Balingup to Peaceful Bay

November 20 to November 27

Sunday we drove to Balingup, following the Blackwood River as it meanders through some spectacular Karri and Jarrah forests. This is the heart of the timber country, and the road is hugged by 30 metre tall trees, with some plantation gum and pine areas here and there.

This Blackwood River Valley region is primarily timber and wine vineyards, and further south there is agriculture and mining added into the mix. This is also serious bushwalking and hiking country, with the Bibbulmun Track and Munda Biddi Trail (both stretching some 500+kms from near Perth to Albany, but following different routes) criss-crossing the region. There have been plenty of opportunities to walk sections of these trails throughout our travels south of Perth.

Plenty of Heritage and Historical Visits

Balingup is home to the well-known Golden Valley Tree Park, a massive botanic park where the trees of Australia and the world have been planted and walks (including a section of the Bibbulmun Track) take you through a fantastic array of varieties. We spent a couple of hours, getting a bit lost at times, walking the park.

In the afternoon we drove to Greenbushes, just 15km south, and toured their Discovery Centre. It was a very well resourced, interactive presentation of the local industries and heritage, primarily mining and timber. We then headed just out of town to the Greenbushes Pool, a spring fed swimming waterhole where you can free camp.

Diamond Tree fire lookout, some 45 metres tall

Monday we walked Greenbushes Mining Heritage Walk, a trail that takes you around the town bushland outskirts (yep, got a bit lost again) to view the old tin mining shafts and finish at the lookout of the old Cornwall Pit open cut. Greenbushes mine is still in operation, mining the primary ore for tin and lithium from their underground mine.

We drove to Bridgetown just 20km down the road to visit their Visitor Centre (which also had a great museum attached to it) and did some grocery shopping, before checking out the river where the town gets its name. Bridgetown was originally named Geegelup and was established in the 1850’s supporting grazing and wool production, then apple and orchard farms.

We drove back to Greenbushes for Monday night and stayed at their second (yep, they have two free camps sites) overnight spot at the sportsground. We headed back to Bridgetown on Tuesday to walk the river trail, a track following the Blackwood River through some very picturesque forest.

From there we drove to Manjimup, the largest town in the Southern Forest Region, stopping at the King Jarrah Tree, a 500 year old example of this majestic eucalypt. We visited the Timber and Heritage Park, where they have buildings and steam equipment displayed tracing the establishment of the timber industry and its development over the years.

Not a lot of safety associated with this risk!

A further 10km out of town we visited the Diamond Tree, one of numerous trees in the region which were used as bushfire lookouts. The tallest karri tree in the locality was selected, topped (top canopy removed) and a “ladder” added to the trunk in a spiral. A lookout was built on top, where it was manned during the bushfire season. Three of these lookout trees are open to the public to climb, ranging from 45 to 55 metres tall. I climbed some 10 metres up for a photo, I decided that was high enough. We found a great free camp for the night about a kilometre away, at an electricity sub-station on a hill well off the road.

Wednesday we visited Pemberton, and Big Brook Dam. Another fantastic hike of some 8km around the dam through the Jarrah, Karri and Marri forest. The dam is stocked with brown and rainbow trout, and marron (freshwater crayfish). On our walk we spotted a brown trout in the shallow rapids of a feeding creek, and a marron at the dam wall. Unfortunately the season for both were closed so they lived to see another day.

Pemberton Mountain Bike Park, banked downhill section

The Pemberton Visitor Centre also had a heritage museum which we visited, unfortunately much of which we have seen at other museums in the area.

We visited the second bushfire lookout tree, the Gloucester Tree, before heading back to our “sub-station” free camp.

Thursday we drove back to Pemberton, mainly so I could ride the Pemberton Mountain Bike Park, a National Competition level trail park open to the public. I rode most of the blue trails (like ski run ratings, green, blue then black in difficulty), and compared to our Caloundra trails these were MUCH more technical, I know Mitchell and his crew would love this park!

