Augusta – 12 April 2010

From Pemberton we drove to Augusta, an attractive fishing village cum holiday town at the mouth of the Blackwood River.

Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse is just outside Augusta and marks the point where the Indian and the Southern oceans meet.

The lighthouse, the second tallest in WA with seven floors and 186 steps, was built from 1895 to 1896 of local limestone.

The light was manually operated until 1982 when it was converted to electricity, replacing the clockwork mechanism and kerosene burner, and was automated in September 1992. It retains the original lens and reflectors.

 

The lighthouse stands on the most South Westerly point of Australia and is where Matthew Flinders began mapping the coast of Australia on 6th December 1801.

Augusta also boasts the “last eating house before the Antarctic.”

Pemberton – 9 to 11 April 2010

Pemberton is a timber town, and given the surplus forest wood, the Pemberton Caravan park  allows campfires. Pemberton is named after Pemberton Walcott who was the first settler in the area in 1862.

We did the excellent Donnelly River Cruise on the Donnelly River through the D'Entrecasteaux National Park to the mouth of the river.  D'Entrecasteaux NP is pristine except for the introduced trout and the squatters shacks, a cause of some dissension.

We visited the Big Creek Dam for a picnic lunch, and watched the black swans feeding, heads solidly down and tails in the air.

We explored the forests, wineries and local farms stopping for coffee at the Lost Lake winery, named after a lake that disappeared as the land was cleared.

Near Fonty's Pool we met Robert Fontinini, a nephew of the Fontinini who as a young Italian immigrant created Fonty’s Pool as the local swimming hole, and was one of  the original orchardists of the area. We bought some fruit and chestnuts from him.

It is sad to see this productive farm land being turned over to tree farms, mostly Tasmanian Blue gums, which are barely viable and then only with a tax concession, while the apples are left to rot on the trees.  A new initiative is truffles, and we visited  the Wine and Truffle Farm and met Lesley and the truffle dogs who find the truffles on the root systems of oaks and hazelnuts. The advantage of dogs over pigs is they don't want to eat the truffles. They are a nice friendly bunch.
For dinner we roasted some of our fresh chestnuts over an open fire.

Rest Point, Walpole – 8 & 9 April 2010

From Albany we drove to Rest Point in Walpole. We stopped for lunch at Peaceful Bay. By now we have got over our fears about driving on the beach and happily join everyone else, even bringing the caravan this time for an excellent lunch stop.

We have been told that Rest Point was one of two original farms established in 1904, remaining freehold when the the National Parks were gazetted in 1910.

Rest Point Guest House and Jetty were built in the 1930's. Today they have a mix of accommodation including a campsite. The site is located on the Walpole Nornalup Inlet which is extremely beautiful.

Walpole is completely surrounded by National Parks. People come for recreational fishing.

While here we revisited the Hilltop Lookout with its views of Nornalup Inlet

We visited the largest Tingle Tree (Eucalyptus Jackmanii). Tingle trees burn out in the centre but can survive because the nutrient supply travels near the exterior of the tree. The circumference of this Tingle Tree is 25 metres. The drive then came to the Circular pool, so named because the current flows in a circle.

Next stop was the Tree Tops Walk and the Empire walk in the Valley of the Giants. These are respectively a walk in the canopy and a walk on the ground in a section of the Karri Forest. The tree top walk is spectacular, having a ground footprint of four square meters and being constructed using only pulleys and hydraulic jacks to minimize the impact on the forest.

When Tricia was a child her bedroom floor was Karri and she was assured by her father that it would outlast the house, itself made of double brick.
After the excitement of the tree top walk we visited the Meadery and purchased some Metheglin (spiced honey wine).

We went to Green Pool and Elephant Rocks at William Bay. Green Pool is a beautiful pool and remains warm to swim in till quite late in the season because it is surrounded by a reef. There is just a little exchange of water, enough to keep it clean. All the locals swim there. Elephant Rocks is a nice little cove.

Albany revisited – 7 to 8 April 2010

We drove from Cape Le Grand to Albany and stayed at the Middleton Beach Caravan Park, set on a lovely swimming beach. The park is popular with families and a great pit stop with very hot water and a good laundry.

Albany has a beautiful natural harbour, best viewed from the top of Mount Clarence where the Princess Royal Fortress was built in 1893, to provide artillery protection.

The fort was decommissioned in 1956 as missiles made the old style guns obsolete. It is now a tourist site. The Cafe provided a lovely lunch, they have recreated but modernized the style of foods that would have been served in the past and upgraded the coffee to espresso.

The American “Great White Fleet” of President Theodore Roosevelt visited Albany from 10 to 18 September 1908 on its around the world voyage.

The first and second convoy of troops for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps [ANZAC] assembled at King George Sound in Albany Harbour. The first convoy of thirty-eight ships, thirty thousand troops and seven thousand five hundred horses, embarked on 1 November 1914 for Egypt and then landed on April 25, 1915 at Gallipoli in Turkey. Evacuated from an untenable beach head after eight months they fought on the Western front in France until the war ended. It is sobering to reflect that of the thirty thousand who departed, twenty thousand did not return.

