and by the time we came out of there it was 1.30.
We decided to head for town and managed to find somewhere to park at a dollar an hour, so we had two hours of that and we stopped at almost the first place we saw and had nice fresh fish and chips which were good but a little bit cold. We then walked around Fremantle and the shops, bought some CDs (John Denver), went into a bookshop, bought Lonely planet of the Northern territory, bought one or two bits and pieces and suddenly our two hours was up.
We returned to the van, we had bought a map trying to decide what to do and we headed now for Coogee Beach Caravan Resort as it seemed to be the same price with electricity as last nights site - (we needed electricity as the battery was failing and we were not travelling any distance to charge it). This one was just slightly further out and although the basic site wasn't much better, very much a static site, it was right on the beach which we walked out to and saw a starfish and watched the sun going down beautifully again. We had pancakes for supper and then listened to our new CD's.

Friday 15^th May 17 km

There was clear blue sky but a chilly wind. We we're hoping to go to Rottnest Island today so packed up and left at 8.50. We drove straight to the ferry and arrived in plenty of time to get tickets and get organised of what we had to take with us. We had a smooth crossing, it said half an hour but it was more like three quarters and left a bit late and then arrived at this idyllic island of white sand.
There was a little bit of a small settlement when you arrived, but apart from that simply nothing on the island. We went first and hired our bikes $18 each for the day, with helmets and a lock and then went to get coffee which wasn't a great success. We had to wait a long time as there were a lot of people at the cafe we got it from and my espresso coffee was a thimble full, so I wasn't greatly enamoured. We then located the bakery to get a filled roll each for the day and a cake and we saw a quokka there.

We stopped at a swamp and we saw what we think was a rock parrot, and stopped for lunch somewhere along Salmon Bay a long cove with clear blue sea. There was coral out in the water and an absolutely blue sky, white beach, quite a lot of seaweed, and greenery. Not so many plants grow here because of the wind and the salt and lack of fresh water but it was warm and sunny. We cycled onto a narrow isthmus which went to further bits of the island, which we weren't going to cycle to - the Cape, as it was there and back, but we did stop by a little bit called Rocky Bay. It was a nice sandy beach and I was enticed in for a swim.

Rosie cycling on Rottnest Island

We then started off cycling following a little plan and going first along the south of the island, stopping every now and again to view the lovely beaches.

A Quokka native to Rottnest Island (Wikipedia)

We cycled back via the north of the island, the whole island was much more undulating than we'd imagined, it was flattish but up and down the whole way. From Geordie Bay, we didn’t go down the coast but through the middle bit and back to Thompson Bay.
We handed the bikes back, and caught the 4.15 ferry, it was very smooth crossing, it had been a beautifully warm day all day. When we arrived back about 5 o'clock in Fremantle, we drove off and visited a market in 'E shed' down Victoria Quay but we weren't terribly impressed. There were quite a few stalls in it and some people started doing some line dancing, but we were just leaving then. We then visited Coles supermarket and stocked up with our shopping, so it was quite nice to be out in the dark and see a town in the dark. Fremantle has got some nice old buildings and reminded me very much of Portsmouth. We drove out a short distance to the first campsite the Freemantle Village site. We didn't see anybody, someone lives in the gatehouse but we missed them. We'd bought a barbecued chicken so quickly got a meal, and sorted out the shopping.

