Denmark to Perth!

Here's the latest instalment - hopefully this will mean no more impatient text messages from Leroy!!

We awoke early just north of Mount Barker and drove up the lookout where we had a great view of both the Stirling and Porongurup Ranges. We called in at St Werburgh's Chapel which was built in 1874 - a beautiful spot nestled amongst the gum trees.

From here we drove to Denmark (the town, not the country!!!). We stopped at the visitor centre where we saw the tallest barometer in the world. Then it was off for a beach drive as we had heard the beaches in the area were pretty amazing. We were not disappointed - we drove to Ocean Beach, up around to Lights Beach and then to Waterall Beach and Madfish Beach where we just had to stop for a swim as the water was crystal clear and we had the beach all to ourselves.

Madfish Beach

We called briefly past the Green Pools but it was getting late so we decided to head back there later. We drove back up the South Coast highway to about 14km East of Walpole to a rest stop near the Tree Top Walk which we planned to do the next morning.

This is what I generally look like in the morning (hence the very important function of a hat!):

We drove to the Tree Top Walk in the Valley of the Giants. full of amazing huge Tingle trees. The treetop walk itself wasn't as high or as long as the Otway Fly one we did near Lorne (although still pretty spectaular) ....

...but the Ancient Empire walk down the bottom amongst all the trees was pretty awe-inspiring. I think you actually get a better perspective of their size from down on the ground.

My my, thats a big tree!

We did the Scotsdale Drive loop following this, a drive encompassing a toffee place, meadery (honey wine) plus a few other wineries. We were very sad to miss the cheese place though, which had closed by the time we made it there!

There were a few spots of rain when we arrived at our rest stop so Dave rigged up the tarp.

The next day we woke up early to do some fishing. We drove to Lights Beach but the weather was a bit choppy and the water was quite weedy. We tried Ocean Beach but it didn't look too promising either.

We drove to town and had breakfast then drove out to Madfish Bay again which was much rougher than the other day. Dave did a bit of fishing but didn't catch anything.

In the arvo the sun came out and we headed to Elephant rocks and the Green Pools to have a swim and laze about. Two very beautiful spots that we highly recommend!!!

Elephant Rocks (note the couple sitting on the big rock to the back left)

We stayed at the same rest area that night - a great spot to stay considering it was Easter time and there was not one single spare bed in town!

The next day was Easter Saturday and we got up early and spent the day at the Denmark Markets which were great and full of lots of knick-knacks and lovely fresh produce. There were also lots of bands playing through the day and we saw Saz Lockyer and Arons Crusade play again, plus the Blumanna Band who we decided to head to Walpole to watch the following night.

We saw a great steam tractor too...

We went back to our fav rest spot for the night.

The next morning we headed to Walpole and just East of there we turned off to do a beautiful scenic drive though a Tingle Forest. We stopped off to see the Giant Tingle which was incredible - check it out!!!

We then drove a big loop and stopped to walk up Mount Frankland where we got a good view of the area (albeit very smokey due to the backburning that was happening).

We drove around a few more bays / beaches and then headed into town where we found some free WARM showers where we freshened up for the gig at the pub that afternoon.

Well, we had a great time, we were planning to just stay in the van in the car park, but after the gig finished we met some lovely people who invited up back to their place (thanks Fleur and Baz!!) where we proceeded to drink til all hours of the morning with a bunch of others and then sleep in our van in their backyard.

Fleur (looking a little better for wear than myself!)

Us with Baz

Well, not surprisingly we weren't feeling the best the next day and drove off to the local jetty where we passed out on the grass for many hours. We had some fish and chips for dinner (go the greasy food!) and then drove to a rest stop in Shannon where we stopped for the night.

The next day we drove to Northcliffe and down to Windy Harbour but we were still feeling a little tired so we headed to Pemberton where we checked in at the Caravan Park and spent the day washing and cleaning out the car.

After a great sleep we drove to the Gloucester Tree which Dave climbed up. It was about 60mtrs and you climb up just on steel pegs that have been nailed into the side of the tree. Pretty freaky!!! These trees were originally used as fire lookouts.

View from Top of Gloucester Tree (you can just make out me sitting down the bottom!)

The pegs you climb up:

We then took the Karri Explorer track and stopped at a micro-brewery where we sampled the beer. We called past the Tangle-toe cidery and tried some cider. From here we toured around the Karri forests and out to the Pemberton Wine Centre.

