Sugarloaf Rocks, Cape Naturaliste and Busselton.

After nursing our hangover from the wine tour with copious amounts of orange juice, we left to go have a quick look at sugarloaf rocks before heading to Cape Naturaliste lighthouse. Sugarloaf Rock is apparently one of the most photographed coastal land forms in the region. This is for good reason. We hopped up the few steps to the lookout and were greeted by beautiful crashing waves, unfortunately the weather wasn’t on our side and the photos as pretty dull but believe me, it was beautiful. And obviously James had to climb to the highest point.

We then took the short drive up to Cape Naturaliste, which is another headland off Geographe Bay, and the other end of the Cape to Cape trail. Cape Naturaliste is located in the Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park (named after both lighthouses). This lighthouse was activated in 1904 and has been undergoing significant restoration, there was a lovely cafe there and we popped in for a coffee and we were on our way again!

Our next stop was the town of Busselton, where they hold the Western Australia Ironman events (James was definitely very excited about this). We drove straight to the Busselton Jetty which is where the Ironman starts from. The view was spectacular, even more than usual probably as we arrived in the early evening and the sun was beginning to go down. We decided to walk, rather than take the jetty train down the 1.841 kilometre jetty. It is apparently the longest timber jetty in the southern hemisphere. We decided to pay extra to go into the Underwater Observatory at the end of the jetty. You descend 8 meters down some stairs and get to view hundreds of tropical fish, corals and sponges, it was absolutely lovely, however you are only given a 15 minute slot which is a bit disappointing as you could really watch these fish for hours. It was amazing that these fish were not contained at all, but made their home at the end of the jetty.

After the jetty walk we popped to The Goose bistro for a glass of shiraz and a beer, which was perfect to watch the sunset and chat about what an amazing few weeks we had. This was unfortunately the end of our trip as we were soon flying to the Northern Territory for some verge cutting, but that’s a whole other story.

Cape Leeuwin, Jewel Cave, Hamelin Bay and Margaret River.

Our first stop after all the trees was the small town of Augusta, where we popped into the tourist office and the lady in there was more than helpful and let us know about all the obvious and hidden gems of the area. Our first stop was Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse. This marks the start of the ‘Cape to Cape’ track which is a 135km walking trail, which we certainly did NOT do. Anyway, Cape Leeuwin.. It is considered the tallest lighthouse on mainland Australia, and it was super pretty. We paid our small entrance fee and received our headphones and cassette to listen to our audio tour. We walked around the area, which was still under construction, and learned all about the workers quarters and the lighthouse’s construction. We decided against actually going up in the lighthouse as there were heaps of tourists there and we dreaded the idea of being pushed and shoved up and down the narrow stairways. Instead, we wandered along the wooden walking paths to look out at see in the hope to spot a dolphin!

 

As soon as we had our fill of the fabulous lighthouse we made our way to the Jewel Caves which are also located in the Margaret River area. Jewel cave is apparently the biggest network of caves on display in Western Australia and is impressively home to one of the longest straw stalactites found in any toured cave in Australia (I have faith in you readers knowing the difference between stalactites and stalagmites ha!). We paid for an hour guided tour of the caves and were in awe of these beautifully formed caves. Afterwards we completed a little walk in their Karri Forest but were soon too annoyed by the flies to continue and ran back to the safety of the car and air-conditioning!!

As we were continuing back up the Margaret River Peninsula we stopped off at Margaret River Sculpture Park which in my opinion was both quirky and spectacular all at the same time. We rocked up after lunch, there was not a person to be seen. No cars in the car park, nobody even at the make-shift ticket booth… Just a little sign requesting that we deposited ten of our finest dollars in a little honesty tin and worked away ourselves. As you wandered through the acres of weathered wooden sculptures it was obvious that the creator had an extremely busy and passionate mind. We saw a lot of negative reviews on Trip Advisor, but as usual I completely ignored them. This place was amazing. The owner and sculptor Brendan created all these pieces by himself and was also attempting to make the place beautiful and fun to walk around at the same time. It had a great atmosphere and I look forward to seeing it in a few years time.

Once we had departed this little gem, truly flabbergasted, we headed on to the beautiful Hamelin Bay. This was one of the big places on our list, there was no way we were missing it. We parked up quickly and threw on some sun-cream and headed to the beach where these giant black shadows swam in the shallow water. If the shadows weren’t moving, you may have mistaken them for large stones under the water, however they were known as the Hamelin Bay sting rays (some of them around a meter long). We waded shin deep into the clear blue water and to my delight (and James’ surprise) the sting rays swam around our feet and brushed lightly off us, in the hope of being fed fish scraps from the fishermen around the bay. While admiring these great beasts we also noticed a pod of dolphins swimming not far from us. To our amazement, as the dolphins arrived the two local fishermen began pulling wild salmon from the water with their rods. No sooner had they reeled one in then another one was ready to be caught, it turns out the dolphins were herding these massive salmon into the bay for a little bit of lunch, which made it a dream for the two unsuspecting fishermen only a couple of meters beside us. It made for great viewing, however I was very upset that we didn’t get offered a little for dinner!

 

That night we went and stayed in a lovely camp ground called ‘The big valley campground’ which was a massive campsite on a working farm near Margaret River. We got a good night sleep in preparation for our wine tour the following morning.  A lovely woman (whose name eludes me) from Bushtucker Tours picked us up at 9am from the campsite for our first wine tour. The day is a bit blurry as we drank A LOT of wine, but I do know we went to 5 vineyards/wineries a brewery the Margaret River Cheese Company and the chocolate factory (vom) which James loved, and in the middle we were given a real bushtucker lunch including crocodile, kangaroo and lots of bush fruits and veg. All washed down by a lovely glass of pinot, yum. After getting sufficiently inebriated, we got dropped back to our campsite and as we were the last to be dropped off we were given all the leftovers from lunch!