Rosie on Rocky Beach, Rottnest Island

Saturday 16^th May 113 km

Again a clear blue sky but quite a strong wind. We got ourselves organised, had showers, filled the van with water and emptied the loo. Adrian hadn't been able to locate anybody last night, so we had a freebie night and we left and headed for Cannington amid the traffic, with a minor unofficial diversion to start with. We found the caravan place at Cannington that we were looking for, most particularly to buy loo fluid but we were not impressed by the caravan place spares. Adrian did manage to get one or two things he hoped would be useful, the right sized base for the table and stays for the cupboard, but there were umpteen caravans in stock here. We went into a second place over the road afterwards, but the spares department was a ramshackled mess with hardly anything in it, but with difficulty we got the fluorescent tubes we were after. We had made some coffee while we were there. We'd looked in several of the pop-top caravans in both places and were quite amazed to find the brashness with which they had finished their vehicles, brass knobs etc, mostly made up beds, but none - not one, with a loo. It was heading towards midday by now, and we set off for Kalamunda. We had more difficulties when we tried to go along the Goosebury Hill zig-zag track and we only found out afterwards that it goes it only goes in one direction - the opposite direction to that which we were trying to enter it. We finally made our way to Kalamunda and turned off then on the Mundaring Weir Road and this road wound through the hills reminding us of the Adelaide Hills. These hills were a bit like the Dandenongs are to Melbourne and we stopped not long before Mundaring Weir, in a forested area where we had our lunch. This was a large area with a lot of children's play things made out of wood and with tyres and one climbing thing incorporated into a large log. The sun was hot, perhaps a little too hot for sitting in for lunch, but by the time we'd finished it, the sun had gone from the table. We stopped at the Mundaring Wier/dam and walked across the dam and back, it was hot sunshine again and we stopped and had a wonderful ice cream. A whippy type ice cream for $2 with the cone dipped into chocolate which set on the ice cream.

Sunday 17th May 117 km

A cold night, and I found it hard to wake up. It was a clear blue sky and soon warmed up and we left about 9.15. We'd been listening to the radio this morning and wondered why it kept going blank and we realised after a while that it actually went dead every time the adverts came on and it wasn't us turning it down. This went on and it was still going at 9.20 and we'd had the radio on since 8 o'clock [no it doesn’t say why and I can’t remember!]. We were passing lots of salmon coloured gums here, reminiscent of the ones near the place called Salmon Gums which isn't a million miles away from here and we're in the right direction for them and they were very attractive against the blue sky with the green foliage. We were soon in York where we walked up and down the main street of this historic town, which we had to admit had some quite nice buildings in it. We find it hard to get enthused about the so called history in Australia. We returned to the van and I’d just nipped into the loo and a lady [Margot] came up and called out hallo and she was parked up the road in a small motorhome which we had seen and she was a lady travelling on her own with a little dog called Benny and we had quite a chat to her. We then had our coffee and a cake sitting on a broken seat by an empty stream and we then went to visit the York Motor Museum just along the road which had 110 vintage and veteran and racing cars, interestingly put together with lots of memorabilia around too.

This dam originally provided the water for the goldfields at Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie but is now also used for water supplies to Perth and the local area . We continued to Mundaring and then along the Great Eastern Highway and then the Great Southern Highway in the direction of York, stopping beside the road for Adrian to have a little snooze. Soon after turning on the road to York, we found a parking place which seemed a suitable place to stop at Wundabiniring Brook, although it was only 3.30. We were beside a dried up stream, the sun was warm and I lazed most the time, sitting outside and reading some trashy things they gave us as a free pack in the supermarket yesterday and Adrian busied himself doing all the busy things that he likes to do. After supper of John Dory fish, which Adrian cooked outside, we had a long evening ahead of us because we'd eaten quite early. We finally went through the snowy mountains stuff and continued to get ourselves a bit organised and I labelled the last lot of photos in the book.

We walked across Mundaring Wier/dam (streetview 2019)

We returned to the van at 12.30 and drove down to York's Railway Carriage Cafe by the river and found it was only 100 yards away, so went back to where we were parked and decided to walk down there, which we did. But when we got there, we found not much going on, so we walked back through a park and up to the high street. On our way back past the courthouse, we found it was a National Trust museum and as our English cards got us in there, we had a little tour of the old courtroom and lock up which was quite interesting.

The Motor Museum York (streetview 2023)

We then returned to the van, made up rolls for lunch and went and ate these near the River Avon on a picnic seat in the shade as it was very hot by now. We could hear a man singing, he was a legendary local singer, but he wasn't very brilliant and it was just like 50's music and there were only a handful of people there. After we'd eaten our lunch we returned to the van and set off towards Beverly. We stopped at the Gwambygine Park, a parking area beside the river and we imagined there might be people here being early afternoon on Sunday, but not a soul. A couple arrived later and there was a walk across to a lookout over the river and lots of notices telling you about the area.

