Pemberton, the Gloucester Tree, and Roo’ meat

Nannup garden decoration

We packed up the car and trailer in the morning and hit the road.  At Busselton we bid farewell to the sea as our route took us inland on the 104. We stoped off at Nannup for a quick toilet break, but the flies a heat were getting a bit irritating so we didn’t hang around for long. The road between Nannup and Pemberton reminds me a lot of the Nottingham Road part of the Midlands back home.

Bistro in Nannup

We finally arrived at Pemberton by 2:00 in the afternoon. We checked into the Pemberton Farm Chalets, and had after unpacking and eating some lunch, we took a walk into the forest to find the Gloucester Tree. The Gloucester Tree is a giant 72 metre high karri tree in the Gloucester National Park, it is the world’s tallest fire-lookout tree, and visitors can climb up to a platform in its upper branches for a view of the surrounding karri forest.

Heading into the forest

Big trees in the forest

The Gloucester Tree

I was famished by the time we got back to the chalet; I was hungry enough to eat a kangaroo… which is what I had for supper at a local restaurant called Sadie’s. Kangaroo meat has a pretty unique taste, and I’m sure that if it’s not cooked or served correctly can taste rather terrible. Thankfully, the chef at Sadie’s, relay knows their roo meat, and prepared it just right, using almonds to take the edge off the meat. I had a most enjoyable meal.

Did I mention the flies!!!

Professional Indemnity Insurance for attorneys

Meelup Beach

Ducks in the estuary near the beach

We packed a picnic lunch went to Meelup Beach for the day. I borrowed some snorkelling gear from Debbie’s dad and explored the water nears the rocks one side of the cove. I saw several different species of fish including the infamous puffer fish. It was so much fun that I am thinking about getting into marine photography as a hobby some time. Every time I saw a fish I wished that I had a waterproof camera with me to take a photo.

Meelup Beach

Wish it was my boat…

Yallingup Maze and Margaret River Duckstein Brewery

The Boys in the Maze

On Wednesday we drove to Yallingup to do The Yallingup Maze. The objective is to navigate the maze of wood walls and get to each of the 4 towers in numerical order. Some of the walls are on hinges and the maze is changes every few hours so that it’s different every time you complete it. I discovered that being in a maze is a lot harder than solving a maze from a top down view.

Attached to the maze is a café and puzzle shop. All the tables in the café have various puzzles and brain teasers on them to keep the patrons entertained while taking a break from the maze.

Yallingup Maze

After Yallingup Maze, we went to The Margaret River Duckstein Brewery for lunch. The estate is magnificent, but it is a pity that the same can not be said for the beer. Sean and I discovered during a beer tasting session, that despite their name the beer has little in common with real German beer. Fortunately the food was excellent. I had a smoked pork chop with bratwurst, fried potato and sauerkraut.

Duckstein main building

Front Entrance

Inside Duckstein Brewery

Margaret River Region

After a weekend of swimming at the beach, cycling around Dunsborough, and general relaxation, we drove up to Leeuwin Estate, a wine farm famous for hosting concerts on their huge lawn, a fine restaurant and offcourse their wine.

Wine Sales and Resturant

Huge lawn for hosting concerts

On our way out of the estate I managed to snap a photo that seems to capture a bit of what I call the big sky phenomenon. That is the sky here somehow feels bigger. I don’t know if it’s because the land is flatter, or the clouds are higher, but it just feels bigger than back home.

Big Sky

The Candy Cow

On the way home we stoped in a town called Cowaramup. A few of the local shops played on the word cow being included in the town name when naming their own shops: I.e. The Candy Cow, sweat shop that make their own honeycomb and American style fudge, and a café called Udderly Divine.

Café called Udderly Divine

It seamed funny at the time….

Dunsborough WA

Road Map

Pinjarra Heritage Tearooms

We packed up the car and trailer on Friday morning and hit the road to Dunsborough for a week long holiday at the coast. After a few hours driving we stoped at Pinjarra for lunch at the Heritage Tearooms. Australian milkshakes tend to be less think than the ones back home with hardly any ice-cream, they are more like cold flavoured milk drinks.

The Heritage Tearooms are based in a collection of old Victorian houses with rolling green laws and well kept English gardens. There is a small museum at the back where volunteer workers restore antique farm equipment and machinery.

The Family Eating Lunch

Back on the road again and I admit that I drifted off to sleep, but I did wake up in time to take a brilliant photo of Debbie in the back seat with her head back, fast asleep … unfortunately I won’t be publishing the pic on my blog. I have been bribed with baked goods too keep it private. I did set the picture as the wallpaper on Debbie’s PC while writing this blog post, cos it’s too good not to use 🙂 I am eagerly waiting for her reaction when she discovers it.

Driving through Bunbury the highway reminded me of the roads behind the Coca-Cola Dome in JHB. 

The highway near Bunbury

We finally arrived at the beach cottage in the small town of Dunsborough, after unloading the car and sorting out room assignments, we walked down to the beach.

