The NT Nomads: South West WA Nov 2011

Perth from Kings Park Lookout

While we were in Perth we were able to catch up with some friends from our time at Barn Hill. Christine and Martin live in Mandurah but came up by train to help me celebrate my birthday and show us some of the sights of Perth that we wanted to see. Over lunch Christine and I developed a trip to the south west so that they could show us some different places.

We stayed a few more days in Perth and were then heading for Lane Pool Reserve when we came across a lovely place to stay in Pinjara. It's near the Information Centre just on the edge of town near the huge railway yard and\ and that is the only downside of the place is that lots of trains pass through carrying ore etc.

Anyway we had a nice stay there and I got to do some patch working with the Pinjara club . they were a very friendly bunch of ladies, who run a shop selling their wares in the old schoolhouse which also doubles as their work space. While we were at Pinjara we side a trip out to Lane Pool reserve and also stopped at Dwellingup and checked out their really interesting Tourist information centre with lots of history. The Reserve was nice and we took morning tea with us to have by a lovely pool. We then continued on and found the only area that would have been big enough for us was near the old mill site., which is also the area fro groups.

We were then due to meet up with our friends who had enough space out the front of their place at Mariner's Cove for us to park the van for the night. They have a large converted bus which they store at a friend's place about 30 klms away. Martin had been and collected it that day so he had started to get things ready for our little trip. the next morning we finished packing up and got some water which meant juggling the bus and van around but not long after 9am we were on the road.

Mariner's Cove

From Mandurah we headed south and stopped for morning tea at Harvey and then continued on to Capel for a lunch stop. Not far from Bunbury we turned off onto Sue's road and it was straight down to Sue's Bridge where we planned to stop for the night. After checking out the sites available we picked 2 fairly close together and managed to squeeze ourselves into them.

The next day we moved onto Alexander's Bridge and found it was rather busy and being Saturday morning we thought that it might get more difficult to get a spot as the day went on . so to secure a spot for us we unhitched the van and set up some chairs for a spot for the bus and asked people in the immediate vicinity to keep an eye on them for us ,as we wanted to go into Augusta. Having missed that section on a previous trip.

On our way in we came across the Bikies with their National Rally and there were about a thousand of them. they had the road closed to allow them through.

The bikies

Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse

Flinders Bay

Lynn and the Cow he found

At Augusta we had a cuppa and then Lynn and I went to Cape Leewuin to see the lighthouse. on the way we stopped at Flinder's Bay . The Lighthouse was quite good , not expensive to see like Cape Otway in Vic. After checking it out we stopped off at the historic water wheel just down from the lighthouse and then it was back to Augusta to catch up with the others for lunch.

Water Wheel at Cape Leeuwin

We moved on again the next day to Nannup to check out the lovely shops and planned to have lunch at the pub but weren't inspired by their menu so had lunch at the beautiful Templemore Cottage. We then followed the Balckmore river along the Ballingup road . this was a very pretty drive . At revelly bridge we looked for a camping spot but there didn't seem enough room for both of us . We decided to continue to Wright's bridge but just before there we found a Cheese place that had lovely cheeses for sale .

At Wright's bridge we ended up parking in the parking area as the main camp ground was closed off.