It was quite a detour to go to Hyden, the home of Wave Rock, instead of straight to Esperance. However the kids were keen to see it (it was in the book ‘Are we there yet?’), and Michael and I wanted to see it too. So we made the nearly 350km trek north east to Hyden. We’re getting used to long drives, so it didn’t seem too bad. We drove through some nice scenery when passing through the Stirling Ranges NP. We passed through some wheatbelt country too. We arrived at Hyden around 4pm. Because it was a Sunday, virtually everything was shut. We made our way 6km out of town to where the caravan park was situated right at the base of the rock. We checked in and were setup by 5pm. Since it was only 200m to the base of the rock, I asked if any of the children wanted to walk there that afternoon. All except Lauren did. Lauren and Michael were tired and said they would wait until tomorrow to see it. So I took the others – it was even closer than I had expected, and we were the only ones looking at it at that time – Sam remarked on how different this was to our Uluru experience.

The next day, we packed up the van and drove out of the van park and parked in the carpark area nearby. Then we walked to wave rock again and all had fun doing the usual surfing poses on the rock. We then did the walk up above the rock. Then we did the 600m walk to another rock formation called Hippo’s Yawn. When you see the rock, you can understand the name. The kids had fun here too, pretending to climb into the Hippo’s mouth, and Sam climbed up on top of his nostril! As well as seeing these rock formations, we saw lots of ‘dragons’ – of the lizard variety. They seemed to be everywhere and had such a funny way of scurrying along. We had fun spotting them.

We then returned to the van and had hotdogs for lunch (using the generator to heat them up in the microwave). It was about 12.30 then when we started driving again, heading south-east towards Esperance, back on the coast. Esperance was about 400km away, and we weren’t planning to try to get there tonight, but planned to drive as far as we felt comfortable to and then stop at a free camping spot overnight.

We drove nonstop until about 3.30 when we reached Ravensthorpe. We stopped here for some afternoon tea and a play at the playground. We decided to drive a further 80km to a free camping spot at Monjingup. This was a nice enough spot. The kids had a bike ride and a play while I got some dinner. Then it was off to bed.

I was quite pleasantly surprised by Albany. It is not a place I have heard much about previously (in fact, apart from the Margaret River, I have heard very little about any of the south of WA). Yet I found Albany to be a very interesting and picturesque city. It is the 6th largest city in WA, and as I found out, the first one to be continuously settled by Europeans. It was settled in 1826 when the British Government gave instructions for it to be established as a military post. Several other European ships, such as Dutch and French, had visited the shores of what was then called ‘King George Sound’ in the preceding decades, but they had never established a settlement. By sending an establishment over to western Australia, the British were wanting to claim the whole of the continent for themselves.

Some of the things that struck me about Albany were:
– the history – I didn’t know much about Western Australian history, so this was interesting. Also there were some lovely older suburbs closer in to town with well established trees and quite pretty.
– the geographic location – with a ‘sound’ and 2 very closed harbours, it was a great place to establish a military post for defence. These aspects also made the scenery very dramatic.
– the beaches and parks – there were many picturesque areas around Albany. There was a drive along the cliff from the beach area to the Princess Royal Sound and it had great views.
– the town centre – had some historic buildings. It also was set on a hill overlooking the harbour. From where we were staying at Emu Point, we drove towards town and came over a crest and the harbour came into view – it was quite impressive.

Our first day in Albany was a lazy day (for us parents anyway). We slept in a bit, then got up and did some jobs. The caravan park had a playground, a jumping pillow and a good area for bike riding, so the younger 3 kids were happy doing this (Lauren prefers to do more resting these days too). I was feeling very tired again, so Michael took the kids for a walk along the beach just near the van park, and I had another sleep. Then they came back for lunch, and then everyone had to have rest time after lunch. (Michael had a bit of a sleep then). Around 3pm, we were planning to head off to the shops – we needed to do some grocery shopping, and also needed to but Bethany some new runner shoes as she had holes in the others. Lauren and Sam asked if they could stay back at the van – so we said they could if they were just reading books or having a bit of a bike ride. It felt strange for Michael and I to be going off with just 2 children after having 4 around us in most of the things we do. Anyway, that pretty much took up the rest of the afternoon, but I had wanted to have a bit of a drive around the town centre and go up to the lookout on Mt Clarence, near the town centre. We rang Lauren and Sam to say we would be a bit longer and did these things. The views were great. We decided we’d have to come back with L&S tomorrow. We went back to the van and Lauren cooked dinner for us tonight.

