So we’ve packed, done the
groceries and headed further south and not far from the actual south
coast. The land surrounding us is so green
and not only are there many vineyards around us but also a lot of sheep
farms. We arrived in the township of
Margaret River and attempted to get into a caravan park here but they both seem
to be booked out – it probably as something to do with the Agricultural Show
being on this weekend? We checked our
maps and noticed another one ten minutes away on the west coast and in the town
of Prevelly; and they had plenty of vacancies!
After we had lunch, we took the footy to the mini oval in the caravan
park and played a two-a-side game of aussie rules… Zoe and Josh vs Sami and
me. Zoe was swift, fast and accurate but
Sami defended well and tackled brilliantly, leaving Zoe covered in many bruises
by the end of the game. It was a close
game but I think Zoe and Josh just pipped us at the post. Zoe needed a shower to get the grass stains
and itch off her but then we piled into the car ready for adventure. We headed slightly south to a nearby beach
called Gnarabup and I don’t think it’s the best place for your relaxing swim as
the sign cited “strong rips, large waves, slippery rocks, sand bars and sharks”!! We kept to the shore and checked the beach
out from the nearby lookout instead.
Driving along further we found where the Margaret River flows in/out
from the ocean, parked the car and decided to walk along the beach edge to see
how far we could get. Our walk didn’t
last long – we approached a couple of families that were fishing and couldn’t
get much further past them so returned the way we came. That was all our adventure for this
afternoon; we instead returned to the van for another game of aussie rules –
this time a neighbouring family with a young 5 year old, Chloe, came to join us
for a bit of a kick and then back to the van for some drawing fun with
Sami. We ended up sending her home so
that we could get the kids stuck into a bit of school work before dinner and
then kicked back and watched Back to the Future – memories of watching this one
long, long ago.
We got out of the van relatively
early today as we had lots to see. We continued
down the coastline, first stop at Redgate Beach where the swell was pretty big
crashing against some big boulders out at sea.
We continued right through Augusta and as far south we could go taking
us to the most south western tip of the continent, Cape Leeuwin, where the
Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean.
We paid our money to do the tour of the Leeuwin Lighthouse, the tallest
and longest running in Western Australia.
Part of the tour was a walk around the grounds with a headset on. It was so cold and windy, I struggled to see
how the light-keepers and their families lived here back in the early 1900s. It took nearly an hour to finish our recorded
tour, but just in time for our tour of the actual lighthouse. A lovely tour guide told us about the history
of this lighthouse and lots of information about how it worked and the way it was
manually run for about 100 years. It is
still a working lighthouse but now everything is automatic, no more carting
kerosene up all those steps. We took the
170+ steps to the top floor of the lighthouse and out onto the extremely windy deck. We had a bit of luck out there on the edge as
there were a couple of whales frolicking nearby in the ocean, flapping their
tales and diving through the water - they were stunning. On leaving we drove past the Matthew Flinders
cairn and Flinders Bay before heading towards Jewel Cave as recommended by the
Crystal Cave, Yanchep tour guide. In his
opinion, this was the best one in the south west. We were tossing up whether to do it as it was
just another cave and another cost but Josh went in to investigate and when he
returned to join us for lunch, he told us that he’d paid the money and not just
to do this cave but also two others. We
went on into our first, Jewel Cave and the first thing that hit us was the
actual size and room in here. It was a
long way down (around 42 metres at the deepest point) with lots of stairs and
there were plenty of stalagmites, stalactites, columns, shawls, pendulites and
thousands of straws (including the third largest stalactite straw in the
world). Originally, the only way into
this cave was through a hole in the roof and apparently it was through this hole
that a tasmanian tiger (now extinct) became trapped and perished. It was well worth the money as this was again
very different to any of the other caves we’d seen and it had lots of dazzling crystal
white formations. From here we realised
that we had time to fit another cave in so we drove through the gorgeous
landscape and onto Lake Cave. This cave
was similar but still had its differences.
For example, this cave is entered via a giant doline (where the cave has
“caved” in) and so the start of this cave actually starts outside with huge
weathered stalactites hanging above you.
Upon entering deep into this cave, the “suspended table” appears; which
is two massive stalactites with a table like feature stuck to the bottom of it,
weighing around 5 tonne and simply defying gravity by holding in place. The kids enjoyed the lit up dragon that blows
flames onto the suspended table and most of all the climb back to the top, all
62 metres and hundreds of stairs – of course they were first out. On our way back we took the karri forest
road, stopping for a quick couple of photos even though ours never turn out as good as the
professionals. Back at the caravan park,
Josh and Sami went to kick the footy a while and Zoe and I organised dinner. We had some new neighbours in the park
tonight, I’m sure placed right next to us in pay back for many vanning nights
that we’ve had with friends… we didn’t mind the noise or the loud music (it was
good stuff) but their singing was atrocious and so was their language. We put up with it until around 11pm and
thankfully it started to rain so they packed up and headed for cover.
Today we started by heading to
our third cave, called Mammoth Cave. This
was a self-guided tour with audio and headphones and the entrance to this cave
was like walking through the side of a cave mountain. This cave was absolutely huge – hence the
name and there have been lots of megafauna found in this cave, the bones are
displayed to prove it. There is even a
jawbone from a large animal from over 44,000 years ago – it’s amazing! By the time we exited this cave we were on
the opposite side of Caves Road and had to cross back and walk through the
karri forest to return our headsets. We next
went for a walk down the main street of Margaret River stopping only really to
taste a bit of fudge and go into the information centre and then thought we’d
go to a winery. However, upon stopping
at the Xanadu winery and having a look inside, I decided it would be no fun to
drink alone so we got out of there and made tracks back to the coast, north of
where we were staying. It was a place
called Ellenbrook Homestead but what we were more interested in was finding the
Meekadarribee Falls. We started down the
path in which the signs directed us and along the way passed a few other people
on their return walk – they advised us that they couldn’t find any running falls
but we continued anyway. We too wandered
along the path following the river until we reached a bridge that had been
ruined by a falling tree. There was no
running waterfall but instead a grotto with a diary (more like a story book)
telling us the tale of Meekadarribee. I
felt like we’d gone back a few years and I was reading a story to the girls, at
least they were interested while I read.
We took the path back to the car and returned to the van for another
quick game of aussie rules. The kids
also got stuck into a bit of artwork that they had to do for school – Sami was
getting very frustrated as she was trying to make a fictional animal with
functioning wings, eventually Josh succeeded in helping her to get it work
close enough to how she wanted. We had
another movie night tonight – Back to the Future II but once again Josh didn’t
make the end of it.
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