We then headed to the Bicentential Tree which is another tree to climb up but even bigger than the last one at over 75 metres. Again Dave climbed up while I stayed firmly at the bottom. This is the middle part of the tree (it extended above and below this):

Finally we stopped at the Donnelly River Winery where we bought a case of pretty tasty Pinot Noir for only $49. We then drove to our rest stop where we had our first camp fire - Yay!

The enxt day we drove straight to the Augusta Visitor Centre and then went to the tallest lighthouse on Mainland australia at Cape Leeuwin (but we didn't pay to go up it as we've seen enough lighthouses in the last couple of years, thank you very much!) We saw an old water mill pump from late 19th century which was pretty cool:

We bought a cave pass from the info centre to see three of the caves in the Margaret River area. The first one was Jewel Cave which was about 80 metres deep and very impressive.

Here you can see the tree roots that have come down through th cave roof to reach the water below:

Inside the cave:

There were some incredible formations - stalagmites/tites and shawls.

We stopped off at Hamelin Bay which was very beautiful...

..and we saw some stingrays come right into shore to get the fish guts / heads the fisherman were throwing back (yummy!)

We then drove up Cave Road and stopped at Conto's Campground South-West of Margaret River. A lovely secluded camp spot and another camp fire!

The next morning we drove to Lake Cave and did the 9:30am tour. A beautiful cave with magnificent reflections in the water.

Here you can see the "suspended table" where the original floor level was, then as the water receded it left the formation suspended in the air.

The water is receding and may be gone in as little as 4 years so we were lucky to see it before that happens!

We drove to Mammoth Cave which was a self guided tour, but unfortunatley didn't get any great photos here, apart from this one showing a stalactite forming. It takes 7 months for one drop of water to move from the roof down to the end of the stalactite - a very long process!

We drove out to Prevally Park Beach which is a famous surf break in Margaret River, where we watched some surfers for a while.

We headed to the town of Margaret river where we walked around town a bit and went to the supermarket. The town itself wasn't anything too special we felt.

Following this we went to 34 Degrees South

which is a smallish olive company. They had beautiful olive oil and we bought an E.V.O oil.

We went to a couple of Brewing Companies - the Colonial Brewing Company and the Cowaramup Brewing Co for some tastings before stopping for the night.

The next day we continued our food and wine tour, stopping at:

• Margaret River Nuts and Cereals where we bought some nice muesli



• MR Choc Co - nice shop but fairly expensive and not a lot to sample



• MR Providore - lots of relishes, jams, olives etc to try but all fairly expensive



• Cheese Factorys - we went to two of these and filled up on lots of yummy cheeses



• Olio Bello - olive oils - the Parmesan infused was pretty awesome



• Nottinghill Estate Winery - beautiful setting and lovely, friendly man



• Bootleg Brewery - hung out for a while in the beautiful sunshine and listened to a band



• Duckstein Brewery - just had a quick look at the very nice grounds but didn't stay for a drink as seemed a little pretentious

We then called past Yalingup Beach where there were a lot of surfers, Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse (didn't stop at this one either!) and Brusseltown where we went for a walk along the jetty:

So after a busy day we slept very well!

We awoke to a pretty impressive sunrise through the trees:

and on leaving took a wrong turn and ended up at a cheese factory (oh gosh darn it). Bought a muscatel chedder cheese to have with lunch.

We drove back to Capel and then inland to Donneybrook - home of Granny Smith Apples - where we went to the Old Goldfields Cidery and tasted some great ciders - my favourite being the scrumpy (surprise, surprise!) We bought a couple of scrumpy as well as the apple and ginger and mulled (apple and cinnamon - Sha, you would have liked this one!).

We saw some cows crossing...


...and stopped at the Donneybrook Oval to watch some local footy and eat our yummy salad with primo olive oil and muscatel cheese!

We drove to Collie where we stopped at the Visitor Centre and then drove to Stockton Lake Camping Area - an old open cut mine which is now a lake used for waterskiing. We had dinner, lit a fire and watched a great sunset:

The next morning we went into town and I made an appointment for a well-needed haircut - Yay! We drove out to Wellington National Park and saw the dam:

We drove around the park and stopped at honeymoon pool for a swim. It was pretty freezing but was very enjoyable swimming in fresh river water for a change!

We made it back into Collie in time for my hair appointment - and only $28 for a shampoo and haircut - hurray for small country towns!