The Court House, York (National Trust WA)

A noticeable thing to us here is how very dry everything is, much drier than the southwest corner. We continued to Beverly where we stopped although there wasn't really anything to see. We went into the tourist information which doubled as the aeronautical museum which we didn't visit. There were two gentlemen in there who must have been Finish by the amount of conversation they had while we were there, they grunted and handed me a leaflet on the town. There were only a couple of people around in the main street, where we bought a postcard of Beverly to send to the Beverly's, and I posted Janes card. We carried on south as we thought towards Brookton, but after some time, we found ourselves on an unsurfaced road which surprised us rather, and we know not how, but we seem to have got ourselves on to the old Beverly Road. We really had no idea how this happened and it was long time before we found out where we were because there were no signposts that we saw on any roads. We were passing through a rather pleasant country where the salmon trunks of the gums contrasted with the golden stubble and the red of the road and the green of the leaves and the pure blue sky. Another lovely thing were the myriad of green parrots, and also some galahs that kept flying out in front of us as we drove along. There was nowhere for us to stop along this road and after some time, when we did find it was the Old Beverly Road, we came out onto a surfaced bit which appeared to have been the main road we were back on. So we hadn't gone north to Quairading or south to Brookton, but we saw a sign eventually to Corrigin and somewhere along this road we came to a junction which seemed to have been a newly done one with a bit in the middle where we stopped, absolutely in the middle of nowhere. There was still evidence of the galahs after we stopped and the sun went down in a glorious red sunset in this place of absolute nothingness. The stars came out and were really bright tonight and we went out a couple of times to look at them, once later in the evening when we turned the lights off in the van so you could see just myriad stars everywhere, in this place where there was just us and the only sign of habitation was an aeroplane which went across the sky and we could see a light in the very far distance somewhere, very, very remote. Later still in the evening, again having not really got any the maps of this area, we found a map in the road atlas of Australia and by a lot of clever Bower deductions and all sorts, we think we know where we just might be. [Badjaling on google maps]

Entrance to Gwambygine Park (Streetview 2008)

The River Avon at Gwambygine Park (streetview 2019)

Our overnighter in the middle of nowhere (streetview 2008)

Monday 18^th May 227 km

I hadn't slept well and woke early. Adrian got a cup of tea before seven and it was misty. We looked out on what looked like an African landscape and lay in bed with our cup of tea watching a group of yellow throated minor birds on the tree outside and also some Port Lincoln ring-necked parrots. It had been a warm night despite the supposedly clear sky because we could see the moon, but we watched the mist roll in during the morning. We left at 8.30 and hoped we were going the right way.
We had got it right and after half an hour we came to a crossroads and we were 7 km from Corrigin, so we turned in that direction. We soon came to a little dog cemetery, which we got out and had a fleeting look at and just as we got back to the van, it suddenly rained heavily . We diverted to a lookout on a short unsurfaced road called the ‘wildflower trail’, it was the wrong time of year for flowers of course, and it wasn't very pleasant in the heavy drizzle. There wasn’t much to see in Corrigin, I posted the letters and we found a Foodland, but there didn't seem to be a a baker's anywhere, so we bought three rolls and a bun, some Vaseline and some butter and the lady said how nice that it was raining and we said no it's not. She said it would be colder out at Wave Rock - thanks. Adrian went to the hardware store and there was a sign in the window saying 'closed today, okay'. We saw a sign to Gorge Rock which I'd seen on the map and knew no more about it than that and we followed a long sandy track to what would have been a nice overnight stop and it had now stopped raining and was pleasantly warm. We then had a walk out onto this vast area of granite rock. In between two large portions of the rock a little dam had been made and some water was being collected.

