ADD ONS

Hi again, just thought that while the Internet/Laptop/Blog site is behaving I would throw in a couple more of these beautiful photos of this beautiful part of the world.  You will also see a couple of my recent paintings, just to give you an idea of how I spend my spare time while we are on the road.  Forgive the amaturish attempts, but I do believe I am getting a little better as I go along.
Steph.

Island off Hamelin Bay



Still Hamelin Bay



AMAZING AUGUSTA

Early morning on the Blackwood

The Old Water Wheel - Fresh Water!

Feeding Rays at Hamelin Bay

Speccy Pic taken by DD

Some of the Waves that made Margaret River Famous

Lighthouse on the point where the Indian Ocean Meets the Great Southern Ocean

Addictive Augusta



After wishing our new found friends a fond farewell we trundled on down the coast to one of our favourite spots Augusta. Augusta is a small village right on the south-western tip of the country. It is where on the map, the Indian Ocean meets the Great Southern Ocean. The town sits right on the entrance of the Blackwood river and is surrounded on three sides by water, the River on one and the two oceans on the other two sides. It is without a doubt one of the most picturesque places I know. We have been visiting Augusta for many years now, but this is the first time we have stayed in a caravan park. We chose Turner’s Caravan Park right in town and we found it to be very good indeed. The only drama we had was the weather. I know some of you will find this hard to understand, but one of the reasons we headed south was to get away from The Hot. Well, while it has been considerably cooler (and I do use the term lightly) than Perth, we have still had pretty much warm weather everywhere, the only saving grace being that the nights down here are much, much cooler. Augusta was no exception. It was remarkably warm there. Not realising this, we accepted a bay without any shade and found to our regret that it was too hot and we were compelled to use the air-con quite a bit. Thank goodness that we had it to use! I have to say, it never occurred to us that we would be compelled to use air-con to cool in Augusta.


As usual we spent a good part of our week in Augusta revisiting all our old favourite scenic spots. The Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse is particularly good, although we didn’t pay the price to actually go in this time having done it plenty of times in the past. We visited the old Water Wheel and all of the surrounding coastal spots. There is some spectacular coastline in that vicinity, rocky and wild. It is even more spectacular in stormy weather, but as you would realise by now, we certainly didn’t see anything of that!


We visited beautiful Hamelin Bay where they feed the big rays in the bay. It just so happened that we wandered in at the end of feeding time and we were just amazed by the scene before us. Several large rays still loitered along the shore-line hoping for a hand out, and mingled amongst them were an abundance of Silver Gulls and Great Southern Gulls. The water of course is crystal clear there and it was quite a spectacle. We were told that 3 different types of Ray come in to feed there, I’m sorry but I cannot recall the names, but suffice to say they ranged from the dinner plate size to the rather large when we were there.


We also did a coastal drive from Augusta up to Margaret River visiting along the way a place called Redgate Beach. This was an amazing spot with enormous waves and huge rocks strewn along the coast. The beach was very popular with surfers and we were somewhat surprised after travelling along what appeared to be a remote back track to find the car-park at the end overflowing and the beach well populated. We discovered the same thing when we arrived at Prestons Beach (the main beach attached to Margaret River) where the considerable waves were quite thickly peopled by surfers. We were quite perplexed to understand how so many folk were there, on a week day, driving expensive vehicles and using expensive equipment. We are aware that the National Pro-Surfing Championships are happening at this time of the year, but must admit we had no idea as to the popularity of the event/sport. Every car park was full to over-flowing and every beach and part was full of animated well dressed youngish people – how do they afford to do this???


Anyway, the surf was spectacular and the waves were huge so we enjoyed the spectacle presented. We also took a drive over to East Augusta where we discovered there really wasn’t a great deal to see and down to a well known camping area called Alexander Bridge. Alexander Bridge is along the Bussel Highway not far from Augusta and is one of the best off-road camping areas we have seen. Now those of you who know us know that we are soft and don’t usually free camp, but we do go and have a look to see what we are missing out on. This was certainly a lesson for us – the place was right on the banks of the Blackwood and was heavily wooded with delightful little camp spots set amongst the trees. Mind you, a fire would be a disaster there and while that would normally not be an issue in this region, due to the prolonged dry spell at the moment, it could be a problem just now. We may have tried to get into Alexander River campsite after leaving Augusta except for the fact that we really felt it would have been too difficult to get Jezabelle into the tight spots available.


While in Augusta we caught up with friends Ken and Robin. Ken and DD are old work-mates and always talk up a storm when we catch up. As we caught up at the local watering hole, the Augusta Pub, it was no great hardship for Robin and myself, who while enjoying the stunning view from the hotel, spent a happy time running down and complaining about our respective blokes and ruminating over the foibles of our family and various children and grandies. It was lovely to catch up but it always strikes me as odd that whilst we all reside in the suburbs of Perth, we wait until we get to Augusta to catch up!! Says something about the stresses and strains of living and in their case, working, in the big smoke. Ken is now well into his 60s but is one of those blokes who thrives on his work and is finding it difficult to let go of the reins. I’m not sure that Robin who herself still works part-time, is looking forward to having him home all day every day. I know that all of you women who are in my age bracket are now sagely nodding your heads as it is a dilemma for most of us, isn’t it girls? The Augusta Pub incidentally must have the best pub view in WA – it is situated at pretty much the highest point in the town and overlooks both the mouth of the Blackwood and the surrounding bay – speccy to say the least!!! Enjoying the view with a good simple meal and nice ‘drop o’ somethin’ is a hardship, I can tell you!!


Turner’s Caravan Park incidentally was quite good, well situated right on the river and within walking distance (for the fit) into town. The amenities were fine and the park is dog friendly. There is a Factory Direct Fish outlet in town which sells (unusually) local catch including at the moment very well priced blue swimmer crabs. The local bakery is excellent and there you can purchase your mandatory crusty white with which to make the fresh bread, butter and crab sandwiches with salt, pepper and vinegar – doesn’t that sound awful?


I must warn you too, of the dangers of feeding the birds in that park! Of course, in my inimitable bad style I spotted and fed a maggie that I saw hovering one day, well.... before I knew where I was I had 11 of them and were they tame!! They were a pushy gang and all of them vied to eat from my hands. This exercise was hampered somewhat by the antics of one in particular of a group of black ducks that had also cottoned on to the available feed-train. One of these admirable critters would sit all day at my feet while I painted and every so often just gently tug at the towel I had draped across my lap. If the towel was absent, he would simply peck at my strides, just to remind me he was there. When the maggies were being fed he would literally jump up and down in agitation as they received what he obviously considered to be his tucker. In addition to the maggies and our ducky mates, we also had a very animated Wattle bird who jumped around on the table amongst my paints and a Grey Butcher Bird who literally sang for his supper – it was all just delightful – of course the gulls tried to get in on the action too and we had to suspend feeding operations when they came around .

See you soon Steph.