During my stay down in Bussleton Beach Resort (my Uncle's timeshare) I also had a loan of their Subaru Forrester for the week, so what else could I do but 'Road Trip'. Over the course of the week I did a series of day trips down to locations in the South West corner including Margaret River and Augusta. My favorite of the lot being Margaret river and the Caves Road which runs from Cape Naturalista, in the North, and Cape Leeuwin in the South. There are, as the name suggests a series of caves along the caves road, I went to two of them; the Ngiligi Cave and the Jewel cave - the Geologist within me getting the better of me both times, with over 300 pics in total!
At the end of the week, when my time at the beach resort had ended I deceided to go on a rather longer road trip to Albany, where I would stay for the weekend. Albany was roughly 400KM from Bussleton, or the route I took was anyway! and included a drive down through the ancient forrests of the South West - including the so-called 'valley of the giants' - this was a lovely drive but unfortunatly the rolloing hills and trees made it impossible to get a radio signal, so roughly a 5 hours drive in silence - not ideal!
I liked Albany, first significant civilization I had seen since leaving Bunbury!, a coastal town with a bit of history, the backpaker's I stayed in was right down on the shorefront, close to a supermarket and visitor centre and very friendly. There I met my first Germans and Dutch, a very friendly bunch, drunk copious amounts of alcohol and went to the "worst nightclub in the Southern Hemisphere" - as voted somewhere 3 years on the trot! As for he nightclub, I didn't actually find it all that bad you know, reminded me of a night out in Aberdare, Wales. Over the weekend I had a BBQ on the beach - the Australians have these fantastic free gas BBQs dotted around the place that you can use (just bring the meat) - went to see local attractions such as the Bridge and gap, rock formations, and the blowholes which weren't blowing on that day (they need a big swell from the sea) and went to the afore mentioned nightclub.
The couple of Dutch guys I met, Baretk and Goep, had just finished on a strawberry farm, after one morning, and were looking for work, I offered them a lift to Bunbury as they might have more luck further north for hospitality jobs, so I had a bit of company on the way back. on the way 'home' we stopped off in the valley of the giants, which is in between Walpole and Denmark, here you can go on a tree-top walk some 50 foot up amoungst the giant Kirri trees, which was nice.
