Perth

Well here we are again, on the road in Perth. We stayed 2 weeks @ the CP in Caversham. The first person we meet is from Mildura/Perth. Marilyn comments that she was born in Mildura, Geoff asks family name I say Mottram he says Burl's daughter, you got it. He lived next door to mum in Mildura & mum went out with his brother. We had only been at the park 2 hours & my friend Shirley & her husband Brian arrived to say hi.

Perth from Kings Park

On Sunday Shirley & Brian pick us up  & we  went to Oakover  winery in the  Swan Valley for lunch & over the Wendy's for coffee, when we got back to the van our next door neighbour was Wayne & Jenny, we keep running into them which is nice. Monday we did the shopping & finding our way round the area. On Tuesday we were collect again for a great day out, Kings Park was our first stop followed by the Perth Mint, had a great tour here, then we headed out of town to Mundaring Weir.

Royal Perth Mint

As you can see from the photo the dam is very low. You can see the buttress supports of the wall it is that low. this dam supplies  water to Perth, Kalgoorlie & the Goldfields.

Mundaring Weir, supplies Perth, Kalgoorlie & the Gold Fields

Friday we decided to take the train to Freemantle, what a great time we had, the train was cheap for us old folks. Freemantle has a free bus as well, that you can just jump on and off as you please. We went to the Freemantle Markets & the Maritime Museum. You may notice that I am a bit taken with the lighthouses over here.

Arthur Head Lighthouse Fremantle

The hull of Australia 11

The deck of Australia 11
The museum has lots of boats but the best one was the Australia 11, with lots of info on the yacht  & the preparations for the race.

The HMAS Ovens resting at the Maritime Museum, Fremantle

Also the tour of the HMAS Ovens, this took about 1 hour and was great we went inside this submarine. Ian's son Adam was on the sister sub, HMAS Otway, the top of which is at Holbrock NSW. We spent 2 or 3 hours at the museum and really enjoyed it.

Having a great day sailing @ Fremantle 

These beautiful Gums were all over Guildford

On Sunday we went driving around Guilford, this town was settled at the same time as Perth, with many old & historic homes & building. One really interesting one was Woodbridge House, first owned by Governor Stirling. It is furnished with many pieces that had been in the house when it was built.

Oldest Pub in Perth @ Guildford 

Woodbridge House, Guildford

On another lovely day we set of again for Fremantle to see some of the bits we missed the first time. The E Shed markets were closed, but the Round House Prison was open, this again was an interesting place to visit. But the best for the day was the Shipwreck Meseum.

Round House, 1830's Swan River Colony's 1st prison

Shipwreck Galleries building

We just luck on this museum and found that we will have to return again when we go back to Perth. Just think you can stand next to the ship timbers of the Dutch ship Batavia that was wrecked in 1629 off the coast of WA. There are artifacts from not only the Batavia but 3 other ships as well. We ran out off time here.

The wreck of the Batavia 1629, wreck of the coast of Geraldton

The brick balast from the Batavia & some of the ships timbers

Shirley & Brian at home in our van

The Wednesday before we left we had dinner again with Shirley & Brian at Jimmy Deans Diner which was good, nice food, great company. On Thursday we had lunch with Michael & Lorraine (friends of Ian's from TR days) at Mundaring Weir Pub, then back to their place in Leeming for coffee/tea.

Mundaring  Weir Pub

These Ringneck (Port Lincoln) parrots are just everywhere in WA

Geoff & Terri Cooke from Mildura

As we enjoyed our stay in Perth we will have to return later in the month. The weather was a bit off lots of rain with cold winds but some nice sunny days to enjoy. On Saturday 25th June we headed north so more of our travels next time I have signal. Cheers  Marilyn and Ian

Yallingup to Perth

Hi again to all,

We arrived at Yallingup quite early for us 12 noon, we had to wait for our site as they had a late booking out, 2pm? we went for a walk up to caves house for a coffee, on returning found our site still not empty after much reading & questions the customers arrived and vacated the site.

Lighthouse Keepers house @ Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse

The next day we decided to go to the lighthouse, this is a small lighthouse but the views were great & the tour good. It was quite a long drive as you had to go to Dunsborough first. Quant little place.

Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse

After the lighthouse we went to some rocks that you could see from the lighthouse, Sugar Loaf Rocks with dolphins playing on the waves (no photo as too far away)

Sugar Loaf Rock

Yallingup from lookout

The waves at Yallingup had lots of surfers every day, with lots of holiday house on the hills.

Waves at Yallingup Beach

Ian's new method of tight spot parking

On another day we drove to Busselton to see the the jetty which is 1 mile (1 3/4 Km's) we decided to walk, it was cold very windy but great all the same. The food in the cafes on the foreshore were over priced. Ian did some precise parking in the car park, trying to find a park long enough.

The truck just fitted

Busselton Jetty from 1/2 way out

Busselton Jetty from the beach

The roof of Ngilgi Cave from the floor, Yallingup

Ngilgi cave was very interesting, very dry and quite deep again lots of steps up and down with a ranger at the bottom to talk to you, this was a beautiful cave as are all caves are.

Lighthouse @ Bunbury

On leaving Yallingup we headed to Bunbury for an overnight stay. We went for a drive around to look at the lighthouse, its black and white check and surrounded by houses, the beaches where different lots of rocks and surfers, the main street (cafe strip)  was very tired with lots of empty shops. May have to try the place again some day to see if it gets any better.

Ships waiting off shore @ 3 pm not sunset

Basalt Rocks Bunbury

Surfers @ Bunbury

Well from Bunbury we continued on the Perth so I will tell you all about our Perth stay next time. Cheers

Margaret River

Hi all, 

We left Manjimup on Sunday morning arriving in Margaret River late afternoon, we had morning tea in Pembertown & lunch at a roadside stop. We stayed here 8 days & it rained most of them, as you can see from the photos.

Margaret River Entrance

We headed of for a look around & ended up up the river entrance in a gale, then drove to another beach where the wind surfers were flying on the wind & surf.

wind surfer at Prevelly beach

On Wednesday we did a winery tour, 4 wineriers (Leeuwin, Watershed, Evans & Tate &Fermoy), Paul Rigby's gallery (cartoons), Margaret River Dairy (cheese), Olio Bello Olives, venison farm (great meat), M.R. Chocolate factory & lunch at Cowaramup Brewery, quite a good day in all.

The view @ Watershed Estate winery

On another day we visited Swallow's Welcome Winery & Art Gallery, after a long funny drive in the wine was ordinary but the art gallery was great, lots of botanical painting. Then we went on to The Berry Farm (lots of jam). We also went to Voyager Estate, beautiful wine, beautiful gardens.

The entrance to Voyager Estate

The entrance to the tasting room, also had a restaurant & rose garden

Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse

On another day we drove down to Augusta for morning tea as the scones @ the lighthouse are great. The lighthouse tour was good we got to go up the top (it had just reopened after some restoration) The lighthouse stands at the meeting of 2 oceans, the Indian & Southern Oceans. It took 12 months to build in 1896 & is Australia's Tallest Mainland Lighthouse @ 56 metres above mean tide level.

The sign

As you can see the different wave patten of the two oceans crashing onto the rocks, in the walk around the sign above gives you info, it was quite a wet, blowy day. One of the other interesting features of the area is the Water Wheel which was feed from a spring nearby & the water was used for the light house.

The meeting of 2 oceans, on the right is the Indian & on the left is the Southern, note the different wave patterns

The Water Wheel, encrusted with minerals.

Whilst zooming along the Caves Road this great sign appeared. The Karri forest here was fantastic with the sun on the trunks.

The beware of fairy's sign in the Karri Forest

The Karri Forest

We also visited a cave while in the area, there are many to see but we only did one, The Lake Cave boy was it worth it. We had to go down 370 odd steps to the entrance, into the beautiful lake cave, this is a bit short on water, so they have to water the ground above every night.

Looking out of the Giant Doline entrance of Lake Cave

Inside Lake Cave

At the top of the steps into the Gaint Doline entrance with stalactites all over

On another day we went to another surf beach, Gracetown, lots of great rock no surf. So ended our stay at Margaret River, from here we headed up to Yallingup, see you all in Yallingup.

The beach at Gracetown