Woodies on tour!

April 2016

It seems very strange to wake up and not have the usual banter over the breakfast table, that had been happening over the past 3 weeks….our breakfast was a very quiet affair.

Richard and I packed up the Ute and headed south to Margaret River, back to our home on wheels. It will soon be time for us to get back on our travels.

We did a trip back to Busselton to collect ignition key for the Ute, it had to be re computed. While in Busso, we saw a Pharmacy sign that they were offering the flu jab for the cheap price of $9.95 so off we went in and had it done.

Our plan is to leave on Tuesday 12 April and unfortunately we were not able to say our farewells to Jackie as she was working in Perth and transporting their youngest to an important Hockey trial. We did, however, have a nice evening with Matt and Maddi.

Once again we didn’t get off to an early start as we said more farewells to Maddi and the backpackers Michael and Mary. The route and road was very good and quiet to our first stop at Quinninup. A very small hamlet with a handful of houses but, we had a tavern where we could get a meal!! We booked in for 3 nights and toured the area, visiting Pemberton. We walked around Big Brook Dam a family were kayaking and fishing and another preparing a BBQ. It was such peaceful place. We drove back into town and took a Tram ride through the forest, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Big Brook Dam

Just a short walk through the hamlet of Quinninup was another good walk that took us around Karri Lake, once again, very quiet and peaceful with some very nice properties overlooking the water, no fishing, boating etc was allowed here.

Our next stop is down on the south coast, Helen is excited about visiting and walking in the "Valley of the Giants". We arrived earlyish, for us, and set up at a nice farmstay called Ayr Sailean and then went off to do the tourist stuff.... The caretaker on the site is Billy and Carol they were very welcoming towards us.
The visit to the Valley of the Giants was awesome, its quite a high walk into the Tingle Trees.

We decided to visit a place called "Conspicuous Cliffs" close to the town of Walpole. A very small town but soon to be famous as the local Post Master informed us that a film crew are in town. They are making a film based on the book "Breath" by Australian writer Tim Winton, who lives in Fremantle, so watch out for it!
The coastline between Walpole and Denmark is stunning with white sandy beaches everywhere.

Green Pool

Elephant Rocks

So many magnificent views from the wonderful coastline down here on the south coast! Also quite a bit colder too!
Our next stop will be in Albany, our first visit here was in August 1999 with Helen's relatives..

March 2016

Friends from UK and Melbourne, Bill and Diane Bacon (Coltishall, Norfolk, UK) and Pam (Torquay, Melbourne) arrived 18th March 2016 for a 3 week stay with us. We decided to organise and action packed itinerary for them, based around holiday houses located in Scarborough Beach Perth, Busselton and Fremantle.

Helen and Richard met the host of the Penthouse Apartment at Scarborough Beach, he instructed us on the two keys we required to get in and out of the building….

After using the lift to transport all our many packages up to our top floor penthouse suite, ha ha… Richard and Helen set off to Perth T4 to greet and meet our friends, who we haven’t seen for a long, long time!!

After the usual formalities, our friends appeared at the airport gate and we then retrieved their bags and set off to load the car up and travel to our first stay, Scarborough Beach.

The apartment we had booked was very luxurious and had lovely beach and sea views.

View from our apartment

Another beautiful sunset

We did lots of tourist stuff here, namely visiting Kings Park, the open top bus tour of Perth, train, bus and ferry trip to Fremantle and many other walks and strolls around this lovely area. The weather was very kind to us, not too hot!

We even swam in the sea at 8am, a rare happening for Helen and Richard.

The day before we left Scarborough beach saw us having a tiki tour to the northern beaches and calling in to see Jonathan for a short while.

Pam, Diane and Bill, Kings Park

Kings Park, the amazing Boab Tree

Bell Tower at the Barrack Street Jetty

Church in centre of Perth

Elizabeth Quay.... didn't find out the significance of this bird

Amazing curved bridge, Elizabeth Quay

After packing up the ute to its maximum capacity, we took a leisurely drive down to Busselton. The weather turned quite chilly and dull as we parked up in Mandurah for lunch, we chose the facilities of the Dome Café, which to our surprise was very good food at a reasonably price.

Onwards and again south, we drove and arrived at our next holiday home. Once again bedrooms chosen and all unpacked we headed off in the ute to the nearest supermarket to stock up. Our house is situated quite close to town with an easy walk to the Jetty and beaches. Busselton was filling up very quickly with caravans pouring into the Kookaburra Caravan Park not far from us, well it is the Easter weekend!

Watershed wine tour

Busselton Jetty walk

Cape Naturliste lighthouse

Diane at Hamelin Bay...water warm as!

Busseton Jetty

You lot spruce up nicely

Richard had organised a "Wine tour" with a lovely company "Cheers" and Nathan the owner came to pick us up at 10a.m. the next morning. We had a wonderful tour with a number of vineyards visited. The tour took us to the Venison, Cheese and Chocolate factories..... Our lunch was included that was eaten at the "Watershed" vineyard this was worth $40-$50 of anyone's money....amazing food.

Many touristy trips were undertaken, a wonderful tour by a young lady at Cape Leuwin lighthouse especially enjoyed by all of us. We celebrated Helen's birthday that evening at The Goose restaurant by having a sensational meal where the food was quite something.

Sunday saw us off in reasonable time to sample the beach and see the Stingrays at Hamelin Bay, such a beautiful beach and bay. Then off to Cape Leuwin and the view of where the Southern Ocean and Indian Ocean meet... very spectacular. A detour on our way back to Busselton was called for to check on our caravan and for our friends to have a "Sticky Beak"... they had not seen our humble abode until now. At the winery Matt, Mathieu and Ashlee were busy with the massive buckets of red grapes, transporting them from one place to another. We showed our friends some of the work that Richard had done in the building of the Cellar Door, they were very impressed!

Over the next few days we walked to town and the beach for a bit of relaxation, we had the Ranger serviced too. We found an amazing Kiwi café (this happens to us just as we are about to leave a place).

Our next holiday home is a house in South Fremantle its just right, a short walk to Woolworths and Dan Murphys, how good is that!!! We soon found our way to the free bus service and have not had to take the ute out of the garage once. The free buses here are fantastic.

Twilight sail Fremantle

On our way, bubbles in hand

Yours truly

Sunday afternoon was quite a treat we just sat and had a few drinks on the Cappuccino Strip watching the world go by.
Tourist activities we have done are, Twilight Sail, Roundhouse, Western Australia Maritime Museum, Tram ride, Fremantle Prison, Shipwreck Galleries and a beautiful meal at the Fremantle Sailing Club. Our time here in Freo has been very busy there is so much to see and we have loved it here.

A few extra photographs below, enjoy.....