The 2nd day at Albany was filled with more sight-seeing:-
– We went back to Mt Clarence. This had interest for a few reasons the views, the ANZAC history and the downhill bike track.
The lookout right at the top of the hill had great views over Princess Royal Harbour and King George Sound.
The ANZAC link to Albany was something I had not known about and found interesting. For the 1st and 2nd ANZAC convoys, Albany was their last place of departure from Australian shores, before sailing to Gallipoli. There is an Avenue of Honour on the road at the base of the hill, with plaques along lines of trees. At the top of the hill is a monument to the Desert Mounted Corps (the Light Horsemen). Michael loves the story of the light horsemen, so there was a lengthy retelling and a good history lesson here. Apparently Albany held the first dawn service in the nation (in 1923) and it is going to be the place for the major centenary dawn service in 2014/15.
The downhill bike track was of interest to Sam, so he had put his bike on the back of the car that morning and he rode his bike down the hill and met us at a predetermined place at the bottom.

– We went to the historic precinct at Albany on the foreshores of Princess Royal Harbour and visited the Amity Brig. This is a full scale replica of the ship that brought the first group of settlers, led by MajorEdmund Lockyer, to Albany in 1826. Being on board the ship and seeing the size of the sleeping areas and so on, gave some insight into the hardships that would have been faced by having 45 people plus animals on board for 6 weeks. It was only $10 for our family to tour the ship and it was a very well done replica. It had information stations located throughout the ship with audio information (using the audio wands that you were given at the payment desk). Once we had been through this information, the kids were allowed to pretend they were sailors and so on – they had a great time with this.

– We had lunch at the park near the Amity Brig

– We then took the drive around to Torndirrup NP which is on the southern peninsula of Princess Royal Harbour. There are a few places of interest around here.
There is the blowholes. We did this walk first. It is a 900m walk to the blowholes and there is no guarantee they will be ‘blowing’. When we were there, the swell was not right for the spray to be coming up through the gap in the rocks, but we could certainly hear the sound – it made us all jump the first time we heard it as we got close. It was pretty dramatic just seeing the coastline.
Further along the coastline is ‘The Gap’ and ‘Natural Bridge’, 2 natural features carved in granite rock by the wind and waves. It was much shorter walks to see these (which was good as Hannah and Beth were getting tired by now).
The last thing we saw around here was ‘Whaleworld’ – a former whaling station which is now a museum on the history of whaling. We didn’t go in to the museum, but we saw the whaling boat (which was the last one used at this station) and found out that Albany was the last whaling station in the world to cease operations in 1978.

– We then returned to the van park for some down time.

It was a nice drive to Albany, through some nice forest and pretty towns. We came to ? Around lunchtime where there was a tourist attraction called the Treetops Walks. It was a steel boardwalk built within a tingle forest, with the highest platform being about 40m above the ground. We had our lunch at the caravan before we went to buy our ticket to do the walk. It was a good walk. As we walked along the boardwalk, there was an occasional gust of wind. The narrow trees swayed quite a lot, whereas the ones with thicker trunks didn’t. It was amazing to see how much those thinner did sway. After the boardwalk, there was also a walk along the ground called the Ancient Giants Walk, where there were a few very old tingle trees still standing.

We got back to the van and continued our drive to Albany – about another 1 and a half hours away. We found the van park we were staying at at Emu Point and set up. We decided we would have fish and chips for dinner that night, so I looked up where there was a fish and chips shop in Albany. I found out that there was a well-loved one just around the corner at Emu Point Marina. It was called The Squid Shack. We decided to drive there and eat dinner there, as I read there were tables there. We did that and enjoyed a very nice meal of fish and chips and salt and vinegar squid. Then it was back to the van for the usual bedtime routine.

At Shannon Lodge we had a wonderful time in the Natinal Park.
We stayed for 3 days.
I slept with Beth.
We went for a drive through the Karri forrest.
Lauren and Mum climbed a fire lookout tree it was a ladder of pegs up the side of the tree.

Our time at Shannon Lodge was very enjoyable. It was a chance to spread out a bit, and it was beautifully peaceful and private.