We then headed to Bunbury and had a brief look around. We went up the lookout:

We drove North the coastal way and decided to head to Dwellingup instead of going straight to Perth. We stopped at the P.O.W camp and had some cider, wine and port by the campfire, managing to stay up to midnight - about 4 hours later than our usual bedtime!

We woke up the next morning and headed into Dwellingup for breakfast. We went into the info centre where there was a good display on the 1961 bushfire that wiped out the entire town. There was also info on the P.O.W Camp. This housed mainly German and Italian prisoners of WW2.

A carving that took my fancy outside the info centre:

We drove out to Lane Poole Conservtion Park and stopped at Island Pool for a swim. We checked out some of the great campsites around the Park and drove out to a spot on the river where we tried our hand at some fishing using spinners. Unfortunately we caught nothing but had some fun trying.

We had a second swim and I couldn't get over how warm it was at the end of April - swimming and fishing in only my togs - not like it is in Wellington!

We headed to Tony's Bend Campsite which was right on the river and Dave went down to the river to have one last go at fishing while I rustled up some dinner. A few minutes later Dave ran back with a fish so we had spag bol for starters, followed by grilled perch.

We also bought a gas lantern which rocks and we were able to sit up a bit later and read properly. Let there be light!

A truly fantastic relaxing day!

The next day (Dad's Birthday!) we went for an 18km bush walk through a Jarrah Forest, taking a fishing rod along with us.

The highlight being the "King Jarrah" which was way bigger than those around it.

We then drove back into Dwellingup to give Dad a call.

When we came to Dwellingup we had no ida what was here, but we would definately recommend it to everyone, especially those in Perth as it is not far. There's heaps to do - fishing, canoing, plenty of walks and great places to swim. We'll definately be back!!!

Well, that was about a week ago and since then, nothing else has been written in our book!!! We basically headed to fremantle, just South of Perth and spent the night in a campground where we typed up our CV. The next day we walked around town handing out our CV to various bars where we were told by most "sorry, no work going". Then low and behold, a brewery / restaurant asked us to come back in that night for a 2 hour trial. That all went well and we were told to call in on Tues to check out the roster.

On Saturday we looked up a few accomodation options online. The first place we checked out left us absolutely gobsmacked. The ad looked great, good rent, fully furnished, home gym etc and my mind conjured up images of an apartment block type place. When we pulled up in this dodgy as suburb we were greeted by a lady and number of young children with the words "Its a caravan out the back"..... Well Dave and I looked at each other and were led out the back where there were about 4 caravan shoved into this tiny space. She showed us the caravan and the fridge ("doesn't work") and the air conditioner ("does work but your're not allowed to use it as the caravans are too close together so its dangerous"). The home gym was a scungy old stationary bicycle and the "outdoor" kitchen's "oven" was a crappy old barbeque.... Needless to say, after she had given her spiel and was about to show us the "toilet and shower in one" Dave told her it "wasn't quite what we were looking for" whereupon she told us to please recommend her to our friends.....

What an experience!

A couple of hours later we got another call to come and check out a house very near Fremantle and we were met by a lovely young couple - Shona and Roberto - and a great house. So we moved in Sunday! So in about 2 days we manged to find job and a house - pretty good huh?!!

So we'll be in Freo for a few months, earning enough money to keep us going for the rest of our trip. Freo is a great seaside town and we're glad to be here as opposed to Perth City.

Another exciting thing that happened was that the space pig finally got a bath!

We also went to Perth Zoo and Dave finally got to see the wombat he's been hanging out for all trip:

A very cute orangutan baby..


AND we went to the Sydney Swans Vs Fremantle Dockers game at the Subiaco Oval and watched Sydney get smashed... I quite liked Fremantle and the sea of purple everywhere.

And to end things off, here is a video of a bush fire (controlled back burning) we drove past. Prob not that exciting for Aussies who see this sort of thing all the time, but quite impressive for the rest of us!!

Take care all. We will keep you updated on our jobs - first shift for me tonight and Dave tomorrow night.

Nullarbor to the South West Coast of WA

Again, its been a while since our last update so this one covers quite a large area!

MAP OF OUR LATEST LEG:
Click here for detailed map you can zoom in on.

We awoke in the morning in Ceduna, SA and had breakfast (honey on toast - trying to use it up before crossing the border!)