It is fitting that the first dawn Anzac Day service took place on Mount Clarence.

The Desert Mounted Corps Memorial, originally erected in Port Said, was reconstructed on Mount Clarence after it was vandalized in 1956 during anti British riots resulting from the Suez crisis.

We viewed the Albany Gaol Museum. This was a convict hiring depot from 1852 to 1876. In WA the convict system was based on rehabilitation, so convicts had their ticket of leave and were mostly hired from here by free settlers to work on farms or as labourers for the fledgling Port of Albany. The depot was built in 1852, became a gaol and eventually a museum.

It was believed that the discipline of rural labor was beneficial to reform. Good behavior meant a convict could qualify for a Ticket of Leave, Certificate of Freedom, Conditional Pardon and Absolute Pardon with increasing degrees of freedom. A ticket of leave meant a convict could earn his keep and live independently. He could acquire property. This saved money and was more effective than floggings in securing good behavior.

Marriage effectively freed a woman convict as it was believed she was most productive having babies, populate or perish an imperative even then. Although there were abuses this system worked well.
Transportation was abolished between 1850 and 1853, the British view being that as most of the convict population were not locked up, it did not inflict the necessary pain to act as a deterrent.

In front of the Gaol is a replica of the sloop “The Amity” which brought the first convicts and free settlers to Albany. They arrived on December the 26th 1826

We then drove out to Frenchman’s Bay, the site of an active whaling station until the 1970’s and from there to Torndirrup National Park to see the Gap and the Natural Bridge at sunset. The Coast here is spectacular.

At this point we are standing on the edge of Antarctica as these rocks are paired with the rocks at Wheelbarrow Bay where once the two continents were joined together. As John says timing is everything.

Le Grand Beach – 18 March to 6 April 2010

To move to Le Grand Beach we asked the Camp Hosts to reserve us a site when someone moved on. We didn't want to lose our site at Lucky Bay waiting for one that didn't materialize at Cape Le Grand.
We got a very good site tucked into the tea tree and sheltered by the sand hills from the wind. Unfortunately that also sheltered us from the Telstra Next G signal from Esperance, so we mounted our aerial on the television antennae to make sure it was line of sight to Esperance across the bay. It poked over the sand hills like a little triffid.  Subsequently we bought an antennae mast which raised our aerial up high and then we had excellent reception.

We are 60 km from Esperance by road and 27 km by beach but John is not convinced that driving on the beach is a good idea. The locals usually have a beach car which is all rusted out from the salt.  John overcame his reluctance to drive on the beach, 27km vs 60km is a powerful incentive, plus it is a lot of fun. Some days it is like a superhighway. Sometimes there are nudists on the beach furiously pulling their towels up and down. It doesn't seem at all relaxing to us.

This national park is more luxurious than most having flush toilets, solar heated showers and a great camp kitchen all kept spotlessly clean by the camp hosts. There are only 14 sites, all individual and secluded from each other, so it is very quiet. 
The beach is great to swim on, the water is like glass it is so clear and the waves are just nice. We had a wonderful swim the first day we were here. Trish chose a spot where people were standing looking out to sea as we thought it safer. We were the only people in the water and once in the water we surprised to meet a pod of about 20 dolphins who had detoured from their path to investigate us and say “Hello”. They swam to within a meter of us and then having clearly checked us out, turned and swam away.  It was a magical experience.
Trish, up to her neck in water could only think ' I don't have my camera, people will never believe this'. Obviously all the people were dolphin watching, not John and Tricia watching.

We are enjoying our shopping trips into Esperance. We revisit Sammy the sea lion and have a coffee at the Coffee Cat as well as some other great cafes throughout Esperance. Our favorite is the Ocean View.
 
We visited the Mermaid fish leather factory in Esperance. This is unique and recycles fish skins into fish leather. Fish leather is soft, strong and very pretty. They make handbags, shoes and various other items to buy. 

We did the Great Ocean Drive. This takes you past beautiful beaches to the west of Esperance, each more spectacular than the last, although none better than our own beach. Twilight Beach is the most popular with the locals. We also went past the (not ) pink lake which is only episodically pink when the salt concentrations are right.

We drove to the Duke of Orleans Bay, and big and little Wharton Beach. Tricia was driving, so down on the rocks we went with some encouragement from John. We inspected the caravan park at the Duke of Orleans Bay ( clean) and walked out to Table Top Island as far as you can go.  
We also visited Cape Arid another beautiful National Park. It has quite different plants to Cape Le Grand. We had lunch on Yokinup beach and drove onto Tagan Beach. The NP camping site at Cape Arid has only hybrid toilets but it is clean and nicely sited. Bring your own water.

We walked up Frenchman’s Peak which has a spectacular view of the Park.    

We did a scramble round to the cove next to Le Grand Beach on the rocks. We forgot our bathing togs and as it was completely deserted we had a relaxing swim without.

We swim and walk each day either along deserted beaches or over paths between the various coves and beaches and we enjoy being the only people there most of the time.

 

We enjoyed a lovely beach holiday here then as Summer became Autumn (Fall ) it was time to pack up and move on.