Ayr Sailene to Windy Harbour 12th - 19th March 2013

Ayr Sailean 12th - 13th March

As we are driving along Patrice notices that the door of the caravan is open. We try to pull over but there is nowhere to stop. We drove for nearly 5 kilometres before the road has a big enough shoulder to pull over. Somehow the catch on the screen has let go, bit of maintenance to be down when we get to the camp ground.

The sheep property has a boutique caravan park and cabins. It is very tidy and has immaculate amenities. Sheep are wandering around, Trice and I have a walk around to see what is here. Sheep, a beautiful Border Collie and even a couple of Alpaccas.

The Waeco broken down again, looks like the control board this time. We drove to Conspicuous Cliffs, the work they have done on the paths and decking is fantastic, I would love to have this at home.

The park has very little atmosphere as there is only one other person here besides us. It is a woman in one of the units, she is a bit weird and runs away anytime we come out of our van.

We thought we may have been able to herd her when she was out walking her dog but she spun around and took off in the opposite direction, I suppose Trice can look quite scary some times.

We only stay 1 night before going back to a National Park. The walks are normally very relaxing. The sheep even great us when we are leaving.

 

Shannon National Park 13th-15th March

Our plan was to see the Giant Tingle Tree and the Circular Pools but you can’t get into there with a caravan. We decided that we can house ourselves at Shannon National Park and do some drives from there.

We drive in and decide to check out the sites, I slipped over on the newly laid gravel and ripped a tendon in my knee, did nothing for rest of day.

Day 2 I watched movies and laid on my back on day - bloody knee. Trice is off finding some beautiful sites. Met a young German girl who is stunned by how friendly and helpful Australians are. She also mentions that she has been warned off Queensland.

Day 3 feeling a lot better, knee still sore but I am starting to get around so we go for The Great Forrest Trees Drive, 48 klms of magnificent Karri, Jarrah, Marri and a few other smaller varieties.

The giant Karri trees are 300 years old weighing around 150 tonnes. These trees are the 3rd tallest trees in the world. The smells are refreshing and vibrant. Shannon was once a thriving township in the 50’s it was a logging town.

They were given very strict areas that they could harvest and when these ran out the town died. Many of the towns building can still be found in neighbouring towns. 

Came back to camp packed up and headed through Northcliffe to Windy Harbour.

 

 

 

 

Windy Harbour 15th - 19th March

We know why it is called Windy, because it is bloody windy and it is raining. Told we should be able to catch Salmon and King George Whiting, will give it a go tomorrow.

Got the satellite going and got to see the Broncos kick Dragons backside.

The next day is worse than yesterday. The caretaker has a wind turbine for generation power, it is on a tall pole with numerous stay wires. The wind is pushing so hard that the pole is bending just under the wind turbine.

We have a great site away from the wind with plenty of grass and beautiful little blue finches.

Went for a walk today to try and loosen up my knee, it is starting to seize after the walking around yesterday. Met this lovely fellow working under his house just up the road. 85 years of age and despite two buggered knees, open heart surgery earlier this year was cheerful and positive about everything, he was great just talking to him. I asked him about fishing from the beach, no good really, you are better off standing on the beach with a bucket and waiting for someone to give you a fish, which happens quite regularly he said proudly. The beach is covered in weed and apparently the flies come in and lay their eggs. When the maggots emerge so do the herring. You will get a few maggots in their guts but they are good eating. I left him and he starting singing to Tom Jones, what a lovely guy.

We wandered down to the beach but it is still blowing. Some brave individuals were attempting to fish but between wind and weed they were having no luck.

We went back to Northcliffe to have a look around town and visit the Understory Sculpture Walk.
This was recommended to us by Jim Rosie at Parry Beach whose son had built one of the sculptures.

The local council decided to build a sculpture walk to promote the forest of the area. They invited artists from around Australia and Overseas to submit ideas for their sculptures.
You are given a headset which conducts a tour of the walk.

It was interesting to hear the thoughts and processes that the artists had gone through before they had even made their submissions. One fascinating sculpture was 5 fingers made from old annual reports from large companies.

It was the artist’s interpretation of the grip the large companies have over the natural resources. He had carved the individual fingers from sheets of paper on a threaded rod concreted into the ground.

We then found Jim and Rosie’s son’s piece, this huge bronze heart representing the heart of the forest, amazing.

Some displays were using aboriginal themes and many others with quite interesting themes.

If I had time I would have done the display a second time.

