Tourists

Ok, finally we are back with tons of pics to show everyone. First a geography lesson. Grab an atlas, look at SA then way across over the sea to the land of down-under and the biggest city your finger lands upon is Perth. Right mate, now slide your finger down about 200km and you will find the town of Bunbury which is where Sonya lives. (well to be more specific it's Dalyelup which is a hair's breath away). Anywhay here are some pics taken from the lighthouse at Bunbury.




We started here and went south down to a little town of Augusta, about 150km south, passing thru quaint towns of Cowarmup (where the attractions are cow town, cow patch etc) and Witchcliffe where surprise, surprise witches brews etc are found. The trip down passes numerous wineries but after my last wine tour it was probably best not stopping over. Instead we sampled some cheese at two of the cheese factories and more importantly stopped over at Margret River chocolate factory. Alas only on leaving did we notice the chocolate fondue outside. Was probably a good thing for our waistline in any case. We stopped over and peered into Fox glasses's studio's who unfortunately we closed but had superb glassware.

Eventually we reached the lighthouse at the end of the peninsular, unfortunately closing time was in 2minutes so we could not go into the grounds. It is similar to Cape point in that the Indian and Southern Oceans meet here. We had a picnic supper of ginger beer, cheese and chocolate here. and there are also tons of seagulls who want their share with their shrieks of "mine, mine, mine".




We drove back to Augusta and found a nice place to stay the night. The next morning we drove up the coastal road, called caves road after the numerous caves in the area and stopped at the first one called Jewel cave. Very impressive and unlike the caves in SA this one was very dry. There was an inland lake about 30 years ago but that too has dried. Perhaps most impressive are the huge collection of "straws", huge 5mm pipes of hollow crystal that hang from the ceiling. very beautiful but highly fragile, even a strong breeze could snap them. Also extremely difficult to photograph. A 5m long 5mm tube across over 10m of inky blackness. Interesting are the membrane thin stalagmites hanging like bats wings and the twisted crystals that grow in all strange shapes. One theory is that hanging in space with tons of rock above, they loose some sense of gravity and grow upwards and horizontally in defiance of gravity looking like strange roots underground.










From there we meandered down to the coast. The whole of the sw corner is all a natural park, mostly karri forest in about a 5km width belt. Very impressive. There is a walk between the two lighthouses (approximately 100km long) which would be wonderful to do if one had lots of time. We stopped over at Hamelin Bay which is very beautiful but as we soon discovered each bay takes your breath away so it would be difficult saying which is the best. I would love to come and paddle (& snorkel) this whole area but a definite would be a wet suit. It's cold just looking at it.



From there we drove up and saw an amazing maze :-) Under repair a bit but it was quite fun walking around and trying to find the correct path. Eventually we discovered that the creator likes turning right (towards the outside) so wherever there was a path leading outwards it was usually the correct path. Chatted to the owner of the place, very nice chap, looks a bit like Pete. He bought the place ages ago to be near to the beaches. Also found a patch of lilies next to the maze. The lilies are wonderful and are in flower next to streams everywhere and are a mass of white flowers.


Stopped over at boranup galleries, no pics allowed but look at their web site http://www.boranupgallery.com/ One of the things I liked was the unique way they use bright oil colors. A wooden table $30 000, equates to about R200 000!!! No shopping for poor South Africans.

After that we drove down the road to Conto's beach. Unfortunately two Korean fishermen had been washed off the rocks recently by freak 8m waves so the rescue squad did not allow us to stop there. We went to one of the other beaches just down the road from there but it was not easy to get down to the beach proper.

With all the stops and walks we had done it was getting late so we headed back to Margret River to find a place to stay. In total we traveled less than 50km that day but saw lots.

Ok break time, to be continued.....