WA Day 11-exploring the local area. Thrombolites, but no dolphins.

Since it looked like we had perfect weather we decided that we really should see a bit of local colour before we leave Mandurah again, so we headed out this morning for a "Dolphin cruise"on the canals and estuary. The Dolphins had other ideas and stayed away.

We reminisced over an orienteering sprint event that we competed in here a few years ago as we waited for our cruise to start at about the same spot as the spectator controls were placed at that event, in front of the arts centre, looking over the water at the Sebel hotel.

We must have been virtually the only English speakers on the boat  (except for the crew) and we had some added entertainment when some of our fellow passengers decided to have a bit of a spat over seating arrangements. Eventually this was sorted, and we were on our way.

The marina is an interesting mix of fancy yachts, houseboats and working fishing boats, surrounded by expensive housing. It was interesting to see it from the water, instead of running over the walkways and not noticing much. They call it "Little Venice" and we could see why. In some spots the the bridges over the water are very reminiscent of that city.

The yachts pull in by the eateries here (3 hr limit) for lunch and then head off on their way again!

We had a lovely view of some very expensive real estate as we cruised the canals... blocks of land are at least 1 million and the house has the be of at least the same value.  So many different styles of building.  So many interesting boats parked out the front. So many beautiful swimming pools. Apparently at Christmas time there is a bit of internal competition for the best light display which makes for crowded waters as everyone that can comes along to admire the spectacle.  (Sounds a bit like Lobethal lights in the Adelaide Hills, but on water) . Book now if you want to do a cruise then.

After a yummy lunch on the waterfront we made a little detour to the Toyota dealer to have them take a look at our air conditioner.   It's all fine now and we might be glad of that on the way home.

Then on to see some throwbacks in the form of thrombolites.  Only about half an hour south of Mandurah is Lake Clifton where you can see this rare spectacle from a board walk.  These look like rocks but are like living fossils in that they are using photosynthesis to form calcium carbonate from the water itself as a living creature! It was a bit like stepping back into history.

We also took this opportunity to find a couple of caches and to read the sign and decide that one of our furry friends the other night at Shelley Beach was probably a Quenda,  as he looked very like the picture shown here.

To finish up the day we took up the offer of a bus ride to see the greyhounds race.  This is not something we have done before and probably not something that we will do again. The sunset on the way there was pretty impressive, but being a Tuesday night possibly the event was lacking in atmosphere a little. After a good feed at the buffet, and learning the basics of how to place a bet, watch your dog race and collect your winnings (if you were lucky) we decided that 6 of the 12 races was enough and called it a night.

Sun going down behind the greyhound track

Since we have most of a day tomorrow we are now planning to head down south and have a look at the 4WD track that we had been planning to try today. Since we don't have a buddy vehicle to drive with I'm hoping that it is not too tricky for us.

WA Day 10-down time in Mandurah

It's been a lazy down time day today.

We slept in and  did the laundry. I finished a very short, trashy book that I borrowed from the resort book exchange. Trevor went to visit an auto electrician and obtained a new smart solenoid for the car so that the fridge will work independently of the second  battery (it was playing up a bit on the way over)

$270 worth of smart solenoid

We met some of the other guests who are staying here and drank some free wine at the same time. One of them owns a 1/4 of a motor home (they use it for 3 months each year) which is a good concept if you enjoy a motor home kind of life.

We walked on the Mandurah beach and enjoyed the local area a bit, watching the little kids playing on the beach doing the simple things that little kids do while their mum watched from further up on the sand.

We tried out the local kebab shop-pretty impressive. They make their own delicious Turkish bread.

We found out about a 4WD track (Captain Fawcett track) which goes from Marradong to near Dwellingup. It commemorates an early pioneer Captain Theo Fawcett, who blazed some of the early roads in the area, and follows a historic route. We think it sounds interesting and might tackle the 90km or so of that tomorrow morning if we feel so inclined. Apparently it is largely through Jarrah forest-which sounds rather pleasant.

Now I'm sitting watching the sunset tint the sky pink, and deciding whether to make a cup of tea or just read my book some more before I go and cook a barbecue for tea.