From high up on here, we had a good viewpoint all around and we decided as it was 10.30ish to have our coffee stop.
There was an interesting programme on the radio, an interview rather like desert island disc's. We'd heard one previously with Phoebe Fraser and this was with John Pilger and very interesting to listen to. He said he was a gypsy at heart and loved travelling, so a bit of a kindred feeling there and the very memorable song that he chose was 'the band played waltzing Matilda'. This was one that I knew but had never listened to it right the way through and was quite long and quite heart rending to listen to. We had coffee, tea and iced bun listening to that and to our CD of Edith Piaff, quite a memorable little stop.
We stopped in Kondinin a little one eyed town for some expensive diesel and soon we're at Hyden, another town with nothing really there. We looked for a tourist information board, in fact we looked for anything of interest, but didn't find it.
We found our way out to Wave Rock and parked in the first car park we came to, called the Breakers Car Park and there was a sign saying ‘the Breakers 300 metre - easy walk’. So we set off and we were immediately climbing up a steep rock, very slippery and I had a a nasty experience of slipping all the way down it and crashing into the trees at the bottom. We then walked around, and I said “let's go this way” and we went up to a dam, where they collect water within a wall around the top and suddenly we'd seen and passed Wave Rock. Adrian didn't believe that that's all it was, it was a very short distance and we weren't that impressed at all. We walked to another little carpark and we looked at some information boards there.

Gorge Rock (wheatbelttourism.com)

There was no really explicit map of the area, which was very much lacking, to know what we should be looking at. We walked back to the van to have lunch, we were going to sit at a picnic table and we moved the van down to it and found the logs to sit on didn't reach the table. Adrian decided this, together with the flies which attack your face very nastily, weren't worth the effort of staying outside for. Then we had a drop or two of rain, so we had lunch sitting inside. Afterwards we went off to take a slide of the view of Wave Rock, but there were some rocks nearby, as we walked past, which looked like heads and faces, rather like the the Dundas Rocks. We thought these were just as interesting as Wave Rock which was just a load of hype.

Adrian at Wave Rock, it looks longer than it is!

Rosie being eaten by 'the face'

We'd passed some bushes here and at Gorge Rock, which smelt rather sweetly of honey, very sickly, it seemed to be the foliage which smelt. There were a few shops back on the main road and we located the tourist information, which was in the focal flower shop - we never saw any flowers, and a lace shop which you had to pay to go into. The place was actually in darkness and we looked at a few postcards and a few leaflets and weren't impressed. We drove on round to the part of the Wave Rock formation called Hippos Yawn. It was drizzling heavily, so it was a quick run across to it and I took a picture of Adrian in the supposed mouth of the hippo.

We then set off north for two more excitements. These were the Humps and a round dam which had been constructed next to them. The Humps were another circular outcrop of granite and in these was Mulka's Cave which was just a large hollow. You had to duck to get into it, the entrance wasn't very big and then was just like a circular bit with Aboriginal handprints on the ceiling.

Adrian in the Hippo's Yawn

This was so called Aboriginal art, but I suppose that's what it is and the legends to go with it. It was very damp by now and we were the only people around which gave a rather a pleasant feel to the place. We walked around to another little bit where water was collected in a hollow in the rocks and because of the recent rain, it had done justice and made itself into a little stream with a little waterfall into its dam, so all in all quite pleasant.
We now headed, as we thought for Narembeen, no road directions anywhere and we were prepared for an unsurfaced road. Again we went for a long distance without knowing where we were going and we came to one or two junctions and didn't know which way to go and Adrian got the compass out a couple of times. We finally decided we were on the right road and some way before Narembeen we pulled into an unofficial lay by besides another granite outcrop and decided to make this our stop for the night [Now called Hidden Hollow Walking Trail - 2023]. We'd only just done this and I was aware of an unpleasant smell coming from the loo and we came to the unfortunate discovery that the loo had leaked out and hadn't been sealed properly and it was not a very pleasant thing. Immediate action was to sort this out which we, the Royal we, because it was mostly Adrian did and hopefully cleared up this unpleasant problem.
It was trying to rain a bit, but even so we decided after this to go for a little blow of fresh air being some time after 5 o’clock and we managed to get out onto this granite rock and have a walk up onto it.

Rosie in Mulka's Cave

Again there were places in it where water collected in little pools here and there and we arrived back at the van at 5.30 . We cooked steak inside and later I got the Southwest cuttings organised into the book.