We drove further south to Northcliffe through an even denser (if that’s possible) tall timber forest, the later part of which was badly burnt out 12 months ago. Northcliffe was a very small country town with yet another heritage museum. We visited it just to make sure the displays were similar to the others we had seen. It is great to see the local’s passion for their past and their community spirit to manage and maintain the buildings and displays.

We drove another 80km south to stop overnight at a rest area 15km out of Walpole.

Giant Red Tingle Tree

Friday was chores and washing day, so we checked in early to the Coalmine Beach Caravan Park. We still had plenty of time to explore the Knoll and walk more of the Munda Biddi Trail around Nornalup Inlet. This coastline is unusual as there is a number of narrow ocean openings, protecting large inlets or lakes. The inlets are often quite shallow and the openings close off during the dry season when the feeding rivers have low flow.

On Saturday we drove to the Tree Top Walk, a spectacular 600 metre suspended walk 40 metres into the forest canopy. This forest area is unique for the Red Tingle Tree, which only grows in this 600 hectare area. The Tingle is another eucalypt (as is the Jarrah, Karri and Marri), but is interesting as the base of the truck becomes hollow as it ages, creating openings into the tree base, which can be up to 7 metres in diameter.

Irwin Inlet, Peaceful Bay. Great camp spot.

From there we drove to Peaceful Bay, a quiet bay 10km off the highway. It was a great place for lunch then a long beach walk. The daytime temperature reached 33⁰C, the first really warm day for a couple of weeks. On the road to Peaceful Bay we found a side track leading to another inlet lake, Irwin Inlet. As you can see from the photo, these are the overnight stops we look for. We spent a very relaxing afternoon and evening there.

Sunday we headed for Denmark, our direction is now east which means we must be on our way home. Still lots more to see and do, but we’re now well more than half way around.

Margaret River to Balingup

November 13 to November 20

Cape Mentelle BBQ, I'm a shadow of my former self

We were so fortunate and appreciative to have Ed and Pam host us for 5 days in the heart of Margaret River. Not only did they have a near perfect parking spot for our motorhome, they made sure we saw the best of the region. We timed our visit pretty well as the region’s population grows from about 30,000 for nine months of the year, to over 100,000 from December through February. I had spent a few days here some 22 years ago surfing with Ed, it was interesting to visit some of the beaches and bays from that trip and seeing the way the tourism and development has changed the region in that time.

Sunday started with breakfast at the beach café at Prevelly, some local four wheel drive touring, afternoon tea with a group of Ed and Pam’s friends, then a BBQ dinner on a secluded beach near Cape Mentelle. Seriously, one of the great days of the trip so far.

Cape Mentelle BBQ, what a spot.

The surf swell had built through Sunday, and Monday was epic three metre plus and off shore winds. Too big for my taste these days but Ed and the local crew made the most of the conditions.

Monday we did an organised winery tour, which included lunch, four wineries, a brewery, a distillery, a chocolate factory and a cheese factory. It is the best way to get a taste of the region as you can’t visit all 110 wineries, so we thought we would let someone else choose. With a smallish group of 16 in the bus, getting picked up and dropped off from the door, it was outstandingly well run and a super day. To finish the day off we fired up the wood fired pizza oven at Ed and Pam’s for an outdoor feast to watch the super-moon.

Leah supervising Ed on the cob oven

Tuesday morning Leah and I drove to Margaret River Point, and walked the coastal paths from Prevelly to the river mouth. This stretch has been really well developed as a “surfing reserve” with great parks, walking tracks, parking and picnic and BBQ facilities.

Winery Tour, this was the distillery, very nice!

After saying our goodbyes we reluctantly departed Ed and Pam’s on Wednesday. We completed the usual restocking of supplies and drove south to Augusta, visiting the Karri Forests and Hamelin Bay. The weather was very ordinary, windy and drizzly and 17⁰C. We still got a short walk in at Hamelin Bay before checking in at the caravan park in Augusta. We had the usual washing and chores to catch up on, so booked in for two nights.

