'Wherarwee' in Oz: Log 24-10 Augusta

On the road again & we’re still undecided whether to cut the trip short or continue on. Driving south towards Norseman we stopped at Widgiemooltha for a cuppa, this area is noted for the ‘Golden Eagle’ nugget found in 1931, weighing 1,135 Ozs. & sold for £4,660, (AVERAGE WAGES THAT YEAR WERE £925). We stopped for the night at Lake Cowan (dry), just outside of Norseman. After much discussion we decided to continue South instead of turning left at Norseman.

Norseman proved to be a surprise, it looks like no maintenance has been done to the town in the last 50 years so we drove straight through & on to Esperance. What a great town, bigger than we expected, beautiful aquamarine water & squeaky white beaches & quite a decent shopping centre. There are over 100 islands around here, many visible from shore. After a 2 hour stop we continued on to Cape LeGrand N.P. where we camped just behind the beach, unfortunately it started raining a short time after we arrived.

W.A. lived up to it’s name as the wind blew hard all night & the next day, so we packed up early, returned to Esperance for another couple of hours & then proceeded to Ravensthorpe for a freedom-camp night.

Albany was our next stop, a beautiful town with lots of reminders of it’s early history as a whaling town & the 1^st town settled in the Southwest, going back to 1865. Classic old buildings line the main street in town & Whaleworld sited on the last whaling factory to close down (1978) was well worth seeing. We visited Emu point for lunch saw where Major Edmund Lockyer landed & stayed the night at a harbourside Caravan park.

Another freedom-camp spot at Torbay Inlet for the night, although very nice it was very isolated & we were glad when another motorhome pulled in around 6PM. We can’t get over the countryside in S/Western Oz it’s like no other part of the country, lush green rolling hills, vast forests of Karri trees (the tallest trees in Oz) line the highway, herds of sheep & cattle in the paddocks & sometimes we even see another vehicle. We arrived at Denmark for morning tea & some shopping, although very small this town is very cosmopolitan, sidewalk cafes abound, smart little boutiques lined the roads. The whole town looked smart & clean. Moving on we took the Valley of the Giants Road where we stopped at the Canopy boardwalk to view these majestic trees close up. Another great place to visit. To end our day we drove another 85K’s to Shannon campground but didn’t like it so we found a little roadside stop at Mt Burnett for the night.

Next day we stopped at Pemberton for a look at the Gloucester tree, this tree has metal spikes forming a ladder around & up the tree which is used as a fire lookout but anyone is aloud to climb it’s 61mt height. Unfortunately the showers of last night have turned into steady rain so climbing was no go. From there it was national parks & karri forests all the way to Augusta. By now it was extremely windy & the rain was lashing at the van so we pulled into a van park, raced around getting set up, jumped into the van, put the heater & TV on & stayed inside for the rest of the day.

Not raining but very cold next morning as we set out for Cape Leeuwin, the most South Westerly point of WA. It’s where the Indian & Great Southern Oceans meet. The lighthouse here is the tallest in Oz & we did a quick walk around the grounds then back into the van & back to Augusta for a look around & some shopping. It seems each town has something different to offer visitors, all very attractive in their own way. Finding out that there are some great caves around here we drove to the Jewel Cave, breathtaking stalactites & stalagmite formations, leaves Jenolan Caves for dead. We decided to stop in the Leeuwin Naturaliste National Park for the night, hoping that there would be no more rain as we had covered several K’s of dirt road. Amazingly, even though it was a Monday night several other vehicles have pulled in to the area for the night, it said at the entrance to the park ‘for small vehicles only’ but we managed to squeeze in.