Cape Peron WA, Woodman Point WA, WWII, Bunkers, Munitions dump

Cape Peron WA, Woodman Point WA April 30, 2015
First off today was the mucky business of getting some replacement tyres for the Ford. All I will say is good on Beaurepaires, who responded first and had by far the best price.

We went exploring after that, over to the Rockingham foreshore which has been all tarted up with cafes and apartments and boardwalks and things, quite pleasant actually, and then around to Point Peron where we took some snaps from the lookout suspended over the cliff face. It's interesting in that the whole place was flooded after the ice ages and since then the water has receded, leaving islands and sand dunes building up all over the place. Rockingham is build on one of those sand-dunes, as is everything else on the west coast.

Point Peron WA

Point Peron WA

Point Peron WA

Jutting out from the coast just up the road, is a really long bridge that runs out to Garden Island, which is where HMAS Sterling, the biggest Navy base in Australia is located.

Back at the van park, I went exploring the Woodman Point National park, which is all around us. I am struggling to find any definitive history, except that the first building was a quarantine station built in 1890 and used as such on and off until 1980. It may have also been used as a POW camp during the wars. There is plenty of evidence that the area was used as a munitions (bombs, bullets, explosives and the like) for many years as well, but also ending in 1980, which is when the Sterling Naval base came into operation, and had its own munitions dump. There are at least 3 railway lines running into it, and there are the remains of at least 10 bunkers and store rooms. The bunkers appear to be solidified sandbags all stacked nicely and Bristol fashion as you would expect from an Army type place, and inside the bunker is (or was in most cases) a store room. I guess the idea was that if one of the store rooms blew up, the bunker walls would contain the blast and prevent blowing the whole place up! Here are some pics:

Bunker. Woodman National Park WA

remains of railway carriage. Woodman National Park WA

Bunker. Woodman National Park WA

Bunker. Woodman National Park WA

End of the line. Woodman National Park WA

Headquarters! Woodman National Park WA

There are two bunkers you walk past along one road and then you come to a fence. On the other side of the fence is another bunker, except this one has been done up and turned into the games room in the van park. Kinda nice, i reckon

Bunker, aka Games room. Woodman Point Caravan Park WA 

Rottnest Island WA, Quokka

Rottnest Island WA April 29, 2015
Today was Rottnest Island day. We booked a tour which picked us up from the park and took us to the  ferry that leaves from Fremantle. The ferry ride was pretty smooth, but the noise from the hordes of playgroup children and some that looked school age to us was deafening. You could not hear the PA or the commentary, if there was one. One 6yo who along with his mates had taken over the seats on the other side of our table and who had adopted us, seemed pretty aware of things nautical and marine. He knew the names of a bunch of sharks and whales and of the aircraft carrier anchored just off the coast (USS Carl Vincen) and was going on about the Edmond Fitzgerald wrecked on Lake Superior, which I though odd for an ozzie boy, but they turned out to be Canadian, which makes more sense.

  Rottnest Island ferry. Fremantle WA

USS Carl Vincen. Fremantle WA

Rotto, as it's called, is best explored by bicycle, of which there are thousands for hire, or foot.  The thing is, we came here once in BC (that's before children) and frankly, we were struggling to recognise anything at all that looked familiar. We headed for a cafe, only to find that at 11am they were out of most things and that the coffee was 20 minutes away, a fact disclosed after taking our cash. Oh, well, we can wait. We elected to take the bus ride and get the guided tour of the whole place before we made a decision of what to do. Excuse the photos, they were taken out of the bus window.

  Rottnest Island WA

  Rottnest Island WA

  Rottnest Island WA

King George skink.  Rottnest Island WA

The bus tour was good. Certainly the soft option to see everything and get all the chat about the place as you go. Well worth the $16 i reckon. The place has been developed from a quaint, special, almost secret place to just another beach suburb for the rich and idle to call home. There are now some 600+ moorings in the half-a-dozen coves and coupled with the 1000 or so units / cottages / cabins, all booked through the RI Authority. It's just everywhere you look. Can you imagine the island during summer with literally hoards of people living here plus boat load after boatload of day-trippers? It must be just plain horrible. This is Geordie Bay. look carefully at the water. Each one of the little dots is a mooring. Look at the foreshore. Those units come right the way around from end to end.

