Cape Le Grande - WA

10th November - 13th November 2014

Once again we camped up with The Moars, and also reunited with a family we met in Perth, the Bales.  Jon, Lorraine, Jasmine and Meagan Bale are on their second trip around Australia!  Cape Le Grande is a beautiful national park with the most amazing beaches.  

The beach at Cape Le Grande was quite nice and only 100 metres from our camp, but the most spectacular beach was at Lucky Bay.  It's a picture perfect place with gorgoues blue water and pure white sand.  We had a beautiful day fishing, kayaking and playing around on the beach.  Stu and Jon had no luck fishing, but Dave on his kayak and caught 3 fish in 20 mins!  The great thing about these beaches is you can drive your 4wd onto the beach and set up, no lugging everything from your car!

There are lots of little bays and beaches around Cape Le Grande.  We visited Hellfire Bay, and Thistle Cove.  They are all extremely pretty.

One evening around the camp Jon and Dave pulled out their guitars and had a strum.  Stu was a bit left out, so Jon bought out his didgeridoo and that was Stu's instrument!  We called them the Le Grande Band, quite an amusing night with lots of laughs!

Next we're off to tackle the Nullabor.

      Cape Le Grande Beach

Cape Le Grande campground

Hellfire Bay

                                                                 Cool Jellyfish

Lucky Bay Beach

 

Lucky Bay

Ashton kayaking at Lucky Bay

 All the kids on Lucky bay beach

The fishermen at Lucky bay

Esperance - WA

8th November - 10th November 2014

Esperance is a pretty coastal town with the most amazing coastline l've ever seen.  The tourist drive takes you all along the coast with lots of spots to stop and check out the beautiful beaches.  We stopped at 11 Mile Beach with its fantastic blue water and also Twilight Beach which was voted Australia's best beach in 2006.  It did look very impressive with its huge rock formations in the perfectly blue water.  

We also visited a full size replica of Stonehenge.  Quite strangely a family used some of their property to build the replica.  Quite cool to see!

Next stop is Cape Le Grande National Park.

Twilight Beach

11 Mile Beach

11 Mile Beach

Stunning coastline

Observatory Beach

Stonehenge replica

Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Bremer Bay - WA

4th November - 8th November 2014

We looked forward to having a few days stop here as we've done a lot of short trips of late.  We got a good deal for 4 nights so decided to take that.  We caught up with The Moars, Jude, Dave, Eliza and Jasmine, and had a celebratory drink or two for cup day!  Bremer Bay is a quiet little coastal town popular for its beaches and fishing.  We checked out the different beaches around the place, but the kids fell in love with one particular beach close to the caravan park.  It was an awesome spot, you could drive straight onto the beach like it was a road!  The kids loved it here and spent ages playing in the sand, although no-one was brave enough to swim as it was too cold!

We had a great 4 nights here hanging out with the Moars and keeping warm by the fire!

Our next stop is Esperance.

Bremer Bay

             One of the beautiful beaches

Happy Kids!

 The estuary meets the ocean 

Albany - WA

3rd November - 4th November 2014

We are just doing an overnight stop in Albany mainly to visit the Optus shop as our mobile wifi is broken!
  

On the weekend Albany celebrated 100 years since the date the ANZACS left Albany to leave for Gallipoli.  Apparently their were 70,000 visitors to the town to celebrate.  We'd arrived on the Monday hoping it would be quiet again!

We did all our jobs of washing, shopping and then went to check out the ANZAC memorial.  It was a very moving place knowing that so many people left these shores never to return.

The boys loved the caravan park as they had a guest lounge with free wifi, a big tv and lots of DVDs to choose from!  The best part was they actually had lounge chairs, it was so cosy just like being at home!

Next stop is Bremer Bay.

Albany Town Beach

            ANZAC Memorial                                       View of memorial from lookout

View of Albany from lookout

Parry's Beach - WA

1st November - 3rd November 2014

Parry's Beach is a lovely little camp right on the beach.  We set up and recognised that the van beside us was a family we had met in Perth, The Moars.  A few minutes after that we spotted another family we had also met in Perth, The Bales.  It was great to catch up with some familiar faces and the kids with a few of the gang they had met in Perth.

We took a trip into Denmark and checked out the town, quite a nice place.  After lunch the three families met up at a place called Greens Pool, which was a beautiful snorkeling and swimming spot. Ashton and a few of the other kids got in but it was too cold for me!  After that we all gathered at our campsite and had a fire and a BBQ.  It was quite a chilly day so the fire was very nice.

Tomorrow all three families are leaving Parry's Beach and heading in different directions, our next stop is Albany.

The beautiful Green's Pool

 Greens Pool

Greens Pool

Greens Pool

Shannon National Park - WA

31st October - 1st November 2014

We have been told about this national park by a few people so thought we'd better stop and check it out! We only stayed one night as we need to keep moving south towards home!  It's quite good value for a national park with flushing toilets and even a shower.  The hot water was heated by wood fire so Stu had to light the fire so we could all have a hot shower.  We did this and then realised there was no lights in the shower so we had a hot shower by torch light!

The boys met some kids here so they were kept busy playing soccer, whilst Stu and l sat by the fire!

On our way to Parry's Beach which is our next destination, we stopped and looked at Valley of the Giants.  This is a treetop walk which at its peak is suspended 40 metres from the ground.  It was a beautiful walk among the huge tingle trees.

Our Camp

Josh doing his schoolwork

Valley of the Giants

A replica holden that used to fit in the tingle tree!

The treetop walk

Augusta - WA

29th October - 31st October 2014

By sheer chance we found an awesome park just out of Augusta called Molloy Caravan Park. We were almost going to bypass Augusta as all the parks were really expensive, but Molloy didn't charge us for the kids, which was a saving of $20 per night.  We arrived and were pleasantly surprised to find a lovely park situated right on a lake.  We got a great spot looking straight out onto the water. Stuart did a bit of fishing with no joy but peaceful all the same.  The abundance of animals here were amazing.  There were ducks, pelicans, parrots, rabbits and kangaroos!  The boys had great fun feeding the parrots!

We only anticipated staying one night here but fell in love with the place so stayed for two nights.

On our second day we went to Cape Leewin and checked out the lighthouse.  On this cape the Southern and Indian Oceans meet and along with the rocky landscape make for a dangerous place on the sea. 

Our next stop is Shannon National Park.

Feeding frenzy!

Mother duck and her little chicks!

Cape Leewin Lighthouse

Busselton - WA

25th October - 29th October 2014

We arrived in Busselton and didn't realise how close we were to Margaret River, so decided to base ourselves there for our winery expeditions!

On our first day we checked out the town of Busselton and went to the Busselton Jetty.  The jetty is 1.8klm one way, so we took the easy option and caught the little train out to the end.  At the end of the jetty is an underwater observatory.  The observatory was very cool with lots of fish and coral to view. The pillars of the jetty had formed an artificial reef which the coral was growing on.  It looked like one huge fish tank!

The kids were a little over visiting lighthouses but whinging aside we went to Cape Naturalise Lighthouse.  It's quite an unusual lighthouse because it's so small.  We climbed to the top and even spotted some whales!

Over the next few days we visited many wineries, breweries, and sampled the delicious foods of the Margaret River region.  Lots of yummy food and alcohol is what it's all about!  We had two lovely lunches out and purchased some beautiful food and wine!

Our next stop is Augusta.

The train                                                        The underwater observatory

Cape Naturalise Lighthouse

The Thompson's up the top!

 Eagle Bay Brewery, tasting paddle

Beautiful Eagle Bay, a hidden gem