WA day 9- orienteering at Malmalling and catching up with the Castelijns

For the first time in the entire holiday we set the alarm to make sure we were up in time. We had planned to orienteering at Malmalling,  which meant and hour and a half to drive, skirting Perth city and heading to the east (towards Kalgoorlie).
Our trusty navigator came to the fore once more, and we arrived at the orienteering in good time. It was good to see the familiar direction signs as we neared the event. Surprisingly, we followed a ute with SA number plates to the event. It turned out to be Gary Ettridge from Pt. Lincoln!!

The WA orienteers made us very welcome as we registered our SI sticks into their system and they already had our names on file!!!

The area is a mix of native bush and pine, but we were all in the native bush for our courses (running across one open area of felled pine early on). The native bush was largely made up of grass trees, which hid boulders beautifully, and gave us some excellent experience with low visibility orienteering.

It's hard to pick out a rock between the close growing grass trees. In many places they were much thicker than this example.

Trevor and I both opted to do the H3 (third hardest) course which was 4.9 km long according to the notices. It is always a good experience to orienteer somewhere new, and this area certainly taught us some more. It was difficult to move fast amongst the rocky ground and thick grass trees, and easy to lose contact with exactly where we were on the map,  as we couldn't get a clear view of the terrain. This caused us some difficulties, but the locals appeared to have as much trouble as we did.
We both took a good long time to complete our courses (Trevor took 1 hr 35 in and Erica 1 hr 43, but Trevor covered almost 2 km more ground at a much better run rate!). Erica was surprised by a mispunch result, having not checked the control  number at 2, and punched 6 instead. (Trap for new players still catching out an old player). Control 5 (low visibility, and hard to tell where on the hill you were), 6 (a long leg with some vague areas, where you really needed to stay in touch with the map) and 9 (we both had to relocate at least once to find the small boulder which  was hidden nicely between the grass trees) were controls where we both wasted time.

Trev's  course download. 

Orienteering WA have a volunteer run shop with basic O supplies. All profits go to the juniors transport fund so that they can make it to the national events each year. They also have a caravan/trailer which is the registration and download point, with info and results on one side and the people with the computer on the other side.

We liked their easy registration procedure where each person comes to the window, pays their money and "dibs" their SI stick to register, and personally tells the person doing the computing which course they are running .

Results were printed out from the splits printer and placed on the info side of the van (small to read, but available if people wanted them)

Results in course order from the splits printer

The event was a schools selection race, so the kids were out in full and the juniors were selling soup and cakes to fund raise for their travel.

Having taken much longer than we had anticipated at the event with our time out on the course and our chatting with the WA crowd, we made a  quick lunch stop at Mandaring on the way in to Perth to catch up with our good friends Maggie and Nick and their lovely daughters  Sarah and Rebekah.

We spent a lovely few hours chatting, eating and helping them to complete the jigsaw puzzle they were working on before reluctantly saying goodbye and leaving them to their preparations or school and work today.

Another excellent day in WA.

WA day 8 Mandurah

We've had a very quiet day at Mandurah today.
Auntie Joc caught the train down from Perth and we picked her up from the station and brought her to our little home for a few hours.
We renewed the great tradition and did a cryptic crossword together (she taught us how some years back)
We have a loose plan of activity  for the next few days (starting with orienteering east of Perth tomorrow )

Here are a few pictures of our resort so that you don't feel completely deprived. Thom,  I put in the one of the BBQ area just for you even though it is not quite a camp kitchen.

Trev with Joc outside of our unit (upstairs)

Hooray for WA Day 7. May 27th . Shelley Beach to Mandurah (via Tingle forest)

Although we were completely alone on our little beach with the waves crashing to lull us to sleep the wind had other ideas. Eventually at about 2 am we removed part of our awning, and then the complete awning due to the noise it was making. Eventually we got a bit of sleep, but Trev was awake before the sun was up again and it looked like rain, so we did a quick pack up, vacated the site, and ate our breakfast at the lookout overlooking our beach. Hang gliders use this spot sometimes, and the sunrise over Albany complete with windfarm certainly rewarded us for the early rising.

