Good morning everyone that's following our journey. Today is a little wet but no where as wet as on the East coast, you guys must have web feet by now.
We've had a fairly quite time for the last month sitting out the school holidays in Margaret River but we have managed to see a lot of the south west area from Bunbury to Cape Leeuwin along the coast and east to Collie down to Windy Harbour south of Manjimup, we have had all ranges of temperature from cool 20 degrees to hot 38's. This is a lovelly area, peaceful and beautiful with scenery from oceans - vinyards - farms - forrests. They have the second tallest trees in Australia growing around Pemberton, the Karri tree. Nev climbed the Gloucester tree the other day, it is 65 mtrs tall and the steps to climb the tree are 1inch steel rods bashed into the tree. photos following.
These photos were taken while Melissa was visiting over Christmas,
We had gone for a drive to Augusta and Cape Leewin and the top 2 photos were at a rest area overlooking the Southern Ocean on the way to Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse.
The cow was part of an exhibition around Western Australia in 2010, I think there was something like 200 cow statues in different positions and designs, this one is a pirate with sword, parrot and rings in it's ear & nose.
Melissa & Nev are reading about the lighthouse and the view from the top of the lighthouse which Nev & I climbed, all 370 steps to the top, amazing sights from the top and the camera batteries died, what can I say.
The following photos are of Basildene Manor where we stayed for Christmas, it is a 100yr old home originally built as a residence with 4 bedrooms upstairs then it was sold and turned into a motel and another 13 rooms added on, now it is part of the ACCOR group and has recently been refurbished, it is an elegant place to stay and the grounds were tranquil & picturesque. We had a great stay even when the peace was shattered when one of their guest arrived in his own helicopter and landed on the grounds near our rooms.
Nev climbing the Gloucester Karri tree in Pemberton WA. These trees were used for fire spotting from 1937 to 1992 maybe I'm not sure on the finish date but it was around that time, the fire spotters used to climb the tree every day and stay up there until dark looking for fires they would then radio the position through to headquarters, this was at the peak logging period of the area.
