Night 97 - Margaret River

We woke to a pretty foggy cloudy day in Bussleton. We packed up and drove down to the jetty to check it out. I had read somewhere before we left that the jetty and underwater observatory was going through a million dollar make over and would be open in Aug 2010. We arrived pretty excited as I had heard people say it was awesome. Not only was it raining but it was still closed. Shame.





We looked around the town a bit then headed south towards Cape Naturaliste. We walked a 2km track around the lighthouse and saw some whales out in the ocean. Craig was keen to check out the surf at Yallingup but when we arrived there it was onshore and messy (apparently!) so he was a bit dissappointed. Yallingup is great, well worth a visit. The cows, sheep and goats in the fields here must be the happiest in Australia with gorgeous long green grass.



Camping at Margaret River at Cape Leeuwin National Park (Conto Campground, $16 per night for 5 of us) is awesome. So beautiful, quiet, cheap, shady and has plenty of birds to keep the bird nerd happy!



We broke the law!!



Neville and his family who we camped with at Lakeside are also here so it was nice to see them again.

Just after dinner about 30 high school students turn up and camp right next to us. They are in for a cold night, its raining and some of them dont even have propper tents.

The kids were so excited as we are allowed to have a fire here after 6pm, its been a while in between marshmallow toasting. Craig got a little excited and burnt all the hair off his arms on our campfire!

We will head into town tomorrow to chek it out....

Night 96 - Bussleton

So sad to leave Birdy, Traci and the kids. Its been awesome to catch up with them after so long. I kind of wish we didnt stay in the house as Ill be having withdrawals from the comfortable beds, the wonderful shower and the real kitchen!! The kids are going to miss their friends too.

We left Perth (sadly) at lunch time and drove down to Bunbury for a look around. First up was a stop at the petrol station where we picked up petrol for $1.20, it will be the last time for quite a while we see prices like that. Bunbury is a pretty big town, much bigger than we thought it was going to be. The houses are massive and really expensive. There are heaps of new housing estates and the town looks really neat and tidy. We drove around and had a quick look and let the kids play at a park by the bay.







Im not really sure why we didnt stay here but we decided to drive the extra 50 km's or so into Bussleton. We stopped at a roadside free camp but Craig didnt like it so we found a caravan park in Bussleton. By the time we were set up and unpacked it was wine time so we didnt do any sight seeing.

The weather is looking pretty grim tomorrow so we will probably head off further south and chase the sunshine.

Night 95 - Perth

Awoke to another sunny day over here.....they are in a drought and the residents have gone to a higher level of water restrictions. We would like a little bit of rain as the car and van could do with a wash!!

Today we went to Perth Zoo with Hannah, Tom and Traci. We all had a great time and with it being a Monday there was hardly anyone there. We watched the reptile feeding (so many little white fluffy mice), the penguin feeding and talk but the highlight were the little monkeys.....the marmosets and the baby 'Ranga'!

It is a great zoo and needless to say the kids had a ball. We saw a couple of squirrals running around the grounds of the zoo which I thought had escaped....are there squirrals in Perth??

Again the kids came home and had a swim in the pool and were worn out by nightfall.

Here are some shots from our day...