Geordie Bay.  Rottnest Island WA

Back at the Settlement, we found the old hotel that looked sort of familiar and ordered a bucket of prawns and some ciders before grabbing a comfy table and chairs out on the deck. We decamped to the safer looking interior table when a peacock started to make itself a damn nuisance, and would have followed us inside except Judy shut the door on it, much to the chagrin of the manager.

Having summoned up some strength, we walked up around the old part of the place, which is completely obscured by the addition of 10,000 similar looking cabins and shacks, all in the name of accommodation.

Accommodation. Rottnest Island WA 

Accommodation. Rottnest Island WA

But hey, we were here to see the Quokkas after all and we found quite a few. They seem to be quite comfortable around people and mostly the humans were behaving themselves and not feeding or touching them.

Quokka Rottnest Island WA

Quokka Rottnest Island WA

We had a bit of a look at a few other old bits and pieces before retiring to lounges at another coffee shop and waited for the boarding time. As we walked down to the boat it started to rain and so we jumped on board and considered ourselves to have had a quite enjoyable day.

Woodman Point WA, Fremantle WA

Woodman Point WA April 28 2015

Left Busselton by 9am with few regrets, happy to be on the move again and heading to Fremantle. Pretty easy sort of run, but the suburban buildup starts before Mandurah and just doesn't stop. We did follow the old road up the coast thinking it might be scenic, but all we saw was housing estates, industrial parks and scrub.

The park is a bit of a surprise: it looks a bit daggy on the outside, and there are 360 mailboxes for the permanents, but our site is quite private and pleasant.

After some lunch and getting the washing sorted, we took a drive into Freo itself; I had my head set on seeing the maritime museum and the cafes along the marina.  We were last here in 2002 and that was a complete surprise from 1974; everything was tarted up and obviously going gang-busters, still living on the big hit from the America’s  Cup of 1987. But today it all looks a bit seedy to tell the truth, even the boardwalk cafes look like they could do with a lick of paint and the water in the marina is, well, disgusting.

We gave up looking for the mythical museum, it probably only exists in my imagination, and headed for the signposted ‘cappuccino strip’, which turnout to be a really sleazy part of town inhabited by deadbeats, bums and would-be-muggers. Not to mentions prostitutes and barefoot hippies and weirdos. Took refuge in a Coffee Club and bolted of the car. Enough said, we wont bother them again.

A few random snaps from Fremantle:

Fremantle WA

Fremantle WA

Fremantle WA

Fremantle WA

Fremantle WA

Fremantle WA

Fremantle WA

Fremantle WA

Busselton WA, Jetty, Underwater Observatory, Port Geographe WA

Busselton WA April 27 2015
It's Monday morning, and in WA that means a holiday for the Anzac day, which meant that huge crowds came down to the Busselton / Margaret River / Augusta playground for the long weekend. The van park has been chokkers and fairly unpleasant, so joy of joys, most near everyone went home early this morning.

We had planned on doing the Underwater Observatory at the jetty this morning, but we found that all those people who had been in the cabins and hotels and B&Bs had gone there when they checked out. And, we also found that you have to book a spot on a train ride and tour, so we opted for 3pm, which left us at a loose end for something to do. We were going to have lunch in the nice looking Goose or the Equinox, but baulked a bit at $28.50 for a hamburger, plus public holiday surcharge. We ended up drifting back down to Margaret river and had lunch there instead. We had intended to tour the cheese factory on the way back, but that which was open in the morning was now well and truly closed.

Back in Busselton, we had seen a sign for Port Geographe about 7km up the road, so we went exploring and found a nice marina and a nice hotel type place which would have been ideal for lunch. Oh well, had coffee and a banana and walnut muffin instead.

The Deck. Port Geographe. Busselton WA

The marina. Port Geographe. Busselton WA

Back at the jetty, we boarded the toy train for the 20min ride out to the observatory, which is almost but not quite right at the end. We all crowded in and underwent the obligatory 20min talk that forms a guided tour. The observatory is a big spiral staircase that goes down 3 levels and 8 metres to the ocean floor. At each level there are big windows for fish and coral viewing. There are lots of pylons, both old and new, that have become covered with coral reef type creatures and they reckon that there are over 300 species all just here. The are also justifiably proud that it's all natural, in that they do not feed the fish or net them in or interfere in any way. The water was fairly clear, apparently, and there were lots of fishes and corals. Quite fascinating.