The Hidden Hollow walking trail, Narembeen (street view 2024)

Our overnight stop at the Hidden Hollow walking trail, Narembeen (street view 2024)

Tuesday 19^th May 233 km

A grey day, we'd both slept really well. Whist having breakfast this morning, there was a man on the radio reading a poem and I reckoned that my dad had sent his vibes down to him because it could have been something that he had written, it was on fitted sheets and it rather amused us. We left about 9.15 and took the road to Narembeen which was very straight, flat and a wheat growing area, and nothing much of interest to see on this grey sort of day.
There was not a lot in Narembeen either and we decided to continue to Merredin. This we did listening to a programme on the radio with questions being asked of the Western Australia transport minister, Eric Charlton. An interesting fact to my mind was that 75% of the roads are still gravel. At Merredin we stopped at a bakers and bought some rolls and cakes and went across to a parking area which had lots of roses in it to have coffee and tea. It was while we were there that I stepped outside to see a monument in the garden that we were in and afterwards jumped back onto the step of the van and my foot slipped off, seriously grazing and bruising my shin from my knee right down to my foot, so I was invalided and had to lie on the bed.
We drove some miles north and stopped opposite Nokaning Well , and Adrian had a view of it. I found that although I seemed fine while I was lying down, when I got up onto my feet, it was so painful afterwards, that I had to lay like an invalid on the bed so Adrian nicely prepared the rolls for lunch. It was quite pleasant, outside there was blue sky and white fluffy clouds, but a lot flies and every time Adrian opened the door flies came in.
We left there about 1.50. We stopped at Yelbeni briefly and then I moved back to sit in the passenger seat instead of lying on the bed at the back, which I'd been doing until then. We stopped Wyalkatchem for diesel and soon after, we stopped on a waste bit of land near a parking space, which did as an adequate stop for the night but there were unfortunately still a lot of flies

. It was quite early, about 5.00’ish, but amazingly the evening went quickly. Adrian cooked gammon for supper and we then read the Weekly Mail from England, which had no news in it, but quite interesting articles and bits and pieces. We started to compile a list of people that Adrian had wanted to write about that we'd missed earlier on the trip. I hadn't expected to have a good night's sleep having not exercised myself, but by 10 o'clock I was ready for bed.

Probably where we stopped near Wyalkatchem (streetvview 2008)

Wednesday 20^th May 161 km

We did have a very good sleep and awoke to clear blue sky and the sun shining which wasn't what we'd been expecting and we got breakfast and left at 8.45.

We passed through Dowerin in 14 kilometres and at Goomalling, we stopped and went into a small Foodland where we were served by a pleasant young chap and girl. Adrian had left the money out in the van so had to go and get it to pay and we bought this week's English Express.
We drove on to Toodyay, ta-ra-ra, and drove through the main street and a couple of kilometres out to a lookout over the town, at a place which was a picnic site. For us, it was a tea and coffee stop and after we had a short walk to a little granite outcrop - I was trying out my injured leg. There were two noticeable things, one that the walk was shown as a circular walk on a little plan and it certainly wasn't, it just went to the outcrop and back and the other thing was the large number of large purple ants which gave me the heebie-jeebies.

The Platybus and more salmon gums on the way to Dowering

Thursday 21^st May. 12 km

We awoke early to nothing much of a morning, which supposedly was not going to be a brilliant day from the forecast but we'd planned to go into Perth and we're ready to leave at 8.10. We drove down to Guilford Station and caught the train in to Perth, quite trouble free but rather like travelling into London or Melbourne or anywhere else.
We looked around Perth which had a large area of shopping malls with duplicate shops, so we got absolutely confused about where we were, there seemed to be two of everything. There were lots and lots of shops, both of the cheapo kind and rather select shops with dainty clothes etc. The first thing we did was to go to the post office and collect our post, it was very quick and easy to do that and it was all family letters - a postcard from the New Forest, one from the Cape get together for Val's birthday and one from Simon, from which we learnt that he was going to be working in Holland for a year. We also went to Cathay Pacific and that saga goes, they don't act now as agents, we had to ring on their phone and have a 20 minute or so wait to get answered. We finally changed our homeward tickets to December, but weren't able to book seats on it. The weather was very variable, sometimes sunny, sometimes heavy showers. We had coffee and shared a piece of carrot cake in one of the numerous coffee places that there were, there seemed to be lots and lots of eating places, and for lunch, we bought a baguette, cake and drink and sat outside the post office.

