Saturday 20th september

Our last full day of holiday, tommorrow we are going home.
Went to the Fremantle markets this morning. Its an odd mix of souvenirs, clothes, local crafts and fruit and veges.
Had morning tea at a coffee shop in Fremantle, the place to be on a Saturday morning!
Packed a picnic lunch and went out to Guildford. We had been there a couple of weeks ago but the pub had burnt down the night before so the whole main road was closed off. More antique shops in a nice heritage listed town.

Sunday 21st September
Off to the airport today.
So after 4 weeks and over 7000km in the car that it! The end of our fantastic adventure in WA.
We have all had such a great time.

Hope you have enjoyed these snippets from our trip.

Leah, Michael, Natasha and Abbey

Friday 19th September

Back to Perth today via the Tin Horse highway near Kulin. Its a 20km stretch of road where the local farmers (its all wheat here) have a bit of a competition going along the roadside with horses made from old drums and tins and painted up. A fun break in the drive!













Then on through York, Northam and Toodyay to search for treasures at the antique shops.

Wave Rock

Wednesday 17th we drove as far as Merredin for an overnight stop on our way to Wave Rock.
Thursday 18th we arrived at Wave Rock and of course had to do the pose!Also visited nearby Hippo's Yawn

Tuesday 16th September

Spent the day in Kalgoorlie. Visited the Super Pit lookout. Unreal. Massive hole in the ground that is 3.8km long, 1.5km wide and about 350m deep. It was like watching an ant farm until you see how big the trucks actually are. It takes 20mins for them to drive up to the top of the mine!





Scoop from the digger that loads the trucks >




After that we walked around town. Lots of nice old buildings from the goldrush days.


Had lunch at Hammond Park which was like a green oasis. Lots of nice grass and trees, ducks and peacocks and of course swings and cubby houses.

Monday 15th September

Off to Kalgoorlie today, no more coastline until we get back to Fremantle now.
Stopped briefly at Norseman where the Eyre highway meets from the Nullabor.
Apart from the tin camels at Norseman it was just straight and flat and lots of mulga.

Sunday 14th September

Spent the day in Esperance. Wow, if we thought it was windy before we were clearly mistaken!!
Our washing was blowing off the clothesline.
Maybe the number of huge turbines at the wind farms all along the south coast should have hinted to us how windy it gets along here!!

We drove around the tourist drive past the pink lake, wind farm and all the beaches. The surf was so huge that there wasn't actually much beach though, just waves pounding on rocks.

We went to a local collectables/machinery restoration fair that was on. This was a pretty big day for the locals and was quite big for the size of the town.
Natasha and Abbey had their first ride on a pony called Cinnamon.

Saturday 13th September

Headed to Point Ann today on our way to Esperance. Amazing!! It was well worth the hour drive along the corrugated dirt road through the national park to get there. Still blowing a gale but the whales (Southern Rights) were in this little bay about 50m from the viewing platform. They all had their calves with them as this is one of the places they come to give birth. All up we saw about 10 in the bay and that was with the water really choppy. Apparently its not uncommon to see up to 40 whales in the bay.

Friday 12th Sept

We left Albany and headed for Bremer Bay. Drove up through the Stirling Ranges which was nice. The mountain range sticks out in the middle of this huge flat expanse.
We drove around Bremer Bay and found a nice sheltered beach (it's still windy). The girls had a great time doing cartwheels in the sand.

Albany

Wednesday 10th and Thursday 11th we were in Albany. We stayed at Middleton Beach which was nice. Went on a whale watching cruise Wed morning, but didn't see any. It was quite windy and choppy, the whales were obviously hiding. They offered us another cruise for Thursday morning but by then it was really windy and raining so we didn't go.
Instead we drove around the peninsula to the blowholes and natural bridge. It was so windy that we were hit by sea spray when we got out of the car!













Dog Rock in Albany














We drove up to Mt Barker for lunch, about 50km north of Albany, hoping to escape the weather. Not much to see but we had a nice lunch and it was sunny!