On our first day there, we took things pretty slowly. Beth was awake early as usual, but we set her up with her iPad, and the rest of us had a bit of a sleepin. We made porridge over the potbelly stove and had our showers. Hannah and Beth got into their game of Little House on the Prairie (Hannah was Laura and Beth was Carrie) and Lauren and Sam were keen to start a game of Monopoly (we had bought the electronic version in Perth when the kids had seen it there). Michael and I sat outside for a while relaxing and catching up on blogging. We had a late morning tea, and then I put together some lunch things so we could go for a drive. There is the Great Trees Forest Drive in the Shannon NP which takes you through some of the best old growth forest of karri, jarrah and marri trees. There are information stops along the way, set up by DEC and accessed via your car radio. So we listened to these. Some of the things we learnt were:-
– There are more than 700 types of eucalypt trees in Australia. In this particular area, the Karri, Jarrah and Marri make up most of the eucalypt trees, with a few extras scattered around.
– Karri is the 3rd tallest tree type in the world, growing up to 90m high ( the tallest tree is the Californian redwood which grows up to 112m).
– Jarrah grows up to 40m. Their branches grow upwards, like celery sticks.
– Marri, is also known as redgum. They grow up to 60m. Their branches grow more outwards.
It was a lovely drive. We planned to stop at a picnic stop marked on the map to have lunch, but when we got there, we found that both the track to it and the table itself were overgrown. We were nearly back to the lodge, so we went back there to have lunch.
Then some of us had a nap, while others watched a movie.
In the later afternoon, we lit a fire in the outdoor fireplace, ready to cook sausages on it for dinner. I also started a game of cricket outside with the kids. It was very enjoyable. We then sat down outside for dinner. As I washed up inside, Michael supervised the kids toasting marshmallows over the outdoor fire. It was a nice end to a nice day.

On our 2nd day there, we had another slow start. I got up early with Bethany and her and I had breakfast outside together which was lovely. Then Bethany played happily outside for about an hour while I did some reading and blogging etc. No-one else woke up until about an hour and a half later, so it was nice and peaceful. I decided we would have an early lunch of pancakes today before going for a drive to Pemberton and seeing some of the sights around there. So we had lunch about 11.30 and then set off. It was about a 20min drive into Pemberton. There was a climbing tree just outside Pemberton called the Gloucester Tree. The climbing trees are a system of trees which were used many years ago as lookouts for early detection of any bushfires. There were platforms built high up in the tree and steel rungs driven into the trunk to make a ladder. The Gloucester Tree had the tallest platform at 60m high. Lauren and I climbed the tree (Hannah and Beth were too young and Michael and Sam felt queasy with heights in this situation). It was a challenging climb up, but we made it and were rewarded with a great view over the tops of the trees and out towards the ocean. We then all did a nearby walk through the forest. We then drove back into Pemberton and the Michael and the kids went to a playground while I picked up a few groceries. We had thought we would see a few more things around the area, but the kids were keen just to go back to Shannon Lodge and play some more. We did that and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon there. We had dinner and then the usual bedtime routine.

The next morning, I got up early again with Bethany and enjoyed some quiet time again before starting on the pack up. We decided to have the kids do some schoolwork before we left the lodge that morning, and then they could do their own thing in the car during our drive to Albany.

We packed up in the morning and asked the van park owners if we could have a late check out so we could go into church at MR without the van on the back. They were pretty laid back so it was no problem.

We enjoyed church again. It was only a small congregation, but very friendly and the church had a similar feel to ours. They have a shared lunch after the service on the first Sunday of each month, which it was today. They invited us to stay for lunch, which we did. Michael and Sam went back to pick up the van while the lunch things were being heated up and set out. Hannah and Beth enjoyed playing with 2 other girls from the church. Lauren and Sam chatted for a while and then played some table tennis in the area where the youth meet. By the time we got away from church and picked up a few more groceries, it was later than planned that we were heading towards Shannon NP. It was about a 2 and half hr drive through some lovely forest scenery. We reached the lodge where we were staying about 5.30.

The place where we were staying was called Shannon Lodge. It is located in the Shannon National Park, about 50km out of Pemberton. It is managed by the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) which also manages all the NPs. It is near the campground in Shannon NP, but is quite a distance from the campsites so is very private. I had read about it in the Lonely Planet guide and thought it might be a nice break from the caravan for a few days. It is only $66 per night which is less than what we’ve paid at some van parks. The down side is it is not powered, but there is a power inlet so that a generator can be used to provide power for short periods if necessary. Since we have a generator, this would be our backup. Also, the kids (especially Hannah) thought it would be fun to stay in a house without power and use candles at night. There was a pot belly stove for cooking and a fire driven hot water system, so you could have hot showers etc.

