Leaving our Conto’s campsite Wed morning (15/10/2014), we first headed to the coast for a little look (just a short drive). Large boulders dominate the shoreline, though as usual, there are sandy areas/bays between the rocky sections.

looking north

looking south

We were told good things about Hamelin Bay from Nick and Kate, who we met at Sandy Cape Recreation Reserve, so headed a bit further south to spend a day and night there. It is a lovely spot, but Wednesday was incredibly windy (even if the bay itself, and the caravan park, are fairly well sheltered). Thursday morning was much calmer, and though Daniel and I had a quick dip both days, Nicole saved hers for the nicer one! The water was rather cool, so Jonathan decided he hadn’t yet recovered enough from his cold to go swimming yet.

Hamelin Bay!

Located a couple hours or so south of Perth, the Margaret River region is beautiful. Lovely green rolling hills, rugged but beautiful coastline, and lots of tourist activities to enjoy. Yes, this place is loaded with fine dining, wineries, fancy cottages, chalets and resort accommodation, day spa’s, family fun parks and mazes, and lots of yummy food. Sure, a lot of that is wasted on us, especially when travelling in the motorhome, but we still had a great time.

To help you get the picture lets relate back to Brissy again: perhaps think of Maleny and Montville, enlarged greatly in terms of number of attractions and in area (spread out over an entire shire), and then placed on the coastline! Over two days we visited and sampled sugar from: an ice cream factory, chocolate factory, fudge factory, cheese and yoghurt factory, candy factory, and a nougat factory!! And this is isn’t even mentioning our time at some other attractions, national park walks, whale watching, and time we spent on the beach!

The shire of Busselton is run with tourism as its main focus. Margaret River is the name of one of the towns in the area, but is also the ‘brand name’ for the region of a whole (ie. what people refer to the region as). The Busselton township itself was the first place visited, a bustling town with lots of cafes, art galleries and the like, with a pretty shoreline.

looking out over Busseltons 1.8km jetty, from the lighthouse

shoreline at Busselton

Well I woke up on Tuesday 7/10/14 and thought that I’d really like to go for a walk. Good thing that is just what we had planned to do.

We made a 20 minute trip to Yanchep National Park where we paid our entry fee (yes, they charge an entry fee to some National Parks in WA) and set off for the Visitor’s Centre. We spoke to the lady there about the different walks in the park and the cave tour we could do. After she totally freaked out the boys and I about snakes – there have been lots of sightings this season, it’s best to go on the well worn tracks, you should walk with your legs covered, remember you only have 40 minutes if you get bitten by a tiger snake and so on and so on – we decided to do the cave tour first and then do a 9.2km walk with the thousands of snakes that inhabit Yanchep National Park.

The cave tour lasted about and hour. We had a nice, informative tour guide and learned all about the limestone caves and the crystal – stalagmites and stalactites. We even got to touch some crystal and enjoyed looking at all the different formations.

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We arrived at the tiny town of Guilderton late Sunday, stopping at the caravan park on the banks of the Moore River. This is quite a nice holiday place, though the caravan park was pretty busy. No surprise really I guess, given that it isn’t far out of Perth, and it is school holidays! Monday morning we had a general look around and went on a nice walk up and down the beach, and to the nearby lookout. Mostly overcast, but thankfully no rain. Here are some pics.

Edge of the Moore River, looking out to sea.

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Leaving the flies behind at Lesueur National Park, it was not a long trip to Sandy Cape Recreation Reserve on Friday (3/10/14) evening. As its name would suggest, Sandy Cape is on the coast, where sand features strongly in terms of quantity, and in activities. Yes, this is another place where fun can be had sand boarding!

crazy speed demon!

It is quite a popular place for families to stay, with the sheltered bay and the sand hills both providing suitable entertainment for kids. We ended up staying a couple of nights at Sandy Cape, deciding to have a bit of a relaxed easy day Saturday (when we shot the 3 month video interview!). Though we did move to a different campsite after the first night, to avoid another night of being kept awake by a baby!

campsite for the second night, looking back from the beach dunes

the bay

These pics are from atop the nearby sand dunes, which are a very short, but steep, walk from the campsite.

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Following our nice overnight camp near rural Northhampton, we headed into the town of Geraldton Thursday morning (2/10/14). Geraldton has surf beaches, so the boys and I were keen to do some body boarding. Unfortunately the surf was a bit of a mess, with multiple gutters and the like, so we kept ourselves on dry ground.

Instead we occupied ourselves with exciting stuff like looking around, stocking up on groceries, and going to the laundromat… We did pick up one very useful tip from one of the info centre ladies – you can buy tap keys that can be used to operate all those taps you see around the place without handles on them (for vandal proofing). Comes in a + shape with 4 different adapters for the different types out there, and this makes it easier to find a spot where we can fill up with drinking water. Obvious really, and don’t know why I didn’t think of it prior, but very useful.

We didn’t give the boys a totally boring day though, because Geraldton also boasts sand boarding as a local activity. So we went and found one of the spots where they do this and they had a good time on their body boards acting as sand boards. Good fun for them, and the best bit from my view? They are completely stuffed from climbing the hills so many times!

the flying position

Our visit to Kalbarri National Park, and its namesake town, was another unplanned seize-the-moment decision (as was Point Quobba recently). Seems this might become a more frequent occurrence, now that we are heading into completely unknown territory (for us)!

There is no camping allowed in Kalbarri National Park itself, and given the corrugated dirt roads into the main walking/trails area, it was definitely going to be a one day only visit! However, we did spend the night in Kalbarri township (in someones yard, but I’ll get to that!!!), so had the opportunity to check this pretty holiday town out.

First though, it was late Tuesday (30/9) morning when we entered Kalbarri NP, paid the $12 entry fee, and arrived at Hawks Head. We did the walk here and at the nearby Ross Granham lookouts. These are simple short walks, but there is an extension to the Ross Graham lookout that takes the track down to the river. The views from both lookouts are pretty, as was the river walk.

Hawks Head lookout