Well after a fantastic day at Penguin Island it was time to head south towards Bunbury and took in the wild life park and walk around The Big Swamp in the middle of town, part of it is natural and some is man made. It forms a large part of the flood mitigation plan for the town and acts like a sump to take the storm water run off and controlled outlet to the ocean.
There is a lot of birdlife as you could well imagine but nothing we haven't see before but it was a very pleasant place to take some exercise and just enjoy each others company. The wild life park is beside the swamp so we decided to have a look, there was a wider variety of birds and animals there but as always, we would have loved to see them in their natural habitat instead of cages. My favourite was the pair of dingoes, very friendly and loved a scratch behind the ears. Told Kath she candy me one for Christmas. We free camped at Maidens reserve, that area was only open by the Council the day before so Kath had her photo taken at the Information Centre as we were the first ones to obtain a permit to Camp there. It felt a little weird 'camping' on the edge of a playground/park area with people walking their dogs etc around us.
Then on to the pine plantation and did the washing before heading into Busselton, they have the longest wooden jetty in the Southern Hemisphere at 1.841 k's long, we did the touristy thing and rode the train out to then, visited the underwater observatory, they have a large variety of soft corals and sponges etc with the associated small fish around the pylons, at 8 meters deep it is really quite a shallow bay with small tidal variations. Walked back to the beach and enjoyed the hospitality of fellow parties we had met at Pine tree park the previous night.
As we are not really van park type we only stayed 1 night and left for Cape Naturaliste via Ngilgi Cave, now that is an experience to enjoy, you end up 80 meters below ground in an absolutely breathtaking maze of limestone tunnels with a massive array of crystal stalactites etc, Ihave never seen so many in one place before, the curtain types had a beautifully layered coloration from clear white to dark brown, this was a result of tannins dissolved in the water as it filtered down and formed these formations over many thousands of years, a very worth while attraction even with the hundreds of steps etc each way.
On the way up to the light house we decided to see Meelup Beach which is close by, very picturesk little place made eve better by the 5 Lamborgini's parked there. Took a few photo's before they left accompanied by a symphony of Italian exhaust music. Nice one that.
The wind at the light house was 75 Kph and more than a little cool, the history of that area is fascinating as are the vistas from the top. Interestingly ibis powered by an LED now that puts out over 1.2 million candle power and has the heat sink to match. Didn't know they could be that bright.
The whole prism, column and base weigh over 6 tons and is supported on 156.5 Kg's of mercury and driven by a motor equivalent to a wiper motor.
We stayed the night at Gracetown park, it is named after a lady who saved the lives of many people off a ship wreck about 20 klm south by using her horse to swim out to the wreck and bring them back to shore way back in the 1890's.
Had to do the mandatory wine, cheese, chocolate, spirit and brewery tour today so Kathy is well relaxed and ready forced rather earlier than usual tonight.
So on that note I will sign off.
Stay happy
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