We’d been given a code for a key box for when we arrived, so we were able to let ourselves in. Because we arrived later than planned, Michael had to get straight into putting on the fire, and I decided to do dinner in the caravan still and just use the gas hot plates. Meanwhile the kids took all the sleeping bags and pillows in to set up the bedding and then Hannah and Beth rode their bikes around for a while. It was good that it was still light until about 6.30. As it started to get dimmer, Michael put the generator on for the house. I had dinner ready at 6.30 and we ate in the house. Then we got everyone in their PJs ready for bed. Hannah was keen to turn the generator off and just use the candles, which we did once everything was setup ready for bed. There were 2 bedrooms in the house, each with 2 beds and then 2 extra beds in the family room. Michael and i had a room to ourselves,which was a treat after all these months in the caravan. Lauren and Sam had the other room tonight, but were going to swap with Hannah and Beth the next night. We all went to bed reasonably early that night, except Hannah took a while to get to sleep. It was nice and warm.

Today we planned to see the sights south and southwest of MR.

We started by heading across to Caves Rd again, west of MR. We drove south along here for a while and then turned off onto the unsealed section called the Boranup Drive. This was a very picturesque area of Karri forest. We stopped at one point where Sam remembered a path they had ridden along and wanted to show me how pretty it was – so we went walking along for a while. We also stopped to look at the top of a limestone cave called Bride Cave – one the guide had pointed out to Michael and Sam yesterday. It was only accessible by abseiling down into it. We just stood at the top and looked down into it.

We joined back onto Caves Road again just at the point where there was a place called Boranup Maze. It was a hedge maze made by a private family on part of their property and they had an honesty box for people to pay to go through. The kids had fun going through and finding the middle, while Michael and I sat in the lovely garden and relaxed.

We then drove further south to Hamelin Bay on the coast. This place is renowned for Mantaray swimming in quite close to the shore. We didn’t see any while we were there. We had some lunch and then, because it had warmed up quite a bit today, some of the kid’s had a swim at the beach.

We then drove further south again to Augusta, the most southern town on this part of the mainland. We continued along the road out to Cape Leeuwin, the most south-westerly point of the Australian mainland, and where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean. As expected, there is a lighthouse here. We were planning just to walk out to the lighthouse, but found out you have to pay just to walk out there ($22 for our family). So we decided we would just get a photo from the carpark again.

We drove back to Augusta and stopped at a pretty little park beside the sea to have afternoon tea. Then we drove to the town jetty to do some fishing. A cold wind was coming up by now, so we didn’t stay long at the fishing. The kids were keen to go ‘home’ to the van park, so,that’s what we did. Hannah and Beth had made friends with a family of 4 girls (from age 9 down to 4) so were keen to play with them again.

It had been a lovely stay in the Margaret River region and the Big Valley van park had been a great place to base ourselves. We felt like we were feeling enthused again after our ‘lull’ in Perth.

Tomorrow being Sunday, we wanted to go to church again, so we looked up some churches and times and planned on going to the Rivers Life Centre (another Churches of Christ church) tomorrow at 10am, before driving on to our next location.

On our second day here, we had a break from sightseeing and did some fun things that the kids had been keen to do for a while.

Sam had asked to do some mountain biking in the area. We had looked up some websites to try to find some information on bike tracks in the forest, and it seemed that the bike tracks were hard to find and it could have been easy to get lost. But there was a company which took guided mountain bike tours and supplied all the equipment. So we had made enquiries about this. It turned out that Michael and Sam both did a guided tour through the Boranup Forrest which started at 9am and ended at 1.30pm (not riding all this time, as some of it was travelling to and from the tracks). They both enjoyed it, although Michael’s comment afterwards was ‘It’s not something I would get right into as I’m not that much of an adrenaline junkie’. Sam said they went through some very pretty forrest, although they were going so fast and had to concentrate so much that they didn’t get to look at it closely. They both looked quite exhausted when I picked them up at 1.30, and Michael was sore for a couple of days. But it had been some good father and son time.

Lauren had been keen to do some horse riding. And whenever she mentioned it, Hannah also piped up and wanted to join in. So we had looked into that here also. Only the afternoon times were available for that, so us girls had a relaxing morning while the boys were out. We dropped them at their meeting place at Margaret River in the morning, went to book exchange (got a few more books and exchanged some) and then went back to the van park. Lauren and I did a few loads of washing and Hannah and Beth played in their tree cubby house. At 1.00 I left Lauren and the girls watching a movie and went in to Margaret River. I did some grocery shopping before meeting the boys. Then we went back to the van park. We had a short break there before it was time to drive to Jesters Flat, the horse riding place we were going to – only 10mins away from Big Valley. Lauren was booked in to do a ‘Drovers Tour’ horse ride at 3.00 – this was advertised as joining in with rounding up some cattle. It went for an hour and a half. It wasn’t as exciting and challenging as the brochure made it sound, but Lauren still enjoyed the chance to be back on a horse for a while. Hannah and I went on a 1 hour ‘Country Lane Tour’ which was basically a walk down a back road through some lovely scenery and then through some nice forest, and we were able to have a couple of trots. Hannah felt very comfortable on the horse, and the guide said she seemed to have a natural style with horses. It was a lovely afternoon and I enjoyed the chance to have a ride through some beautiful scenery. I’d like to do more horse riding when we get back home. Meanwhile, Bethany had a ride on a shetland pony, being led by Michael. She really enjoyed this and had a trot a couple of times also. Sam went along for the walk with Michael and Bethany. There was also a great treehouse and tyre swing near the waiting area, so Sam enjoyed playing here also (as did the girls when they weren’t riding). Also at the waiting area was a large fire pit with a warm fire that had apparently been going since April – they just kept adding wood to it. They were very friendly staff and a nice environment, so it was a lovely afternoon.