Joshua on his "Surf Board"

The beach near the cottage is located in a sheltered cove resulting conditions almost similar to an estuary.  Even after you have gone 200 Meters into the water the depth is only up to your knees, and the waves are reduced to mere ripples on the warm turquoise water. Needless to say this is ideal for families with young children and my nephews had a blast.

Building Sand castles

Sean, ready for some real relaxation

While Dunsborough beach is no surfer’s paradise, it is rather relaxing and idyllic. I was delighted to discover that I can float in the salt rich water, a feat that I have never achieved in normal swimming pools. Lying stretched out on the gently lapping water as if reclining on a bed of water, I felt years of stress just ebbing away and thought to my self, “I could get used to this”.

The cove

Perth Central Again

The Bell Tower in Perth

I caught the bus into to Perth central for the day to do some exploring. First stop was the Bell Tower, a large 6 story glass and metal structure that houses a bell museum with giant swing bells, and an excellent view of Perth.

Carillion Food Court

I made my way to the Carillion Food Court, with 16 different food vendors, it’s quite astounding to a food lover like me. I had an awesome bowl of wonton noodle soup from Chinese Canton. It was a really big serving, and apart from the dumplings also had Beef shavings, noodles, a large chicken portion, and some vegies. 

I bought some T-Shirts and a pair of boardies (swimming trunks) at the SizeUp section of the local Target store (Target is like Game with a bigger clothes section), then met Ray at the bus stop.

When we got to Ray’s house, Elie’ treated us each to a huge plate of chicken casserole (very tender and tasty) for supper. After supper, we went to the site where their new house is being built (it’s cheaper to build a new house than to buy an old one).

Ray took me past a cheap liquor shop on the way back to Sean’s house, so that I could get my self some whisky… it cost me an arm and a leg because of the extra taxes on booze and the bad exchange rate.

View of Perth from The Bell Tower platform

View of Barack St from The Bell Tower platform

Swan River Ferry as seen from The Bell Tower

Time Out

Tuesday and Wednesday I took a break from being a tourist and got started on putting together this blog, as well as helping Debbie with her Bee Sweet website. http://www.beesweet.com.au/

PS if you ever need Palisade Fencing, check out Sharp Metal Pressings.

kalamunda shoping

I caught the bus into Kalamunda to do a bit of exploring. While there I bought my self a Trans-Perth Card and some air time for my cell phone. They don’t call it air time here, but rather Mobile phone credit. The phrase Cell phone will get you odd looks, and air time is what Michael Jordan has.

I found an awesome second hand book shop, and bought my self an old Si-Fi Magazine from the 70’s.

I also got my self a new hat, as the existing one was cheap and already starting to fall apart.

Swan Valley – Perth

After church, we loaded the kids into the car and headed out to the Swan Valley, a region known for its vineyards, wine and crafts.

Maalinup Aboriginal Gallery

The first stop was Maalinup Aboriginal Gallery. This gallery of authentic Aboriginal paintings and crafts is owned and operated by Dale Tilbrook and family, descendants of the Wardandi Bibbulmun people from the Busselton/Margaret River region of the South West of Western Australia.  I bought some hand panted and carved boomerangs, and Dale showed us “bush grub” in the specially planted garden of indigenous plants.

My search for Australian whisky came to a dead end at the Wild Swan Distilling Company as their whisky will only be ready in the next 2 years.

We popped into Duckstein Brewery and the Great Northern Distillery, but both were too packed with other tourists and we needed some lunch.

It seemed that all the good restaurants were packed as this is prime season for the Swan Valley…then we discovered Waldeck on vine café, right on the far end of the valley. By now we all were hot, tired and hungry. The Milkshake hit the spot while the play-pen kept the kids occupied. Lunch was basic but good, and afterwards we wondered around the Waldeck nursery.

This is what the Auzies call a “High Way” one lane for each direction and intersections with traffic lights.

Caversham Wildlife Park and Zoo – Perth

Me chilling with the Koalas

On Saturday the whole family went to Caversham Wildlife Park & Zoo.

Caversham is part of the Whiteman Park nature reserve, a 40-square-kilometre bushland area purchased by the state government in 1978, to protect the underlying aquifer as a drinking water source for Perth.

They have most of the indigenous animals, reptiles and bird life along with the plant species found throughout Australia. The park is divided up into the regions of Australia so that you can easily tell where the wildlife is native.

RoadSigns in the Whiteman Park nature reserve

There is also a small farm with animas that can be petted.

The best parts of Caversham were the kangaroo feeding park, where you could “mingle with the roo’s and even pet and feed them, as well as the koala bear inclosure, which understandably had a more closely supervised petting.  

At lunch I had a Mrs Macs pie, the local equivalent of a Ma Baker pie… only much better.

Apart from the flies, which seem immune to the fly repellent, we had a great time.

Blue winged kookaburra

A kangaroo and an emu

black cockatoo

Petting a Roo with my Nephew

The infamous Tasmanian devil