Big Trees, Sheep & Wine

On our journey we stopped off and did a tree top walk through a Tingle Tree forest.

Tingle trees are huge and are unique to this part of Western Australia. There

are also vast forests of Karri trees which stretch into the sky and are really amazing to see.

We also spent a couple days at a sheep ranch and then it was off to Margaret River

where we tourned a couple more wineries. This is an abundance of vineyards in this area as well.

We spotted some strange looking cows which seemed to be all over the Margaret River area.

It seems there is a Cow Parade going on and each beautiful bovine is part of charity auction

which is a world wide art event. There are around 80 life size cow canvases for sale and it is an

"udderly fantastic" and moo'ving event.

Cape Leeuwin is were the Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean meet and is were we

photographed this "Moorine Marauder". 

After a couple more days in Margaret River we will start heading north towards Perth.

G'day for now and stay in touch.

Life's a Beach

We spent a few days "beach camping" in a secluded campground at

Munglinup Beach. There were only a handful of other campers and we

had the beach almost all to ourselves. The water was is a little cool this time of year

so we spent the days exploring, taking photos and doing some fishing.

The big ant in the photo was really curious and kept "looking" at us so we

took his picture. We also had a tiger snake come into one of the neighbours

camp one morning.  Never got a photo of him and because of his venomous nature

he was prompty gotten rid of. After a few days of beach life we moved on to

the beautiful town of Albany. There is a lot of history in this town as it was

once a whaling and military port. Bob couldn't resist having his photo taken behind the

wheel of this old ship called the "Amity". It first landed in this harbour in December 1826.

This is a replica of the original ship that brought the first European settlers to these shores.

Will give you some more photos and history of Albany on the next installment

of  "The Adventures of Bushy Bob & Mary-anne".

Esperance

Esperance is a lovely coastal town in Southwest Australia and the region has some of the best beaches in the world. The tanker jetty accomodates large vessels that come in to pick up loads of wheat which grows in abundance in the neighbouring farm land. The area is surrounded by mountain peaks and is home to around 100 islands that rise above the sea bed. The town jetty is a popular spot for fishing and is also a favorite hangout for "Sammy the sealion" who spends time hanging around the beach entertaining the town folk.

Cape Le Grand National Park is located about 50kms from town and is truly spectacular.

Frenchmans Peak towers above the area which is surrounded by unique flora and large rock formations.

These photos don't really do justice to the beauty of the area but the beaches have the whitest sand

and brilliant aqua blue waters. Everywhere we look is like a post card view and it's hard to stop

taking photos. Leaving here will be hard but we are on our way to do some bush camping near the beach for a few days. And then we will keep heading west towards Perth.

Cheers for now and stay tuned for more exciting adventures of Bushy Bob & Mary-anne!

Crossing the Nullarbor Plains

Our Nullarbor Great Road Journey started on April 8/10 after leaving Ceduna.

We headed off early morning and stopped after a couple hours for some photos of these amazing rocks

called Murphy's Haystacks. These large rock formations stand alone in a farmers field and are amazing considering there is nothing else around except wide open space. Where did they come from??

We stopped and bought some bread from a road side stand. It was pretty unique as the owner gets up every morning and bakes hundred of loaves of bread and rolls, leaves them in a little hut and locals and travellers stop and pick what they want and leave the money in a box using the old honour system. How nice that in this world we can still find people with old fashioned values.

The scenery along the Nullarbor Plains changes constantly with open fields of scrub and brush and then lush forests of gum trees and native plants. The entire plains were once covered by ocean and this was made

evident when I found a sea shell while playing a round of gold on the Nullabarbor Links Golf Course.

This is the longest golf course in the world stretching from Ceduna to Kalgoorlie. You play a hole at designated spots along the way each hole being several hundred killometres apart. We have only played one hole so far and it was pretty rugged course. After two days of camping on the plains we reached the town of Norseman which is the official end of the Nullarbor. We even got a certificate to honour the event.

Norseman is a historic goldmining town. Legend has it that a prospector tied his horse "Hardy Norseman" to a tree overnight in the 1890's. By morning the horse had unearthed a large piece of gold quartz by pawing the ground. Over five million ounces of gold have been taken out of Norseman. The monument is a tribute to the horse. We are now in a town called Esperence on the south west coast. Will post photos of this beautiful town at a later date. Cheers for now....Bob & Mary-anne