Indian Ocean Road

LEEMAN The Turquoise Coast has some lovely bays, rugged limestone coastline and several islands offshore. it is freaky watching the waves breaking several metres high out on the reef, just visible in the distance. The area is a cray fishing spot so a few big boats moored and surprisingly not many people out fishing yesterday.

SANDY CAPE More of the variety of scenery with some of the sand blows. Driving in to here we saw a feral cat and coming out a fox. Most national parks and reserves have signs up showing that poison has been laid as foxes pose a big problem to wildlife and stock.
There are also a lot of salt pan lakes and lime and gypsum being mined.

STOCK YARD GULLY CAVE After going down a gravel road and then 5km's of 4 wheel drive sandy track we reached this area, you follow the sandy creek bed to enter the 300 metre cave that as the title reflects is where the stock route was. I was very privileged and Paul let me drive out on the sandy track.

We have found the roads in Western Australia excellent and hardly any traffic.

Nambung National Park

THE PINNACLES DESERT We have based ourselves at Jurien Bay on the Indian Ocean Road and handy to The Pinnacles. As you can see there is a road through The Pinnacles which is just brilliant as you can stop along the way and have a wander.

Yesterday was an exciting day for the area as there was some much needed rain, so there will be some very happy wheat farmers out there.

ME STANDING BEHIND ONE OF THE ROCKS There is a new information centre at the entry to the National Park and then a 1.2km walk which takes you through the centre of The Pinnacles.
MORE,

MORE,

AND MORE!

LAKE THETIS near Cervantes, these formations are stromatolites and are the oldest known living single celled organism on earth and grow around the edge of the lake.

Darling Range

MUNDARING WEIR We have had a lovely few days looking around the area where Nicola and family live and Nicola took a couple of days off work which was great.

This dam was built about 100 years ago and is the source for the 650km water pipeline that goes to Kalgoorlie as well as serving the local area. The water is so low at present that you can see the sleepers of the original train line.
LAKE LESCHENAULTIA a freshwater lake fed by five streams. This is a really popular spot in the summer time for bathers and canoeists as in the summer they have temperatures up to 45 degrees.
1895 RAIL TUNNEL in the John Forrest National Park, it must of been at least 500 metres long and the ceiling with all the brick work was very impressive. When walking through it was pitch black in the middle.
SIMON with the cute family dogs on their property at Bakers Hill. When you drive through these towns you think that there is only the hotel, general store and servo but venture out and in Bakers Hill there are several new subdivisions with homes on 5 acre blocks.

Avon Valley

CLACKLINE yes, it is a very funny name but it is a small town east of Perth where the water pipe passes on it's way to Kalgoorlie. We are staying at my cousin's farm in Bakers Hill, it is lovely to catch up with Nicola and Peter who we last saw in 1997 and to meet their son Simon and to see their daughter Kate all grown up. There has been a lot of chin wagging and photo's shown with 13 years to catch up on, nice to know too that we haven't aged.
YORK is the oldest inland town in Western Australia, the area set in the Avon Valley is part of the wheat belt. The land is parched at the moment and badly in need of rain. As you can imagine there are some lovely old buildings in the town and a pub on every corner in the main street which were being well patronised today and the area is a popular spot for the city folk to visit at the weekend. BIG BOYS TOYS we had a tour of the John Deere franchise; farm machinery sure has changed over the years with air-compressed seats, computerised settings, air-conditioning and of course a CD player. Beside one of the tractors Paul was as tall as the tyres and I was able to walk under the cab of a sprayer.

Indian Ocean

NORTH BEACH looking south to Scarborough. We have had a lovely few days in Perth with fabulous weather although yesterday started off with a lovely clear day and then a smoke blanket covered the city from burn offs down south, you can just see it on the horizon. There were a few surfers out there, but as you can see the sea was very flat.
SHAG ON A ROCK basking in the sunshine at Hillary's Boat Harbour, on the end of the wing they have a very sharp spur.

Pretty Perth

KINGS PARK covers 400 hectares overlooking the city of Perth. The grounds are just lovely with views over the city, the massive Swan River which is the size of a harbour and tributes to the Anzac's. The harbour is huge but not very deep, if you were on a boat and it sunk you would be able to stand on top of the boat until help arrived. The city must be doing well as we counted at least six cranes, which is usually a sign of a good economy.
SWAN BREWERY the old building is below Kings Park and it looks like it has been converted to offices and apartments. We also took a drive down to Fremantle which has a lot of lovely old buildings, a busy port and the old Fremantle Prison which we didn't bother doing a tour of as had visited there about 10 years ago.

Still in the South West

BUNBURY is the third largest city in Western Australia. The lighthouse here sure is different with the chequered paint job. Five years ago they had a cyclone here, wonder if it wiped out some old homes in this area as there are a lot of new homes jam packed in around the beach.
BUSSELTON JETTY West of Bunbury is this town, more laid back and the population quadruples at holiday time. The timber jetty is undergoing a $27million dollar face lift, not surprising as it is 145 years old and 1841 metres long.