South West Western Australia (aka Cervantes to Perth (Woods Point) to Margaret River (Gracetown) to Albany to Hopetoun to Esperance

Not all them look circumsized.

Yes, its been a while since the last post and I think I had better set out our voyages in summary point form for fear of boring the reading audience to death.

Cervantes

Talking of boring to death, Cervantes.  There is nothing that special about the place - especially when the weather was not great - other than being the entrance to the Pinnacles - which are a form of rocks that look like giant - sorry, I mean about normal sized - penises.  (Miss Sam, good luck explaining this to the Anouk's friends in the Butterfly room).  First we walked around them and then we drove around them.  We have become pretty fond of the tourist attractions that you do not have to get out of your car to look at.

We also looked at some more Stomalocites (I am not spelling that right and I don't care) - the living rocks.  Even more amazing than them is the fact that we drove to see a second batch of them.

Perth

Its a lie to say we stayed in Perth - Woods Point was actually the location which is about 25km south of Perth,  We did check out the town and took the kids to a Rio Tinto advertisement (Naturescape) in Kings Park that was aimed at explaining the bush - and all the good things Rio Tinto had done to the bush) to city kids.  Good that we had spent 4 months travelling through the bush and then got to the city to teach them about the bush.  Anyway, we were congratulating ourselves on finding it given that it had only been open for three weeks and was not in any guide books.  (Hint to parents - follow the prams).

Two hot babes on the ferris wheel at
Fremantle.  This photo was taken before
dad told mum how much it the ride cost.

We also checked out Freo and had dinner at the Little Creatures Brewery - about dad's favourite experience given that it also had a sandpit so that our little angels could entertain themselves while dad drank himself into a stupor. Just about the perfect day save that as we were going in we say a giant ferris wheel that, thankfully, was not working. Anouk was upset and we told her that, gosh darn it, if only it was open we could have gone on it.  Of course, when we left the brewery, it was open and we had to go on it.  So about $90 lighter (about the same price as a a carton  and a half of Little Creatures pale ale) we made our way back to Woods Point.   (Hint to parents - check out the price of rides before exclaiming a disappointment that you cannot ride it).

We also made our way to Rottnest Island and got around on the bus.  Saw some amazing whales really close in who were having a great time blowing water and breaching out of the water.  It was also here that we racked up playground number 100 that the kids have been on during the trip.  Glad to spend $194 getting to the Island so that we could find another playground.  A few lunches were nearly lost on the trip back but we managed to keep them in check fortunately.

We lost Nana and Pa here for few days as them went to Coffs Harbour for a wedding.

Margaret River (actually, Gracetown)

Choosing caravan parks is a difficult task.  In Margaret River we opted for Gracetown.  That was a mistake.  It was crap.  Margaret River more generally, on the other hand, was cold but otherwise fantastic;

• We passed through Busselton and stayed for lunch.  Next time, we will stay for a week;
• We went from "Cape to Cape" - Cape Leeuwin in the most south westerly corner of Australia to Cape Naturaliste which was more north and dad and Anouk went up two lighthouses in two days.  The others only went up the one at Cape Naturaliste (because you have to be 4 to go up the lighthouse at Cape Leeuwin)
• We visited a number of wineries (Saracen, Leeuwin estate) and breweries (Bootleg) and managed to spend a small fortune on dad's 40th birthday present at Leeuwin
• We went to one of the caves in the area - Mammoth cave;
• Dad realised after the event that he had been to a number of the wineries and Mammoth Cave the last time he was here 14 years ago;



Just another ho hum beach by WA
standards - this one at Eagle Bay

• We checked out Eagle Bay amd Meeling and voted them in our top 5 beaches we have seen in this trip - which puts them in the top 5 beaches we have seen in our lives.  We are planning to establish a caravan park there and now just have to convince the government to sell us a bit of the national park and let us cut down a few trees.  Should not be a problem.

Albany
 

The gaps in the Tingle trees are sometimes
so large you can park a car in them. Which
people use to do until the killed the tree.
Now, you just get a photo taken of a photo of
the car. And if you are one, you press your face
against the windscreen....

Albany was, to some extent, a disappointment.  The coastline is very rugged and has some amazing scenery but, when they built things, they just buggered things up. The town is a bit of a mess.  The caravan park - at Middleton Beach - however, was amongst the best we have been to. Heated pool and spa, two rooms for kids to play, indoor theatre, playground, best family bathroom ever - we loved it.  And it was lucky it had these things because, for the most park, all it did in Albany was rain.  There was buckets of the stuff.  (We are making up for the 14 weeks when we did not see a drop). 

On the way to Albany, we stopped off at Walpole and walked through the tree top walk in the "Valley of the Giants" (the "giants" are the Tingle trees).   This was really worth doing but it does sway a lot so it gave mum's vertigo a pretty good workout.

Ah yes, that family...

They conducted whaling from Albany until 1978 and they have a "Whale world" on the site of the whaling station - which is actually quite a good representation of what went on there.  Its certainly not pro-whaling (actually, its shows the barbaric practices in the their full glory) but it does not bag the working people who were just making a living either. 

Isaac teaching Pa to dry the dishes. 

A really old bloke had his 40th in Albany.  That did not depress him.  However, turning 40 and one day was pretty bad because that meant he was then closer to 50 than to 30.  However, it was well celebrated at the Tanglehead brewery in Albany.  There could be a lot worse places to spend one's 40th except that, of course, one of the little angels (yes, you Yvette) decided to be a total pain.  Now, a word of clarification is required here.  As noted previously, Isaac was being a total pain for a while but either he has improved a lot or Yvette and Anouk's behaviour has deteriorated to such an extent that he seems to be behaving well.  Anyway, if Yvette is not screaching at the top of her lungs at 5am (for who knows what reason) then Anouk is crying because she has (a) hurt herself (b) cannot find a doll/hair brush/hat/jumper/shoes/piece of paper/speck of dust  or (c) we have belted her for crying - see (a) and (b).  Whose idea was it to bring them along anyway?

We saw another great beach at Green's Pool which is near Denmark (no, not that Denmark) about 50 kms west of Albany.  Actually, next time we visit, we will probably stay in Denmark and not Albany.  We figure that the importance of a playground in the caravan park will have diminished by the time we are next back here.

Hopetoun

Its too far from Albany to Esperance (over 500kms) so we stayed in Hopetoun along the way.  Don't stay there.  How a town on such a piece of coast line can be so crap is a mystery.  But it is. And the caravan park is about the worst we have stayed in.  Lost hot water during the kids baths and no toilet paper in the bathrooms are just two of the problems we had.  Do not go to this place.  You have been warned. In fact, just ditch the kids and go from Albany to Esperance.

Esperance

Got here today and have checked out the town but, given the views we have of the bay and the islands, we may not leave the caravan park. 

View from our site are reasonable in Esperance.  Of course,
the kids are more impressed by what the see in the foreground.

Hopefully, the next post will not be so long.  But I make no promises.