The weather slowly improved on Thursday allowing plenty of walking along the river and coastal front. Augusta has a long history from the very early whaling ships and then the processing industry in the early 1800’s, to logging and milling in the late 1800’s through to the mid 1900’s.

Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse

Friday we explored the spectacular coastline that runs south to Cape Leeuwin, the most south-westerly point in Australia, where the Southern Ocean and the Indian Ocean meet. From there we headed north-east to Nannup and out to Barrabup Pool, a secluded camp ground at the site of an old timber mill. We finally has some warm, sunny weather so we enjoyed a bushwalk and a swim in this pooled section of the Blackwood River.

Saturday we spent in Nannup, a small but vibrant country town with interesting historic buildings from the 1820’s timber settlement era. They had a great picnic area with power points at the tables, so we gathered the coffee machine, milk frother, etc, and had a “morning tea picnic”.

Revelly Bridge Camp
Click on the photo to see amongst the trees

More river and town walks, and a visit to the local markets where I picked up some “spicy peach chutney”. I have a compulsion to buy locally made (and interesting) chutneys, so I need to make sure I am eating plenty to justify each buy. In the afternoon we drove about 10km to Revelly Bridge, an overnight free camp on the Blackwood River. Very quiet and peaceful, but the logging machinery in the background of the photo would indicate it might get noisy during the week.

Sunday morning we continued to drive north-east to Balingup.

Bunbury to Margaret River

November 6 to November 13

Gnomesville - go figure

We left you last week as we headed over to our host’s cellar door at Thompson Brook Winery. Terry and Pam, the winery owners, offer their grassy car park for overnight stays. We had an interesting and enjoyable afternoon chatting, drinking, and listening to wine bottles explode. They had a bottling of rose which was fermenting after bottling, exploding and making a hell of a mess of their storeroom.

Busselton Jetty, Emerald Princess in background

They only established the vineyard in 1998 with their first vintage in 2002, and are a true boutique winery as they now pick, crush, process and bottle on site, and have some 6 different varieties of grape. The wine was reasonable, I’m sure it is hard to produce wine in crushes of about 1 tonne of grapes for a bottling.

Yallingup coastline

Monday we visited Donnybrook, about 6km from the winery. There are a number of fertile valleys in this region, so did a tourist drive through the Ferguson Valley and Preston Valley, which included the remarkable Gnomesville. There is no town here, only a three way road junction which was dangerous for the local school bus, so in the early 1990’s they built a roundabout. A bored local placed a gnome in a hollow in a tree at the roundabout. From there it grew as locals then tourists began “donating” gnomes to the site. The council saw the potential and assisted in maintaining and expanding the area so it now covers a couple of hundred metres of roadside around the roundabout.

Canal Rocks, Yallingup

We stayed at the winery again on Monday night before heading towards Busselton on Tuesday. We checked out some interesting sites like the Iron Stone Gully Falls, and the coastal area of Peppermint Grove. We stayed overnight at a free camp 15km out of Busselton at the edge of the Tuart Forest National Park. The Tuart tree was heavily logged in this area in the past century, but the national Park has some 300-400 year old examples of the tree.

Seagull with chick, Busselton Jetty

We drove into Busselton Wednesday and walked the jetty. The Emerald Princess, the largest cruise ship of the Princess fleet to visit Australia, had just docked in Geographe Bay off Busselton. Some 3000 passengers and 1000 staff were ferried into town, you could say it was busy.

We checked in to a central caravan park right near the jetty in Busselton for a couple of days, to catch up on washing, chores, etc. Thursday the weather turned nasty with rain and wind and 19⁰C, so we walked around town and along the coastline between showers.

With Ed and Pam, breakfast Margaret River style

Friday we drove west from Busselton to Dunsborough, the northern township of the Margaret River region. We continued to the most westerly point, Cape Naturaliste. This cape has magnificent cliffs and beach coves where the Indian Ocean meets Geographe Bay. We walked the cape loop track to take in the views from the cliffs surrounding the lighthouse. Friday night we stayed at Yallingup, then continued our scenic drive on Saturday, in and out of the spectacular bays of the northern Margaret River region.

