Night 104 - Pallinup River

Everything ends in "up" in sw Wa!!

So we filled up the water tanks and did our final load in the laundry ready for a stint of national park camps in the next few days. The kids and I went and fed the Alpaca's at the campground then Kai and I had a game of chess to let mum have a sleep in.




But first and foremost........we are going to Whale World...woo hoo!! It was the last whaling station in operation in Oz and shut down in 1978. It is still in its original form with most of the equipment there but they have added heaps of cool things with 3D cinema`s, heaps of whaling memorabilia including the whale chaser (boat) "Cheynes IV" onsite which still has its gear and rigging intact including the harpoon up forward. They also had real skeletons of whales including a 'Blue Whale' skeleton. The 'flensing deck' at the station was pretty creepy as this was where the whales were cut up to then be boiled down. The 'Head Saw' looked gruesome indeed!!










Interesting to see the old whalers thoughts on conservation back then too.....there was a picture of a white sperm whale (Moby Dick?) being hauled onto the flensing deck to be slaughtered....could you imagine if the Japanese whalers did this to our 'Migaloo', the albino humpback, down in Antarctia....we would declare war on them and start bombing the joint!!!




It was a great piece of maritime history preserved there and definitely worth the visit just in case you take a wrong turn on Pittwater Rd and happen to swing by Albany!!

We had lunch back in town, by an old wooden sailing ship called "Amity", then kept going on our trek east after having a last stock up on food (Lisa eats heaps!) and other supplies.

The countryside changed quite dramatically to a more drier look with lots of wheat fields (all of the fields look like wheat....could be anything for all we know really!). We are just heading to a free camp by a river called "Pallinup River".

It would have been a nice spot to go for a walk and chec the place out but omg...the flies were pretty bad. You now those nasty buggars that head for the corner of your eyes, your ear canal and nose....that a blow from your mouth doesn't even budge 'em'!! They didn't bite but they had perfected the art of annoyance.

So school work in the van was declared for this arvo to the delight of all!!

Night 103 - Albany

What a great little spot Parry's Beach! We would have stayed another night here but as we have solar panels on the roof of the van and this place is so shady, it didnt really work for us.



Its Melbourne Cup day and I didnt even see the race. We arrived in Albany at 10am and went on the hunt for a caravan park. Craig went into the first one and they wanted to charge us $59 for one night! We drove around looking for another one and I went in this time. The price she quoted was $59, I almost walked away and she said she could drop it to $48 so I accepted. Its an absolute rort having to pay for the kids, usually they cost an extra $8 each a night which is why we are avoiding caravan parks. Without a doubt this is the most we have paid for a caravan park and its not even a capital city!! We are fully self sufficient with our solar panels, gas cooking and batteries. We can camp in a national park for next to nothing but as there aren't any in big towns often we have no choice but to stay in a caravan park.

After we set up we went into the town to shop at a decent supermarket, Craig put a bet on for the race and have a look around. Unfortunately we didnt win a thing on the race. The town of Albany is massive, its probably as big as Wollongong.

We drove out to the Albany Wind Farm which was awesome. There are 12 turbines that are 60m high and work almost every day of the year. Pretty impressive.






We have been bush camping for the past 6 nights its time to do some washing, fill up the water tanks and have a decent shower which is exactly what we did.

Night 102 - Denmark

The boys and I decided to give the girls a sleep in so off we headed to the beach for an early jog. It was an onshore southerly so no chance of a fish or a surf so we just jogged along the beach checking out what had washed up during the night. It's a long beach with rocky bombies (like Queensy Bombie) off the coast and with the big southern ocean swell its a pretty impressive sight.

We got away around 8am and headed to the 'Valley Of The Giants' which is a forest with huge Tingle and Karri trees. We did the tree tops walk that takes you along a 600m walkway that, at its highest, is 40m through the canopy above. It also sways around which almost made Lisa sick!! I thought Lisa was struggling until I saw a pregnant girl behind us who almost bowled us over as she bolted for the ground! It had a cool interactive centre for the kids which included a replica of a huge tree with a car inside it that used to be in he area years ago. It actually died because it was so big people did actually drive their cars inside to get a photo of it but this killed it....women drivers hey!!













