South WA road-trip blog part two:

Road-trip Day 6: We drove north, visiting several wineries and a nice brewery overlooking a lake, where we sat on nice comfy sofas and drank a coffee and hot chocolate of all things! After getting a nice ice-cream from an ice-cream factory (apple pie flavour for Lisa and mascarpone with fig for me), we went to the lighthouse at the coast near Dunsborough and went to look for whales. We didn't see any, but I did spot a snake coiled on a tree stump about 20 metres below us. A lady later looked at the pictures and identified it as a python! We had lunch and visited another winery where I bought another nice yet quite cheap bottle. We then continued north and stayed at the YHA in Bunbury, which was full of really loud and immature long-term workers and we couldn't wait to get out of there!

Road-trip Day 7: We went to the Dolphin Discovery Centre in Bunbury and enjoyed seeing the tiny turtles being fed, but there weren't any dolphins around - apparently due to the choppy seas. They often come right up to the beach. So no whales yesterday and no dolphins today, but oh well! We continued the drive up the coast and headed inland to a small town called Harvey, which sounded interesting, but having seen the dam from the car we just continued driving through. We saw a turtle on the road (I actually drove straight over it - between the wheels) then it ran away from us back off the road and jumped into a pond! We thought turtles were meant to be slow but it beat us! We drove around the coast at Rockingham and arrived in Fremantle where we booked a room for two nights.

Road-trip Day 8: We walked around the city centre and then drove around the other parts of Fremantle such as the esplanade and the south beach - which had dirty grey sand and dark green water, though Lisa still assured me that it was better than Felixstowe. We spent the afternoon in an internet café and a brewery, before returning to the hostel to re-charge the laptop and watch Friends for what, like, the 15th time (canned laughter). Not much more excitement, other than more internet café, Friends and wine (raspberry cordial for Lisa). We decided against catching a ferry to Rottnest Island in the morning due to cost/weather, so will be heading to Scarborough beach!!!

Road-trip Day 9: We got up early and headed to Perth. It was cloudy all morning so we sat in the car at the beach and then went to Kings Park in the city. We checked into our hostel as it was raining all afternoon and stayed in away from the miserable weather! We are returning the car tomorrow night (we drove almost 2000km) and we are told that Perth isn't due to see blue skies again until after we leave on Tuesday.

Our next trip is up the West Coast from Perth to Exmouth:

25th August - Leave Perth for Kalbarri (Easyrider Bus Tour)

28th August - Leave Kalbarri for Denham (Easyrider Bus Tour)

31st August - Leave Denham for Coral Bay (Easyrider Bus Tour)

6th September - Leave Coral Bay for Exmouth (Easyrider Bus Tour)

11th September - Fly from Exmouth back to Perth

15th September - Fly from Perth to Cairns

Paul