The train. Busselton Jetty WA

Underrated Observatory, right out at the end. Busselton Jetty WA

Underwater Observatory. Busselton Jetty WA

Underwater Observatory. Busselton Jetty WA

Underwater Observatory. Busselton Jetty WA

Underwater Observatory. Busselton Jetty WA

Underwater Observatory. Busselton Jetty WA

Underwater Observatory. Busselton Jetty WA

Underwater Observatory. Busselton Jetty WA

Underwater Observatory. Busselton Jetty WA

Underwater Observatory. Busselton Jetty WA

Underwater Observatory. Busselton Jetty WA

Underwater Observatory. Busselton Jetty WA

The End. Busselton Jetty WA

Margaret River WA, Cape Leeuwin WA, Watershed winery, Voyager winery, Leeuwin winery, lighthouse, waterwheel

Margaret River WA April 26, 2015
Another day on the road. We wanted to see some of the beaches on the coast and all the way down to Augusta, which dates from 1830. We had planned to be back up at the Margaret River Wineries by 1pm, but that plan got foiled as we wandered in and out to the beaches and got stuck behind Sunday sight-seers. What can you do?

One place we made a point of seeing was Margaret River (the beach) which is where they have the big surf classic every year, last week in fact. It's a bit of an eye opener, its is huge with boardwalks and viewing platforms and carparks. They were still pulling the tents and scaffolds and the like down from the weekend. I don't know about surf, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves

The Bombie. Margaret River Beach, WA

Margaret River Beach, WA

Hanging' five. Margaret River Beach, WA

Remains of the big surf comp. Margaret River Beach, WA

Look at that water! Margaret River Beach, WA

Just had to grab a snap of the Karri tree forest we drove into and out of:

Karri forest. Cape Leeuwin WA

Finally made it into Augusta after 1pm, looking for a feed but found everything, such as it was, chock-a-block. Continued on out to the cape to have a look at the lighthouse, intentions on then zooming back up to Margaret River. Any plans we had for a nice lazy lunch at a winery in the district were long gone. Not to worry, had a toasty at the lighthouse and debated giving them another $8 to walk up and look at the lighthouse we could see quite well from the cafe. I took some snaps from afar, here's one, after all, If you've seen one lighthouse you've seen them all:

Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse, WA

Just near the lighthouse is a waterwheel, once used by the builders of the lighthouse to run a pump to pump water up to them to mix cement with. The water is now an electric feed and the wheel itself is all calcified over. It pays to use your imagination

Waterwheel. Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse, WA

Water-race to waterwheel. Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse, WA

After more snail delays on the road, we eventually made it into Margaret River the town. Wow, I thought we had stumbled into Berri on the south coast on Mothers Day. It was just wall to wall people and cafes and shops and cars scattered everywhere. We grabbed a few directions to a couple (there are hundreds) of wineries and left them with it.

First winery was Watershed 'Winery of the year', which looked fairly typical of a better winery. I took snaps while Judy took exception to the bar-staff but bought a bottle or two anyhow.

Watershed Winery. Margaret River WA

Judy sampling. Watershed Winery. Margaret River WA

Next was Voyager Winery. You turn in off a tiny backroad to be treated by an avenue, lined on both sides by white walls and with a flagpole as its focus. Following that there is a white walled formal garden and the tasting room and the dining room and the rose garden. It look like it came over from France. A bit pretentious but really well done, and you have to love something that's been done with gusto and style. I took snaps, Judy took wine and loved the service. It really does make a difference

Formal garden. Voyager Winery. Margaret River WA

Rose Garden. Voyager Winery. Margaret River WA

Last on our list (well not last but we had to draw a line somewhere) was Leeuwin Winery. After a 1.5 km driveway you arrive at a really nice understated garden and grounds and tasting room and restaurant. Judy drank very good wine (and purchased many), I took snaps, you know how it goes. Underneath they have what looks like a converted cellar, but may well have been purpose built. This place's wines carry Australian art as their labels' all the originals are housed downstairs in this climate controlled and secure cellar. It's no wonder, there's a mill and-a-half worth down here!

Leeuwin Winery. Margaret River WA

Art Gallery. Leeuwin Winery. Margaret River WA 

Judy sampling. Leeuwin Winery. Margaret River WA