We drove out to Denial Bay, near Ceduna in search of some oysters but all we discovered were some tractors that looked a little waterlogged:

We then realised that you had to purchase the Denial Bay oysters from a place in Ceduna so back we went to indulge ourselves. Yummy!! (and only $9 a doz - much cheaper than in the restaurant!)

We drove West to Penong, land of many windmills! (Used to pump the water from under the ground for those kiwis who take water for granted!!)

On from Penong we stopped in at Cactus Beach which is famous for its surf breaks. We walked along the cliffs and saw some amazing scenery but there were only a couple of surfers out.

A Salt Lake on the way to Cactus Beach (one side is pink, the other blue)

We drove on some of the way along the Nullarbor. Had to stop for a typical Aussie pic:

We were both surprised that although the plain was pretty flat, it was still quite scrubby and not just desert / dirt like we expected.
We stopped at the Head of Bight but the tourist area wasn't open at this time as no whales at this time of year (May to Nov). We stopped at a roadhouse and saw a few wild dingos hanging out looking for food.

They were obviously pretty tame and used to all the humans stopping by and taking photos.

We drove to a rest stop about 100km from the WA border which was right near the cliffs and gave great views. And Haz and Lindy - the stars did look great out here!

The next morning we managed to finish off all our honey ("Phew" I can hear you all gasp in a collective sigh - a happy ending after all!)

We drove to the WA /SA border and passed easily through the quarantine - only a rogue piece of garlic that we had missed was confiscated. Here we set the clock back 45 mins - always nice to gain some more time to your day!

This was the longest part of our drive across the Nullarbor. We drove past some small towns: Eucla, Mundrabilla, Madura, Cocklebiddy and Caiguna where we had to put the clock back another 45 mins. Petrol started getting more expensive the further out you got and at Cocklebiddy we paid $1.61L to fill up!

Just after Caiguna we drove along the longest stretch of straight road in Australia at 146km long:

Needless to say this was pretty mind-numbing...

...and we even resorted to watching a couple of episodes of Flight of the Conchords (You bet your Arse I'll be there!) and South Park.

We drove on to Norseman and stopped just North of here for the night. A long drive today of over 700km!!!

We woke up the next morning bright and early to drive North to Kalgoorlie-Boulder. As we were on our way we heard the time on the radio and realised that daylight savings had ended so we had to wind the clock back ANOTHER hour!! Which means we were up even more super early and when we got to Kalgoorlie the info centre hadn't opened yet. After waiting around for a bit we went in but found that being a Sunday not a lot of stuff was open, including the "Superpit" Lookout which overlooks the open cut gold mine.

We decided to drive on North for a bit to Menzies where we saw there was a Salt Lake (Lake Ballard) with 51 sculptures dotted around it created by Anthony Gormley, a London artist.

We had a beer at an old pub in Menzies and had a yarn with the owner who had just recently bought the pub and was going to do it up as a retirement project (a lot of work, but good fun I'm sure!)

We called past the Menzies Cemetary on the way which had some very old graves and contained many graves which had no headstones but just numbers.

We then drove on to Lake Ballard and made it our mission to see all 51 statues. Unfortunately they were all dotted around the Lake a quite big distances and it was very hot with the sun reflecting up off the salt in the Lake. We spent about 2hrs walking around and saw about 30 of them and most others from further away. The sculptures were all created from scans the artist took of 51 of the residents of Menzies.

They looked great with the shadows that were cast upon the whiteness of the lake. The lake itself was thick with the salt, hard to walk on, and sounded like snow as we crunched our way across it.

I liked this shot of the kangaroo track across the salt:

and of course Dave liked this one..I wonder which resident of Menzies this came from - Pamela Anderson maybe?

You can read more about Antony Gormley's exhibition here

We then drove back into Menzies and stopped for the night. In the morning we filled up with petrol at a place which had a heap of old tin signs for sale out the front.
We drove back to Kalgoorlie and thankfully the Superpit lookout was open. We went to have a look and it was absolutely HUGE!!! In the photo below you can see the scale of it when you look at the trucks to the left about halfway down. And these are big trucks! Just a breathtaking example of what machinery can achieve.

After stocking up at the supermarket and petrol station (only $1.13L thank goodness!) we headed south, back though Norseman and then down to Esperence.

Dave caught a snap of me having a wee snooze (hey, its hard work being the passenger!)

There appeared to be no free (legal) camping in Esperence so we looked at a couple of caravan parks. We began at the cheapest, but one look there and we decided to move on - most of the caravans were falling to pieces and looked like they were pretty permanent fixtures - the sort of place where you would expect a hillbilly man to step out of a trailer with his shot gun in tow. We went to a couple of others and ended up in a smallish one where we had dinner and watched TV which felt like a bit of a novelty!