Tuesday 9th September

After another morning hay ride and animal feed we had to say goodbye to the farm and we headed off to Albany.
We drove through some really big trees in the forests and stopped to do the tree top walk near Walpole. The trees are a type of eucalyptus and are called Tingle trees.
Also walked around the small circuit to see the 'Grandma Tree' and if we had known how many walk through trees there was here we wouldn't have gone through the grief of the walk at Pemberton!
The Grandma Tree >


< The Shelter Tree






Near Denmark we had a look at Greens Pool in the William Bay NP...it was a really windy day but still beautiful.

Monday 8th September

Spent the morning going on the tractor hay ride to feed all the farm animals. There were cows, sheep, goats, a horse, lots of chickens and some very cheeky ducks.
In the afternoon we went to Beedelup NP to see Beedelup falls. After lots of winter rain the falls were huge. Went across a suspension bridge along the circuit. Made the girls walk a 2.5km circuit to see the walk through tree. Dizzy legs again, only this time we had gone too far to turn back.

Sunday 7th September

Before leaving Busselton we went for a walk along the famous jetty, nearly 2km long. Natasha and Mummy walked out to the end, but Abbey's legs got dizzy after about 500m so her and Daddy waited back at the beach.

Along the way to Pemberton we stopped to see the climbing tree. The ladder goes all the way to the top...51m. Natasha and Abbey went up to about 5m.



















Arrived in Pemberton to our farmstay at Pump Hill farm. We stayed in a great little mud brick cottage and met the friendly farm animals.

Saturday 6th September

Headed off for a drive today around Cape Leeuwin and Margaret River down to Cape Naturaliste. Saw this as we were driving along.
Stopped off at an ice cream place for morning tea...yes!! ice cream for morning tea! Also stopped in at a winery and pottery studio and an olive place and also the Margaret River Dairy and the Chocolate Shop.






Cape Naturaliste lighthouse

FRIDAY 5th SEPTEMBER

Today we left Fremantle and headed south towards Busselton.
We travelled along the coastal highway through Rockingham and Mandurah then on to Bunbury. From here we did a bit of a detour inland to "Gnomesville". There were literally thousands of gnomes next to this tiny roundabout in the middle of nowhere amongst farmland.
After leaving Gnomesville, we headed back to the coast and to Busselton where we were staying.

Adventures in Perth

Arrived back in Perth on Monday 1st September. Stopped in New Norcia on the way back and did a tour. The whole town is owned by the Benedictine Monks and has been since 1839 or somewhere around then. Lots of old very Spanish looking buildings. Tour took 2hrs so naturally the girls were getting a bit bored by the end! There's only so many churches/abbeys/monasteries that a 3 and 5 year old can tolerate!












Tuesday we went up to Hillary's Harbour to AQWA (the WA underwater world). Great place that had all the exhibits separated into regions along the WA coastline so that you could see where all the critters usually live.
The walk through tunnel was a big hit (after a bit of coaxing for Natasha who was scared that a shark might eat her). I think we went around the 96m loop about 7 or 8 times. The manta rays are pretty cool the way they coast over the tunnel!


















Wednesday we did a tour of the Perth Mint. Saw a gold bar being poured, picked up a 12 kg gold bar worth about $200,000 (inside the security cage of course) and discovered that if you add all our weights together we are worth about $7million in gold! No photos to see. Security issues.


After our mint tour we went and had a picnic lunch in the enormous King's Park overlooking the city and river. It was full of spring wildflower events too.















Thursday we went to Lake Monger, just north of the Perth CBD to see the black swans and their chicks. Fed them some bread... they aren't shy thats for sure!














On our way we stopped in at a shop called Kakulas Bros. in Northbridge (inner city suburb) This would have to be the best shop ever!! It has bags and bags (massive sacks that is) of every herb, spice, flour, dried beans, dried fruit, stuff from everywhere in the world and even some harissa paste. Yay! and sooo cheap. It was like being in the spice markets in Istanbul (minus the Turkish salesmen of course). Could move to Perth just for this place.

SUNDAY 31st August
We left Wandina after breaky for the long trip down to Wongan Hills.
Along the way we stopped at Coalseam conservation park, the site of an old coal mine that was abandoned because there wasn't actually very much coal to be found.
There were about a million wildflowers though, probably the most spectacular so far. The view from the lookout at the top of the open cut mine
was a mass of yellow.



































Further south we saw lots of pink too, then all of a sudden we hit the wheat belt and everything was green, except for the canola fields that were in full iridescent yellow flower.