We had organised to meet up with an old work mate from my Nalco days, Ed, and his wife Pam. They had kindly offered for us to park on their property for a few days as we enjoyed the region. We had a fabulous afternoon and evening catching up. Sunday breakfast was at the beach at Prevelly with Ed and Pam, overlooking a building two metre surf swell, very hard to beat.

Jarrahdale to Bunbury

October 30 to November 6

We had stopped in Jarrahdale a couple of weeks ago as it is convenient to Perth and is a pretty, RV Friendly country town. We decided to stay Sunday and Monday night before heading back to Perth on Tuesday.

Emu herd at Jarrahdale Forest

There are plenty of bushwalks in and around Jarrahdale so Monday morning was spent exploring the old forestry area. I did some mountain biking in the afternoon to go further into the forest tracks, coming across some emu chillin’ in a field (see pic).

Tuesday it was back to the Perth Central Caravan Park, a couple of loads of washing and a quick look at the Melbourne Cup. I went for a bike ride in the afternoon along the Swan River, but my route passed the Ascot Racecourse, and the whole area was cordoned off for their Cup festivities. There was plenty of inebriated revelers to dodge as well, as the Cup is run at midday local time, so plenty of people had started pretty early.

Frisbee Golf, Mandurah - Teeing Off

Wednesday was Hospital day for the Orthopaedic assessment of Leah’s broken wrist. The bone alignment had finally stabilised over the week, so it was agreed to leave it as is and not operate, and allow the bones to heal naturally. So they did a final (pink) fibreglass cast and sent us on our way. Leah will have to get the wrist x-rayed in 4-5 weeks to see if it has knitted correctly before the cast can come off.

I organised to get two more tyres fitted on Thursday to finish the “upgrade” started in Port Headland. Given my experience with tyre valve stems I was hesitant to make any changes, but it had to be done. We headed to Pinjarra for Thursday night, another town we visited a couple of weeks ago, an hour south of Perth.

"Putting Out" for par

True to form, Friday morning we arrive in Mandurah, and I notice a tyre is low, I kid you not. Long story short, a few of the original brass valve stems hadn’t been replaced in the past when new tyres were put on, and the rubber seals have been perishing and failing (I think I’m up to four?). We’re getting to the end of them (I hope!), so it’s all up from here.

We still managed to enjoy a day in Mandurah, I got my Frisbee golf game in, before driving south on the old coast road past the Peel Inlet and visiting Lake Clifton. Lake Clifton is (another) high salinity lake with ancient Thombolite formations, similar to the Stromatolites we saw near Monkey Mia. We overnighted at a rest stop about 25km north of Bunbury.

Saturday we drove along the Leschenault Estuary, a shallow, wide body of water protected from the ocean by a long sand dune strip (a bit like the Pumistone Passage near Caloundra). We walked the long boardwalk out into the Estuary at Australind, just north of Bunbury.

Long Estuary walk, Australind, Bunbury

We spent the rest of the day walking and exploring Bunbury town centre, a compact area where you can walk from the town centre to the surf beaches, the lighthouse and Marlston Hill Lookout, and the Marlston Waterfront precinct (on the protected port side). Of interest was the Morris Lane Taffy shop, where salt water taffy, made from a century old American recipe, is produced in an open viewing area with running commentary from the entertaining owner.

Thompson Brook Winery, Sunday accomodation

We returned to the overnight spot from the previous night, and Sunday drove east to the Collie River valley. We spent the morning walking Collie, a town which was the centre of coal mining for a century up until 1994. From there we drove to the very fertile Preston River valley where fruit, olives and wine grapes are grown. We visited Thompson Brook Winery, an RV Friendly Destination which encourages self-contained motorhomes to stay overnight. The vineyard is beautiful and quiet, with a large grassy parking area where we will stay. As you can see from the photo their aging border collie has already claimed us. We are about to head over to the cellar door (20 metres away) for a tasting. I’ll let you know the quality next week.