There was a chap nearby who was juggling with with fire, like Tom did and making quite an act out of it. One thing that I should have mentioned was there were buskers galore, including a salvo man, the Salvation Army very strong here with a tape recording playing on a little tape player and there were also as in Adelaide, people shouting out their wares from the shops which we found quite objectionable.
We hadn't really got much else we wanted to do, but got one two bits and pieces in shops that we'd been looking out for. The weather wasn't that brilliant and we had thought of going on to Kings Park. We did walk down towards the river and had already walked into the conservatory in a little bit of parkland by the esplanade but just as we got to the river and the weather wasn't very good, we came to a little bus station and the bus waiting there was a free bus for the centre of Perth, so that was just brilliant. We went round the circle as it were, to the last stop before where we got on, which was back at the shopping mall. From here, we walked back to the station and got the train back out to Guilford, where we'd left the van.
We'd passed a Coles supermarket on the way in so we drove back a mile or so to that, in one of those precincts that look like any other and went into it. We thought it was rather strange and after we'd been in it for a short time, we realised that we hadn't gone into Coles, in fact, we'd gone into another suermarket called Action, which was just like a cash and carry and not very nice at that. So we didn't end up by buying very much and we couldn't even find a bottle shop, so we returned to the campsite at Caversham. We telephoned Tom and got straight through to him and had quite a chat, but we weren't successful and getting through to either Paul or Simon.

Adrian outside the Post Office reading our mail

We walked up and down the main street of Toodyay, and went into another tourist information, there were two, and we finally sent off Martin's letter with a card of a steam engine in Connors Mill. We returned to the van and stopped again to view a trestle footbridge on the way out of town.
We stopped in a little area amongst the salmon gums soon after, for lunch, the sun was out most of the time, and it was pleasantly warm. We watched some tiny little birds in the tree above us that we think are called weebils. We carried on down towards Perth eventually, coming out of the hills and seeing Perth in the distance and reached the traffic, which didn't please us. As we came right into Perth, we investigated Guilford Station with a view of going in that way into Perth tomorrow and then located the caravan site at Caversham of all places. Not much to say about it, but settled ourselves in and had showers. Renee surprisingly rang then, as the phone had only just connected in the last little bit before we got into Perth and she told us that Auntie Nancy had died, which saddened us a great deal. I wrote to Janet almost straight away and then did the washing on a pleasantly warm evening. Adrian cooked the steak outside.

Connors Mill, Tooday (tripadvisor)

We went back down into Toodyay and stopped at Connors Mill, which was also the tourist information.

View from the Pelham Lookout (tripadvisor)

Friday 22^nd May 72 km

A clear blue sky but quite a chilly start to the day. I'd surprised Adrian by saying I wanted a swim in the pool but the owners decided that it wasn't really going at the time so I had suffice with the shower and hair wash and it was gone 9.30 when we left.
We stopped at a Coles a bit further in at Maylands, for the liquorland part and bought two six packs of various bottles of wine which came with excellent value with 20% off each bottle and it was at this stage that we found with put a bottle of wine in the freezer last night and left it there! We continued through Perth looking much prettier in the sunshine today and blue sky to Kings Park and this certainly is a wonderful park. One could liken it to say Phoenix Park in Dublin or Stanley Park in Vancouver. There were a lot of people running around and it is on a large hill overlooking the Swan River right below it, meandering around in different directions, with Perth to one side and South Perth on the other and then right down towards Fremantle.
Part of the park is given over to Botanic Gardens, which Adrian reckoned had got into disrepair and they we're being redone - certainly there was a lot of re-doing going on. We did did see some interesting parts, a very interesting display of banksias which we discovered that the majority are in the southwest part of Western Australia and that banksias apart from one type in New Guinea are only native to Australia. There were other nice plants, Strelitzia, Protea, various succulents with great shoots of red flowers all over (kangaroo Paw). Everywhere was very steep with the water below and lots of people out enjoying the sunshine.

