Bremer Bay was the first place we stayed at where we had not been before and it really felt like our journey had begun when we set out from Albany that morning. Bremer Bay is a tiny fishing village around 60 ks east of Albany (as usual don't rely on my distances). The village snuggles in around the Wellstead Estuary. The place exists almost entirely for fishing, and has long been a favourite of local farmers looking for a change of pace and a feed of fish. The estuary itself boasts good supplies of black bream and some of the elusive King George Whiting. If you are lucky enough to have a boat, good fishing is to be had in the sheltered waters of some of the local bays. As with all of the South East Coast of WA, the coastal scenery is outstanding.
BB boasts two caravan parks, one more upmarket and a more basic one which is now owned by a group of local farmers. We stayed at the second one which advertises itself as being "the one by the beach" - we were delighted with the park, it was basic, but we had so much space - we almost had our own paddock.
We almost came to grief on arrival in the park, when TBBITW became a little excited at the prospect of all this space, and nearly collected a tree which decided to jump out and bump the van. A very close shave indeed. All the friends and rellys had decided that we would not like BB and would be gone from there very quickly - quite the opposite - we actually extended our stay and ended up being there for 9 days. The park had a decent discount for longer stays and we took advantage of that. The reasons we stayed on there were twofold - one, we just loved the peace and quiet - it was blissful, and secondly, TBBITW became interested in fishing again.
We met a nice old fella, by the name of Ken - he confided in TBBITW that he would turn 80 in two weeks time while in Bremer. He was quite a character and a gentleman of the old school.
He walked and rode substantial distances in order to pursue his passion for fishing. On one occasion, he nearly didn't make it back in one piece. The estuary fishing had not been good that day, so he thought he would ride his trusty old treddly up the steep gravel hill behind the camp so as to try his hand at a spot of ocean fishing. Coming back down that rocky incline nearly proved is undoing. Coming down the hill, he started to build up considerable speed, the track was loose gravel and as old Slim used to say, "the corrugations were so deep you could bury a cow"! Well, the poor old blighter had no choice but to cling on to those handlebars for dear life, as with shirt tails flapping and dentures clattering he rode the ride of his long and venerable life. As TBBITW stated, with typical male understatement, had he come off, he would have lost a bit of bark - I think he may not have made his 80th had he taken a tumble.
Ken took TBBITW fishing with him and shared his secret recipe for pickling bait prawns. A wonderful innovation these pickled prawns, as they are easy to put on the hook, stay firm and do not need any refrigeration. This effectively means that wherever you are, you always have some viable bait at hand if you want to drop a line in. We have since shared this recipe with numerous others. Ken very kindly gave us some of his bream as he had more than he could use, we hadn't tried it before and were quite impressed, especially as many people had been derogatory about it in the past.
The other thing we did whilst there was visit the Wellstead Museum & Cafe Restuarant - what an interesting place that was, with all its historic buildings and fascinating pieces of history - well worth a visit when you are there.
I won't bore you with all the little scenic beaches etc, but suffice to say, there is a lovely little swimming beach and numerous good beach fishing spots too. I hope you enjoy the photos -
with love - Steph.
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