Next door was a small museum based on the timber industry, now these guys were serious about their timber felling. Many examples of chainsaws as we know them and the biggest chainsaw I have ever seen.


The most insane piece of machinery was a circular saw attached to a motor, this was famous for cutting people in 2.

We ventured out for another walk to free up the knee so off we go to Cape D'Entrecasteau, if we weren’t hanging on I am sure we would have be blown away. The cliffs are limestone and wear fairly quickly when compared to other types of rock.

It leaves all jaged shapes and large chunks broken off in the ocean.

We have been trying to get a photo of a sunset on the water so off we go on our last night just before sunset. The clouds come streaming in and hide the sun.

Trice met Jack and his wife who have 2 pet Kangaroos, they have a little holiday hut. The 2 kangaroos are named  Munchkins and Stanley, guess which one was called Munchkins.

We now need a bit of time with internet service to do a few chores so we have decided to head to Manjimup. We will use this as a base and do a few day trips to see the sites.

Parry Beach and Denmark 3rd - 12th Mar 2013

Parry Beach 3rd - 5th March

We pull into Parry Beach, there was lots of commotion as the council was having a meeting. Apparently a local has made a complaint to council about caravans staying at Parry Beach rather than caravan parks. Let me look at this, right on the beach in a bush setting costing $50 per week, of course people want to stay here.

So the rules are set, no more than 2.75m in height and 20 foot in length. Laurie who is the camp host is beside himself, he has had an argument with the council guys. Their response is that Denmark does not need caravanners, I bet the business owners would not agree.

They also stated that if we can afford big vans then we can afford to stay in Denmark in a caravan park, have they actually thought that we might like to stay on the beach away from the crowds. Poor old Laurie who does not get paid is copping it from people he has to turn away some people are just idiots and seem to have fun bullying people. One idiot just drove his van straight through the height limit chain and broke it. Laurie has had enough and resigned on the spot, Easter is going to be a disaster. Our caravan is 100mm too high and 450mm too long, we understand and move to the overflow for the night.
The next day we went for a drive to Greens Pool and Elephant Rock, just spectacular. We had dropped into an icecreamery and met some Swiss tourists earlier in the day. Here they are at Greens Pool telling us to come for a swim with them, the water is freezing, no thanks. It was interesting that these 3 men were doing a whirlwind tour of New Zealand and Australia, they have been everywhere except Queensland.

The tour organiser had advised them to avoid Queensland as the weather is too unpredictable. We have heard this a few times now, tourism must be suffering in Queensland.

Elephant Rock just looks like a herd of elephants heading off into the ocean, these boulders are enormous. There is one smaller boulder in the bay and looks like the baby elephant trailing behind the others.

You climb down a staircase to the lower beach passing between 2 larger boulders you come out to beautiful white sand and beautiful blue water. No matter where you go the rocks sand and water are always spectacular.

 

We have taken longer than expected and have to get back to Parry Beach as you are only allowed 1 night in the overflow. I drop down to see Laurie to say goodbye. He asked what we were doing and I said we were going to head back to Denmark unless we could stay another night, with that he said “You have been drinking I cannot possibly let you drive”. I hadn’t been drinking but said “thank you, we will head off to Denmark in the morning.” 

Denmark 5-12 Mar

Stayed at Big 4 on Ocean Beach Road, beautiful caravanpark except for the duck poo everywhere. We met Len and Mav from Exmouth and Ron and Bet from Capel near Bussleton. What a great group of people, every day we join them for a few drinks in the afternoon.

 

Most nights are just a bundle of laughs. We decide to do a walk to Monkey Rock, a nice comfortable walk rated medium, if this is medium then Bluff Knoll should be rated “HORENDOUS”. We did the tourist drive and visited Ducketts Winery, beautiful lunch and the wine wasn’t too bad either.

We found a maze and decided to exercise our mental capacity, or lack of it. What appeared to be quite simple turned out to be a bit harder but we worked it out in the end.

More drinks and Ron is showing us card tricks, I decided to show him my famous magic trick, he was hooked. Weather turned bad and wind came up so couldn't do anything for 2 days, extremely cold, both Perth and Melbourne are suffering heat waves. Len and Ron wanted some signs done, it seems most times that I put my sign out I get work. I have now run out of Maroon vinyl.

We move out and decide to head west to Ayr Sailean, a sheep property with a camp ground, we appear to have a fetish with sheep properties.
 

It is a sad goodbye to Len, Mav, Ron and Bet but we will make sure we catch up in the near future.