Then it was home to the van park for dinner and bed.

Our first day in this region saw us heading north for a day trip. We drove the 10mins into Margaret River township itself, but didn’t stop as we decided we would come back to that. We continued north along the Bussel Hwy, passing through some quaint little towns and, after about 40mins reached Busselton.
The main attraction we wanted to see here was the long jetty. It seems it is the longest wooden jetty (pier) in the southern hemisphere (whereas the Lucinda jetty in Qld is the longest jetty of any material (in this case steel) in the southern hemisphere). We had some morning tea near the beach and walked over to the shore end of the jetty, but decided not to pay the money to go out onto the jetty (since we’d done that at Canarvon on One Mile Jetty). It was quite busy at the foreshore here (school holidays I guess), so we soaked in the atmosphere for a while, then hopped back in the car.

We then drove southwest along the coast for about 20mins to Dunsborough, the next seaside town. We found the foreshore drive and found a lovely little bay and park which seemed ‘tucked away’ from the crowds. We spent a relaxing and enjoyable hour or so here with the kids playing on the playground and on the sand. It was a bit cold for a swim and they seemed happy without swimming, which was good. We had our sandwiches for lunch here. Eventually we needed to round them up so we could keep going with seeing what we planned to that day.

We drove another 15mins further west then out to Cape Naturaliste, which was the most northwesterly tip of that southwest WA region. There was a lighthouse here which you had to pay to walk out to, so we just took a photo and looked out to the ocean from the carpark.

Next we turned onto Caves Rd (so named because there are a lot of limestone caves in this region) and headed south along the coastline. All the coastline along here is renowned for its surfing beaches. We called into Yalingup, the most northerly township along this stretch of coast. It had some breathtaking views of the ocean as we drove down into the township and we parked at a lookout area and enjoyed the views for a while.

Then we continued south along Caves Rd, passing many wineries and pretty scenery. We planned to head back to Big Valley, but first had promised the kids a treat at a lolly shop in Cowamurup (one of the little towns just north of Margaret River – the owners at Big Valley had told us about it). So we found a road that took us across from Caves road on the west, back to the Bussell Hwy near Cowaramup. We found the shop called Candy Cow (everything in Cowaramup is cow related and there are life size statues of cows all around the town). It was a lovely old fashioned lolly and fudge shop. You could taste test different flavours of fudges. Each of the children chose a bag of lollies of their liking (Lauren kept saying ‘How am I supposed to choose just one?’). Michael and I decided to get something from the bakery as our treat. Then we all headed back to the van park to have our treats (with a cup of tea for me).

The kids enjoyed some time back at the van park. There was a big pine tree right next to our caravan which made a great little cubby house for Hannah and Beth.

My reading and research led us to decide to try to find a nice place to stay in the southwest region that was fairly central and we could do some day trips from. I found a place that sounded nice and was good value. It was called Big Valley caravan park. It is about 10mins out of the town of Margaret River. It is actually a working sheep farm, which has a campground on the side. It was only $36 per night for a powered site (one of the best value on our trip). We rang this morning and booked in and they gave us good directions.

We didn’t get away from Perth until 11.30 as we had a bit of shopping to do and so on. I thought it would take over 4 hrs to get to Big Vally, but it was only about 3 hrs, which was a nice surprise. The distances are a bit smaller down here than they are up north. The countryside as we got closer to our destination became a bit more ‘English’ – quite green and lush, with cows and sheep grazing. Lauren, in particular, made note of it and how much she liked it.

We arrived and set up and breathed a sigh of relaxation because it was such a lovely place which just oozed that feeling of ‘slow down and relax’. I loved the sounds of the sheep bleating and the sights of rolling green pastures. There was lots of space between caravans, lots of trees, lots of rustic but efficient facilities, and friendly and laid back staff. I felt pleased to be there and looked forward to travelling around and seeing the region.