We had coffee here first, and then walked around and ended up in a little Aboriginal place where we bought one or two cards and a couple of pictures. we had thought after our walk around that we'd move off to another part of the park to have lunch but seeing quite a few cars coming in and looking for parking spaces, we decided to make up some rolls, which we took and sat in the sunshine overlooking the Swan River. Altogether a very different feel from how we felt about Perth yesterday and we realised that the weather has such a lot to do with whether or not you like place. There was also a trunk of a huge gigantic karri tree lying there which had actually been placed there in 1958. We drove round to another part of Kings Park, where we had a short walk on a supposed nature trail but it was actually just like being in the bush.
When we got back from there we telephoned and got hold of Paul, it was now 2.15, so 7.15 in the morning for him. This was the day that he and Nicky were moving down to Somerset, so it was nice to have got hold of him and we wished them well in their new house. We then left the park and Perth and headed for the coast, reaching it at a place on the map called City Beach but just a wild beach like any other. It was beautifully warm and we lazed around on the beach for a good half an hour or so, a clear blue sky still.
We carried on north on the road as near to the coast as possible through Scarborough with just one high rise hotel and we were looking for somewhere to stop for the night. We went down to Ocean Reef Boat Harbour with a huge boating car park, but we imagined being Friday night it would be full of people and it was rather a big obvious sort of car park, so we turned off at the next place which seemed to be called Iluka and was a resort not yet happened, but right down by the sea, there was a nice little watered park area with picnic tables and very green grass and a little place to stop. So we pulled in there and on walking across this grassed area came across a lady, she was called Jenny and looked much like Ann Crawford, who spoke to us and was later joined by friends, another couple. Jenny was from Reading originally and had lived out here 28 years and her husband was at home doing up their new coaster bus as a mortorhome. The chap from the other couple was called Jimmy, he was a Scot from Edinburgh originally, and she was Ina who was from Lancashire, perhaps Blackburn with a very strong accent still. We chatted to them for quite a long time, they were very easy, friendly sort of people. In fact Jenny invited us to call in the next morning, to where they live, which was the next place up the coast from here. Having chatted to them for maybe 20 minutes we walked down onto this lovely beach, it's a beautiful coast all the way up here and we'd seen surfers further south.

Rosie in Kings Park looking back to central Perth

Kangaroo Paws in Kings Park

Banksia in Kings Park

Protea in Kings Park

Rosie in the 'bush' area of Kings Park

Adrian in Kings Park

Looking down to the Swan River from Kings Park

This was nice, sandy beach with rocks around it too and we had a few minutes walk on the beach and then returned to the van at 5.10.
We enjoyed seeing the sun go down and then as I was preparing a meal, a car came up. Our curtains were all drawn by then so couldn’t see who it was and a chap, who I thought was a policeman, but who turned out to be a security guard, said we couldn't stay there. He said we were on private land and all sorts of blah blah blah [in fact he said we were allowed to stay there but not allowed to sleep there and he would be round every hour during the night to make sure we weren't sleeping!]. So we ate our meal, Adrian didn't drink his wine and I'd finally found a wine that I was enjoying. We cleared up from the meal and wondered what to do. We started going north, but didn't find anywhere to stop [We discovered then and a few times since that it is impossible to find anywhere to stop after dark, unless you are very very lucky, as you can't see off the road to locate somewhere that might be suitable] .
We ended up going to the house of Jenny, the person that we'd spoken to earlier and her husband, Robin who lived at Quinns Rocks. They both came from Reading and he was doing out a coaster bus like ours and we actually ended up parking on the grass outside their house and spending an evening with them. There were plenty of things to say and chatting about Reading and they were very easy to talk to.

Adrian on the beach at Iluka

Sunset at Iluka

There were lots of coincidences, they knew Margot that we'd met the other day, Jenny lived next door to Adrian’s sister’s sea ranger 'skip' in Reading, Rob worked for the same company, Baynes, as Adrian's Dad for a short time and all sorts of other coincidences cropped up. So after a very chatty evening we came out to the van for a cold night at 12.30.

Rob and Jenny