Shelley Beach from above. This park forms the southernmost tip of WA!

The first of our 600 odd km for today was spent getting us to the treetop walk between Denmark and Walpole. We had to wait for them to open, but enjoyed the fresh view of the huge tingle trees from high up, and then from the forest floor. The Red Tingle trees have hardly any root system and a huge butt at the base which are really sensitive to even walking on the ground around them. Their branches grow in strange eerie curves which make the tree look disformed and unbalanced.  They become hollow when there is a fire, but continue to grow.

They call this one grandma.  She is hollow and would rival the Herbig Tree near Springton for the space inside it. 

The next stop was at Fernhook Falls  where we checked out our original intended campsite from yesterday, and took a walk to admire the falls and the adjoining Rowells's pool where some drop their canoes in the Deep River (which apparently is not usually deep enough until June). The water at the pool was so dark you couldn't see a thing (coloured by tannins) -but you can step down into it!! 

Here there was another excellent camp kitchen and also a campers hut where walkers on the long distance Bibblemun track can rest their weary bodies overnight.

 Two little birds tried to join Trevor in the Prado, but decided not to stay after visiting briefly.

Next we headed through the tall Karri forest (large swatches have been burnt) towards the Margaret River where we visited Denise at the Maiolo winery.  We have long been a fan of their shiraz and it was great to meet her in person and to taste their latest wares (all good) . We blame our friends the Browns for this particular taste for their wines. The 2014 Shiraz is our particular recommendation.

We had a time limit today, so had to be on our way towards Mandurah and finally made it to our home for the next week at about 5.30 pm.  Mandurah feels so much larger than on our past visits. I guess we will get a feel for it again while we are staying here. We look forward to a comfy bed, lots of hot showers and sleeping in.

Footnote:
Today we  noted a high number of significant names amongst those that we saw. Among them were Shelley beach (where we started the day), Sues Rd,  Hay river, Deano's bar, Brittain road, Iffley road, Vasse (Vassi to us) highway and town.

Hooray for WA Day 6 May 26th Quagi Beach to Shelley Beach via Albany

We woke to the sound of birds. One of the birds was making a syncopated call. This is something I had never noticed before. If I had to I would give it a 6/8 time signature. The banksias were alive with the birds.

We were up early, watched the sun rise over the ocean, and had a walk along the beach before a cooked breakfast.

the start of sunrise.

Drove west towards Ravensthorpe, stopping along the way at the memorial to an aboriginal massacre.It seems that John Dunn (white) had committed some sin against the local aboriginals. A small group arrived and dealt justice by killing him. His 4 remaining brothers then massacred the local tribe in vengeance. The memorial has been put there so that it can be remembered and people can move on.

Trev picked out a memorial Bender look-alike on the side of the road surrounded by poppies and back tracked so that I could admire him, too.

We stopped at a mallee fowl information centre and cafe for lunch before driving on via the scenic route through Stirling Ranges National Park to Albany. We saw some interesting metal sculptures at the info centre.

We headed out to use the new viewing platforms and view the natural bridge and the gap south of Albany. The gap is a seething foaming mass of water far below as the waves crash through a narrow space onto the rocks. They have built the new platform anchored on to the rocks so that you are perched high above the gap and can look directly down into it.

We were hoping to make it to the tall trees near Walpole to camp tonight, but have opted for a beachside camp again at Shelley Beach (between Albany and Denmark) which will leave us with around 400 km to travel tomorrow to get to our home for the week at Mandurah.

Shelley beach is a lovely secluded beach reached by a steep track and we are the only ones here. We are camped about 50m from a lovey white beach with the waves crashing on to the sand. A distant lighthouse flashes regularly in the distance and the stars are a picture above us.

We've already been visited by 3 rabbits, a cat that refuses to leave, a kangaroo, and some sort of bandicoot type of animal which was not shy at all

Looking away from Albany from our campsite...the hills of West Cape Howe National Park sheltering us from the elements.

Looking towards Albany from our campsite