In what is probably my last post before I go home...
...Our intrepid heroine travels the south-west of Australia...
Perth was nice but after rattling round in my Auntie and Uncle's house for a week I was ready to get out. It did have some hight piints, though, like getting to help my cousin Caroline choose her wedding dress, which is as close as I'm going to get to her actual wedding (which takes place in July, long after I'm gone).
So after a few days checking out where would be reasonable to travel to, and coming to the conclusion that I in no way had enough money or time to get up north to Broome, and it was the wrong time of year to be traipsing the Tropic of Capricorn anyway, I decided to head down south. The intial plan was to go to Bunbury and see dolpins, Margaret River for a wineries tour, Pemberton and ride the scenic railway, Albany for some more beach, then back to Perth. I got as far as Bunbury before realising the accommodation at onward points was full up, so I spent a few days there, and after a few no-shows, actually did get to see dolphins wild in the Koonamara Bay. I also walked out to the wildlife park and fed kangaroos and assorted birds (including nearly losing some fingers to a gredy emu), found myself some pristine stretches of deserted beach and got sunburnt twice, and generally spodded around till I got lonely and left.
Most travellers on this route are either doing agricultural work or involved in some kind of volunteering, so they all have their own little cliques. Those that aren't generally pass through places in a day or 2, usually with their own car, as it's hard to see the main sights in the SW while using public transport. This is somewhat irksome.
Anyways, I fetched up in a tiny 1-horse town called Walople for a couple of days, went to see the Valley of the Giants treetop walk, had the obligatory 'photo of myself in the karri tree hollow' taken, and did some bushwalking. Again, there were some deserted scenic beaches and very few people to talk to.
Yesterday I bimbled onwards to Albany , or 'little Britian' as I've started callig it - it was the first Eurpoean settlement in WA, so looks rather like an English market town, complete with Victorian churches and mock-Tudor facades on the shops. The town is a little bigger and at least looks as though some form of culture or entertainment might be lurking under the surface. Its main draw is whale-watching, but I think it's the wrong season and this close to the end of my trip, I can't really afford it anyway, so the next 2 days will be spent in aimless wandering and doing some writing before heading back to Perth...and flying home on Tuesday.
Perth was nice but after rattling round in my Auntie and Uncle's house for a week I was ready to get out. It did have some hight piints, though, like getting to help my cousin Caroline choose her wedding dress, which is as close as I'm going to get to her actual wedding (which takes place in July, long after I'm gone).
So after a few days checking out where would be reasonable to travel to, and coming to the conclusion that I in no way had enough money or time to get up north to Broome, and it was the wrong time of year to be traipsing the Tropic of Capricorn anyway, I decided to head down south. The intial plan was to go to Bunbury and see dolpins, Margaret River for a wineries tour, Pemberton and ride the scenic railway, Albany for some more beach, then back to Perth. I got as far as Bunbury before realising the accommodation at onward points was full up, so I spent a few days there, and after a few no-shows, actually did get to see dolphins wild in the Koonamara Bay. I also walked out to the wildlife park and fed kangaroos and assorted birds (including nearly losing some fingers to a gredy emu), found myself some pristine stretches of deserted beach and got sunburnt twice, and generally spodded around till I got lonely and left.
Most travellers on this route are either doing agricultural work or involved in some kind of volunteering, so they all have their own little cliques. Those that aren't generally pass through places in a day or 2, usually with their own car, as it's hard to see the main sights in the SW while using public transport. This is somewhat irksome.
Anyways, I fetched up in a tiny 1-horse town called Walople for a couple of days, went to see the Valley of the Giants treetop walk, had the obligatory 'photo of myself in the karri tree hollow' taken, and did some bushwalking. Again, there were some deserted scenic beaches and very few people to talk to.
Yesterday I bimbled onwards to Albany , or 'little Britian' as I've started callig it - it was the first Eurpoean settlement in WA, so looks rather like an English market town, complete with Victorian churches and mock-Tudor facades on the shops. The town is a little bigger and at least looks as though some form of culture or entertainment might be lurking under the surface. Its main draw is whale-watching, but I think it's the wrong season and this close to the end of my trip, I can't really afford it anyway, so the next 2 days will be spent in aimless wandering and doing some writing before heading back to Perth...and flying home on Tuesday.