Sunday April 6

Certainly well and truly time for an update! Whilst we have not travelled very far since we left Augusta (98km in fact!), it has been a fascinating week and a half.

We did not in the end stay at Hamelin Bay. Visited and had a look and whilst it seemed very pleasant, we decided to take the advice of the camp hosts at Pemberton and go 20km further to Contos, the only parks’ campground in the Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park.

And what great advice it turned out to be as Contos is just beautiful – wonderful campsites amongst the most superb old Peppermints (Agonis flexuosa for the botanists and once again, it is amazing to see these plants we have been using in our gardens for years growing in their indigenous environment – huge and graceful, with the branches of strongly peppermint scented leaves drooping to the ground). The Grass Trees (Balga) are huge, many with two and three branched trunks.

Our camp site

Magnificent Grass Trees

Close to the campground is the beautiful Cape Leeuwin to Cape Naturaliste coastline, with its limestone cliffs and granite headlands. We had a bit of rain and cloud whilst we were there, but we still managed to amuse ourselves for the three days we spent there – visiting a gallery with breath-taking Jarrah, Marri and some Karri furniture (oh to be really rich!), taking a drive through the nearby Boranup Karri forest (as a ‘youngish’ forest there is little understorey, so the light filtering through the forest is quite different) walking through the park, fishing, visiting Margaret River township and yet more fishing.

Boranup Forest

The salmon schools are travelling past this part of the coast now and Contos Spring Beach is apparently a great spot. Murray managed to catch three fish one night (let one go) and two the next, so he was thrilled to bits and we have eaten like royalty since.

Not entirely surprisingly, the campground area is home to a wide variety of birds and despite my inability to properly see or identify so many of them, I did manage to add to my photo collection! The Spotted Scrubwrens were hilarious – constantly on the lookout for crumbs or stray bits of food. I put some water in the basin and was entertained for hours watching the passing parade of small birds drinking and washing.

Jacky Winter

Silvereye

Spotted Scrubwren

Australian Ringneck (male). Called a 'Twenty-eight Parrot' over here because
of its call, although I cannot hear it - must be because I am an east-coaster!

Seeing as the weather was still a bit wet and cloudy, we moved 20km to Margaret River township last Sunday and visited the beautiful Leeuwin Estate vineyard and wandered around the town some more.

Monday saw us on the move again and we managed to safely traverse the monumental  distance of 51km to Dunsborough on beautiful Geographe Bay. This is the largest town we have been in for a while and nearby Meelup Regional Park, Eagle Bay and Cape Naturaliste are beautiful spots.

The van park is a funny place, but we snared a great spot away from the main area by a small lake and we were blessed with all sorts of birds (more wonderful bird watching and photo opportunities!!!) wandering and flying by. The resident flock of geese (the only non-natives) took great umbrage to Murray when he was on the bike, which added more than a little humour for me and a major challenge to his cycling!

Murray with a goose in hot pursuit

Australian Wood Duck (male)

Australian Wood Duck (female)
The ducks are for you Squires! It is too easy to take these beautiful birds which
we see so often for granted

Pacific Black Duck

Eurasian Coot.
Look at these amazing flattened, lobed toes - no ordinary old webbed
feet for these birds!

Saved my favourite for last.
Not sure if these Splendid Fairy Wrens are young ones or not, but
they certainly look especially gorgeous snuggled up together!

On Tuesday our good friend Andy Morris arrived – he is on leave so decided that a few days over here was the go. We have had a great time visiting just a few of the many wineries in the area, plus just some of the breweries.

Enjoying the offerings at Eagle Bay Brewery

Andy and Murray did the 14km Yallingup to Cape Naturaliste section of the Cape to Cape Walk on Wednesday.

Limestone cliffs and superb beaches - the never-ending story of the SW coast

Three Bears surf beach (thanks to Andy for these photos)

On Thursday we travelled back down to Contos as it had been designated as a good starting point for the Margaret River region winery and brewery tour because it also provided a not-unwelcome also opportunity to introduce Andy to the joys of salmon fishing! It was a lovely day, so I was more than happy to catch up on some reading on the beach whilst Murray and Andy kept watch for schools of salmon from the rocks, ready to fling fishing lines into the water as any swam by. A local young ‘gun’ fisher Murray had befriended during his trips to this spot, estimated that one of the passing schools would have been 50 tonnes worth of fish. Murray caught one fish and both he and Andy got one on their lines, but were not able to get them up over the edge of the rocks – as you have seen, they are pretty big fish and the rocks are rough and extremely slippery.

Contos Spring Beach

The now much-visited fishing spot

Whilst we were enjoying an extremely nice lunch at Cullen Vineyard, Andy (a keen surfer) noticed that Kelly Slater, surfing’s current World Champion, was a fellow guest. Working on the ‘never miss an opportunity’ theory, he managed to snare a photo. This region is a surfing ‘Mecca’ and the annual Margaret River Pro is on at the moment. As the event is on the World Championship Tour this year, the area is awash with surfing celebrities!

On Friday morning Murray and Andy, unable to resist the lure of catching just one more salmon, headed back to Contos. Andy caught two lovely salmon and the injuries sustained from sliding down the rocks to retrieve fish number two were of little consequence! Consequently, entrée that night was the freshest imaginable Salmon Sashimi, teamed with some of the beautiful Rieslings we had gathered over the last day or two. Bliss!

In the afternoon we once again visited Meelup Regional Park and walked to Castle Rock – what a superb spot and it was rather hilarious as almost every large rock had a fisherman perched on it – salmon mania is everywhere!

Castle Rock and Little Meelup Beach

Saturday saw us relocate to Busselton, a mere 18.4km – don’t know how we are going to re-adjust to the long distance travel  once we get north of Perth! Murray and Andy snorkelled under the famous 148 year old Busselton Jetty, which reaches an astounding 1.8km into Geographe Bay.

Andy left for the airport early this morning - what a terrific and busy five days we’ve had with him. Continuing with the never-ending pressure of being of proper tourists, we went out to the end of the jetty on the ‘Jetty Train’  and spent a fascinating hour or so in the Underwater Observatory. Visitors descend 12 metres to the sea floor to see some of the 300 species of fish, coral, sponges and invertebrates which live on and around the jetty pylons. Great for we non-divers!

The orange things on the left are sponges and the brown and
white ones on the right are coral. 

A Wrasse of some sort

Who knows!

Off to Bunbury tomorrow and from there up to Yalgorup National Park. Next post from who knows where - somewhere before we start our trip up the coast north of Perth.