The next day we did the coastal drive around all of the beaches around Esperence. It was very misty so we didn't get any great photos. We could see that the beaches would be beautiful on a nice day.

We drove to the jetty and saw "Sammy" the local sea lion.

Video of Sammy

After this we drove out to Cape Le Grand National Park. It was $10 entry to the park.

Cape Le Grand Beach itself was just beautiful and we stopped here for lunch:

We also saw Frenchman's Peak which we decided we would climb the next day as the weather was a bit iffy.

Frenchmans Peak

We headed to Thistle Cove next where there were some great rock formations:

This one looked a bit like a bum, don't ya think?

We ended up at Lucky Bay which was voted to have the whitest sand in Australia. We stayed in the camp site there - $7.50pp which was pretty good considering they had flush toilets, a camp kitchen and hot showers (well, cold when I used them as they were solar powered and it hadn't been very sunny for a few days!) and was right by the beach. They also had a number of kangaroos wandering by, having a good old scratch...

Lucky Beach - Pristine!

After breakfast we headed to tackle Frenchmans Peak, a large granite peak.

This had some very steep slopes and we were glad to be wearing sturdy shoes unlike some people we saw wearing thongs!!!

Us before the steep ascent:

As many of you know, I'm pretty freaked out by heights. I'm not sure why, I had no problems as a kid but it seems to have got worse and worse the older I get. And this was no exception. I had one "panic" moment where a few tears were shed and I thought I wasn't going to get any further up or back down again.

But after bit of deep breathing and positive thinking, I managed to press on, past the worst bit...

...conquer my fears and make it to the top!

Dave got this shot from the summit looking down on the car park and Space Pig waiting patiently below..

At the top we were awared with a great view though the natural arch which made the trek well worth it.

Going down was also a little scary but nowhere as bad as I had expected which I was pleased about as the rain was just about to start once we got to the bottom!

We drove out to Hellfire Beach, which is yet another beautful beach in the Nat Park.

And around-about this time I managed to drop the camera into the sand. Doh - not a good idea!!! Although I will lay the blame on a crappy camera case on which the velcro had gone so the camera just decided to throw itself onto the lovely white sand (no, not my fault at all!!)

We drove back to Esperence and bought ourselves an Annual Parks Pass which gives us unlimited entry to all the National Parks in WA for $75. We figured we will be visiting quite a few parks here and at $10 a pop it makes sense to buy the pass. We got a $10 refund from the entry into Cape Le Grand which was good.

We bought a disposable camera for the meantime but have yet to get these photos developed so there's a couple of days of no photos!

We drove on towards Munglinup and stayed in rest area for the night.

The next day we awoke earliesh and drove to Ravensthorpe and then down to Hopetoun, a nice small beach town. From there we headed out to Fitzgerald National Park and visited a few beaches. There was great scenery and lots of native plants (sorry, no photos!)

We were going to skip BremnerBay, but we're glad we didn't - Its a great place located on by the water with heaps of lovely bays where you can swim, surf, fish and snorkel. We decided against paying for a caravan park and found a secluded spot near the marina where we cosied up for the night.

Next morning we drove to the beach for breakfast (I'm loving our great breakky spots!) and I had a cold shower which was bloody freezing but very refreshing! We went to Little Boat Harbour on our way out where they had a dive trail and Dave did a little bit of snorkelling (thanks for the gear Donno!)

We then drove down to Albany via Cheyne's Beach. We stopped at two wineries - Montgomery's Hill and Wignalls. We had blown a fuse in the car from a power overload (!) that morning and low and behold we came across an auto-electrician at the winery who gave us a replacement fuse - must be good karma or something!

We went to the info centre in Albany and spoke to the most helpful lady ever. We went to a camera shop to check if we could get our camera fixed but they had no technicians available to look at them and were told to try Perth.

We had a drive around town and had a beer tasting at Tangleheads Brewey (weren't that fussed with their beer to be honest!)

We drove out to the river and found a place to "tuck-up" for the night. Heard so many fish jumping in the river but were too tired to drop a line in!

