Wave Rock near Hyden – 13 March 2010

We set off from Forrestfield in Perth pleased to be without our “collars and ties” and on the road again. First stop was Wave Rock a unique granite formation near Hyden a town on the western edge of the wheat belt on the road to Esperance from Perth. Hyden was named after Mr. Hyde a sandalwood feller but somehow the inevitable misspelling crept in, although Tricia wonders if this was a comment on his standard of living.
We camped right by the rock and spent the afternoon exploring the rock and the local countryside including nearby Lake Magic, dry at present but said to be a crystal clear salt lake with a white gypsum bottom when full . Hyden is a small town of 400 people, tidy and nicely developed with an excellent local bakery. The bread has lasted a full week and still tastes great.

We spotted a local “ornate dragon” which are common inhabitants of Wave Rock.
Hyden makes the trip from Perth to Esperance into two easy stages.

Perth – 9 to 12 March 2010

On our return from Melbourne we had the Caravan serviced by PDA caravans. They were recommended by Simplicity Suspensions who make the Bushtracker independent suspension [used by the Australian Army] and we had them repack the wheel bearings, adjust the brakes and check the suspensions alignment.
They must be good as there was a one month waiting list for an appointment so it was fortunate we booked before returning to Australia.
 
This gave us some time to visit parts of Perth we hadn’t seen including Kings Park with a magnificent view across to the city. We had dinner in Frasers Restaurant in Kings Park on a beautiful evening. The Restaurant looks out across the park to the Swan River estuary.
The next night we caught up with friends for dinner at the Rose and Crown Hotel in Guilford, spending a warm night in their garden restaurant.

 

 

 

Melbourne – 26 February to 9 March 2010

We drove back from Denmark stopping at Kojonup for lunch. The town has made a real effort and a recently built stopping place with an excellent coffee shop and park made lunch time a real pleasure.
We left the van at Forrestfield before flying back to Melbourne so John could do his compulsory professional development courses to maintain his legal registration. It was a hectic ten days of lectures and appointments, with not really enough time to see everyone we wanted to see.

Denmark – 22 to 25 February 2010

We left Bremer Bay for the short drive to Denmark. Denmark is a sophisticated tree change country town with great coffee shops and art galleries. It even supports two newsagents.

We stayed at the Denmark Rivermouth Caravan Park situated where the Denmark River flows into Wilson Inlet. It is an easy walk into town following one of the paths on each side of the river.  Several kilometers further on there is a narrow mouth to the sea. Even the birds use the navigation channels to deeper water.

 
Mornings find the locals of Denmark gathered at the outside tables of a coffee shop, sipping their coffees and catching up on local news.

We visited Lake House a local winery, enjoyed a coffee and the landscaped grounds, talked with one of the owners and purchased two bottles of their award winning Pinot Noir.

We also caught up with Lawrie and Wendy [other Bushtracker owners] at Parry's Beach where they had been staying over Christmas.

Bremer Bay – 19 to 21 February 2010

We drove from Hopetoun to Bremer Bay and stayed at the Fishery Beach Tourist Park, a very well laid out park, with walking paths separated from the roadways and beautifully landscaped bays.
A pizza restaurant at the entrance made excellent thin crust pizzas which we enjoyed on the first night.
Bremer Bay is in fact a series of bays, each exquisite in its own right.

A spit of sand closes the mouth of the bay and is part of a designated highway to the other side.


We couldn’t resist the temptation to drive on a sand road!

Esperance to Hopetoun - 18 February 2010

We travelled from Esperance to Hopetoun via Ravensthorpe.

We had lunch at the Stuffed Cocky Cafe in Ravensthorpe, excellent fresh foood.

Hopetoun expanded greatly on the promise of a booming BHP Nickel mine at Ravensthorpe, constructed at a cost of over $3 billion and then abandoned as unlikely to ever be profitable.  BHP’s Managing Director acknowledged that Ravensthorpe was "not the company's finest investment decision".

Part of this expansion is a state of the art Truck Wash which was ideal for the Bushtracker. Happiness is a clean caravan and ours is bright and shiny.

The other amenities at Hopetoun are also excellent, again a legacy of the failed boom.

 

 

Hopetoun is the gateway to the Fitzgerald River National Park which is very beautiful.

We drove to Hammersley Inlet and had a walk the edge of the inlet, which was more like a struggle through the Ti Tree.  It gives you some idea of what the early explorers had to contend with, and eventually it became impassable and we reluctantly retraced our steps.

Coweramup to Albany to Esperance - 15-17 February 2010

From Coweramup we drove to Albany via various extremely beautiful back roads, passing through Manjimup where we visited the Manjimup Regional Timber park.