A huge bushfire we saw...



The next walk we did was the 'Ancient Empire' walk, which the boys thought was something out of Star Wars, but was along the forest floor of more huge trees.



We picked up some things from the gift shop then headed back for lunch. I had seen heaps of signs around this area, with cafes, pubs, etc selling Marron lunches(freshwater crayfish) which is caught locally around here. I was hanging to give it a go but when I asked for some at a cafe I was informed that it was breeding season and that they wont be available for a couple of weeks......buggar!!

We had lunch back at the van (at our cool campground at Parry`s Beach $7 per night!) then off to Green Pools for a swim which is about 15k's to the east. We had seen this place in brochures and heard about it from others but with the southerly breeze and swell up I wasn`t expecting much......oh how wrong was I!! What an absolute beauty of a place. The photo's give a better desciption than I can but it doesn`t matter how nasty the weather is, it is always a lovely sheltered natural pool for a swim!! We brought our snorkling gear and the boys and I got in the water which was so clear and had plenty of fish. The rocks are all smooth with no barnacles or oysters on them so you could climb up anywhere.







I had a walk around the rocks to a place called Elephant Cove and you can see by these pics it is also a cracker of a spot.





On the way back we stopped in at 'The Toffee Factory' which the kids (and the oldies) loved. There were heaps of taste-testers there including a tasting of the ciders they brewed (woo hoo!). There was chili toffee, macadamia, almond, tia maria, english toffee, plus heaps more.......my teeth are still stuck together.







We see heaps of photo's and drawings of a little blue bird (like a local emblem as such) that I happened to take a couple of snaps of......found out its name is the 'Splended Fairy Wren'.

Night 101 - Denmark

The trip so far.....we have 6 weeks left



We sadly left Margaret River this morning and headed south to Augusta. We drove through the Karri forest which was amazing, so green and serene. The trees here reach 60 meters and are over 100 years old. Watch out for the fairies!!





We arrived in Augusta and drove down to check out the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse and see where the Indian and Southern oceans meet.









We had to use the medical kit for the first time as Bailey had his fingers jammed in the car door. For a while there we thought he had two broken fingers but after a few hours he seemed ok, sometimes a band aid or bandage does the trick! Ellie had to have a bandaged leg and Kai bandaged his hand in sympathy!



We had lunch at Flinders Bay which was just gorgeous. Its a pretty good little fishing spot judging by how many empty trailers there were in the car park. We saw a couple of pro fishing boats out in the bay.

Kids with full tummy’s we set off for a few hours drive to Pemberton, they slept the whole way. We got to Pemberton and as I was at the reception desk checking in to a caravan park Craig changed his mind and suggested we keep driving, he hates caravan parks!

We drove another 150km’s and arrived at a great little cheap camping spot called Parry Beach. Its about 15 mins from Denmark and the price here is $7 per car per night. Its right on the beach, its got showers and toilets, bbq’s and plenty of shade. I can see us staying here for a few nights.

Night 100 - Margaret River

First up on the agenda today was the Margaret River Surf Classic. We went down to the beach to watch the finals. The surf was awesome and there were hundreds of people watching and chilling out.









Afterwards we drove to the town (about 9km’s from the beach) for some lunch. Its a Saturday and the town is busy.

We got back to camp at about 2pm and Craig drove down to Hamelin Bay to check out the surf. Unfortunately there wasn’t any surf here but the bay looked beautiful.



So he came back and picked up Bailey and they went on an underground tour of a Cave. The rest of us wanted to sit back and relax. The self guided tour cost $15, Bailey was free because he told them he was only 5!!







We enjoyed our last night of wine and cheese by the camp fire, we are really going to miss this place/ These are a few of our favourite photos of Margaret River……

The river...

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The beach...



The cafe's...





The doctors surgery...



The wine bars...



The farms...








The cute little houses...






And the parks...