We woke up the next morning to our six month wedding anniversary - hasn't it gone fast! We spent the day in town - first stop was the farmer's market which was just great - the freshest local produce at good prices. We then ended up spending a bit of money in town - new tramping boots for me (I'm sick of blisters!) After speaking to Bucky and hearing that it would cost more than the camera is worth to fix it we decided to buy a new camera and after shopping around found a great Panasonic one at a good price. Yay - photos are back!!

We decided to treat ourselves to a nice night so checked in to a Backpackers Hostel in a double room ($60 so not too bad). We went out to Nonna's for dinners, a lovely Italian restaurant. We then went back to Tangleheads and watched a free band - Arons Crusade - who were having their album launch. THey were pretty good for a band we'd never heard of and we ended up buying their album. You can click on the link above for their myspace page and to listen to their songs.

We then went back to the hostel and had a great sleep in a "proper" bed. In the morning we had free toast and coffee for breakfast and then went for a drive to explore the outer areas of Albany. We thought Albany was brilliant. On the map below you can see that there are so many bays and beaches around the area, there is just so much to do and we could have happily spent a few weeks here.

We drove to Frenchman's Bay and had lunch, saw the whaling station, Salmon Holes Beach, Stony Hill Lookout, the Blowholes and The Gap and Archway.

Salmon Holes

Blowholes

Natural Archway

You can see the scale of it by looking at the little person in the middle of the bridge.

Rocks at the Archway

We also visited the ANZAC Memorial at the top of Mount Clarence. Albany was the spot where the soldiers sailed off to war from and so was the last glimpse of australian soil for many men. A very special place.

A very sobering sight was the tree lined street leading up to the Memorial with each tree bearing a plaque to a fallen soldier.

We also drove out to Middleton Beach and Emu Point and saw a new roadsign:

We then drove back to Tanglehead Bar to see yet another free gig - Saz lockyer, a one-man band, Xavier Rudd style (but a lot more restrained!) We were very impressed with the number of free gigs on a various places in Albany.

We then went out to Cosy Corner Beach camp spot for the night - a lovely, shaded spot with lots of nooks and crannies to park your car or tent.

In the morning we drove back to Albany and headed North to Porongurup National Park. We went first to Jingella Winery which had been recommended to us and bought some "Pawny Tort" off the very talkative lady.

We then went into the National Park to do some walks. The first one was up and across several peaks.

There were great 360 degree views all around right out to Albany on one side and the Stirling Ranges on the other.

There were some great rocks around too!

That took us about 2 hours and then we did the walk to Balancing Rock and The Castle. WOW! This was just stunning. It was a fairly gentle walk through the trees and then up to thes incredible rock formations that just had to be seen to be believed.

Balancing Rock - What the? This was kinda freaky!

Just up from Balancing Rock was the Castle, named after some huy who was the first European guy to climb up it. It involved a bit of rock scrmbling to get up but was just magnificent.

A good rock for abseiling...

At the very end you climbed up a ladder and along a walkway to get to the very top.

We made it!

This is one of the best walks I've done of late and was a real buzz!

By this time it was close to dark so we drove to Mount Barker and stopped at a rest stop for the night.

Oh, and there I discovered a tick on my knee!! It was lucky I found it as I only pulled up my pants to check out a mozzy bite and there was the tick. At first it looked just like a little scab but on closer inspection I noticed that it had legs.. I've always wondered what a tick looked like - I've heard stories of paralyzing ticks on shoulders and a certain person who found one on their

bum and had to ask someone to help them pull it out when they were only on their third date but up till now, I've never seen one. So there you go... not the nicest of things but at least Dave got it out for me before it had time to bury itself in the depths on my body.. Eugh.

Anyway....

Next morning we went to a winery in Mt Barker before heading North through Woogenellup and Kembellup to the Stirling Ranges. We didn't actually drive in to the ranges and do a walk but decided to head to some of the little towns North of the ranges. We stopped at Amellup for a photo opportunity:

(sorry to blind you all, but think of the poor lady we asked to take the photo!)

We then drove on to a Dutch Windmill which is the largest working one in Australia:

and then we stopped at a pub in Borden. Notice the whales willy on the wall?!!

From there we passed though Gnowangerup where we saw a big wooden statue of Ned Kelly..

...and a lovely big steam tractor.

We headed back to Mount Barker for the night where we had a few games of cards and a wee drink of the old Pawny...

And here we are now in Mount Barker. We are heading off to Denmark today where there is lots to explore and then west to Walpole. We're just hoping all the free camping spots aren't too full over Easter!!!

Til next time folks, ciao!