We stopped at a lookout to catch a glimpse of Nornalup Inlet.

The ground was covered with yellow kangaroo paws( an Australian native flower).

On the way we were passed by a Google map camera car so look out for us in Google Maps at some time in the future.

Albany [pronounced Al-bany not All-bany] was too crowded for a long stay, so after an excellent dinner at the Earl of Spencer Historic Inn we moved on to Esperance.

Esperance was named by Bruni D'Entrecasteaux after his ship L'Esperance [loosely translated as hope]. It is a very attractive town. 

 

We stayed in the Esperance Sea Front Caravan Park opposite the beach. It was a lovely swimming beach and like all beaches in Esperance is safe.

We took the MacKenzie Island cruise on the MV Seabreeze IV to Woody Island the only Island in the Recherche Archipelago open to humans, the rest being Class A Reserves. 

We saw sea lions, fur seals and were treated to two Sea Eagles retrieving fish thrown from the boat. At Woody Island we went on the glass bottomed boat Miss Woody, to see the underwater flora and fauna. 

At the end of the cruise we threw breadcrumbs and watched fish fight for every breadcrumb. They were blue streaks of hunger.

We then walked around the Island, enjoying some wonderful views. 


 
There is a great walk along the beachfront in Esperance. Sammy the Sea Lion has taken up residence underneath the tanker jetty. He is a real ham for the camera and has generated a cottage industry as everyone walks to the jetty to say hello to Sammy, purchase a cup of excellent coffee from the Coffee Cat, sit on the chairs or in the shade of the rotunda and enjoy the coffee, sun and sea air.

We had hoped to camp in the Cape Le Grand National Park but a bushfire at Lucky Bay [see the smoke in the photo to the right] meant it was closed, so promising to return later we set off for Hopetoun.

Margaret River [Coweramup] - 13 & 14 February 2010

Margaret River is a very highly regarded wine producing region, they also produce excellent cheese and chocolate. We stayed at the Taunton Farm Caravan Park at Coweramup (Cowtown). This is a very pretty park with views over a dam to distant paddocks. It is about 15 kilometers from Margaret River but well sited to explore the wineries.
The first evening we ate at Arc of Iris which is nice and a BYO so you can enjoy the days purchases.

For lunch the next day we ate at Must which is truly excellent. Both these Restaurants are located in Margaret River Township.

We visited three wineries, Cape Menthelle, Cullens and Vasse Felix (Holmes a'Court). They were very beautiful and we enjoyed this.
Trish's favourite cheese is Margaret River Cheddar and so we visited the cheese shop and purchased some cheese.

We explored the coast near Coweramup Point and Gracetown.
On our way home we saw a local picnic music night and so we stopped to listen to the local children perform and as it was Valentines Day we bought a Lovers Lamb Roll for dinner and a donation to a good cause.

Christmas – 3 December 2009 to 12 February 2010

On the 3rd of December we left Perth to visit our children for Christmas. We had a layover at Bondi an iconic Sydney surf beach and a great swim  before flying to San Francisco to visit Alex and Sophie. 

From there we flew to Los Angeles to visit a friend in Santa Monica and then connect with the Qantas flight to New York.  This was by far the best flight across the USA we have had in more than twenty years of flying the route.  Qantas certainly beats the US carriers by a long way on cabin cleanliness, service and comfort.  
In New York we visited more friends and saw the musical 'Wicked.'
Although New York was cold we were back in Virginia in time to enjoy “the Blizzard of 2009”, not really a blizzard but the press does hype things up. We enjoyed the blizzard thoroughly, feeling quite smug because we had done all our shopping.  We then spent a white Christmas with our daughters.   Chris, Monica and Jeremy came down for New Year. 
We left Washington on the 20th of January for the UK to visit relatives and friends. This meant we missed the two even larger snow storms in Washington, which the press, now struggling for  superlatives, named “Snowmageddon” and “Snowpocalypse”.
During this time John’s uncle died so our stay in the UK was extended.  We saw various abbeys [Tintern Abbey in Wales – shown left], churches and stately homes while we were  there. We also saw the SS Great Britain, a technological marvel for its day which subsequently transported a lot of migrants to Australia. Trish found two of her family names although we do not know if they were ancestors. 


We enjoyed Bristol in particular seeing how people live in a city where you can walk almost everywhere, a very pleasant way of living.  We returned to Perth on the 11th of February at 1.00a.m.
Our caravan was onsite courtesy of the staff at The Perth ITP and we fell asleep in clean sheets in our little pod.
We spent the next two days unpacking, washing and shopping before heading south to Margaret River.