Tuesday 15 October 2013

2 October – 3 October 2013 – Guilderton, Moore River, Two Rocks and Yanchep National Park (Crystal Cave)



Onto the next town today, being Guilderton.  We had booked in at Guilderton Caravan Park which was right on the Moore River.  It was a good location but an expensive place to stay.  We had a fantastic site right next to the gate into the river and beach area.  It was a decent day weatherwise, warm which is better than overcast; and a light breeze which is better than the wind we’ve been experiencing.  After a quick lunch we headed to the river and the kids were nagging for someone to go in with them.  I couldn’t stand the nagging any longer so I was the dummy that went in with them.  It was fairly shallow, only waist deep when we reached half way but the kids wanted to keep going until we reached the other side – so we kept on.  It got to the point where I couldn’t stand anymore and we had to swim the rest of the way, not being able to stand again until right before where we got out of the water.  Fortunately, I was able to convince them to walk back to Josh.  When back, they had a big of fun playing in the sand while Josh and I chilled out.  It got quite cold so we went home and left the kids there while Josh and I went for a walk around town.  We walked all the way to the lighthouse which was off the beaten track.  It was up a sandy hill and had a fence enclosure around it so we couldn’t get a good look at it anyway.

The following day we went exploring further south.  We stopped at Two Rocks and went for a quick walk on the opposite side to the marina.  There was a car alarm siren going off the whole time and apparently it was making Sami feeling sick so we didn’t stay long.  Further south was a lookout over what I think was called Yanchep Lagoon.  There were plenty of people out for a swim at this tiny beach and the car park was quite full thanks to the road works going on.  We found somewhere to park the car and walked down to the beach – there were plenty of people everywhere (probably because they hadn’t had a whole lot of hot weather).  We grabbed some ice-creams and then went for a drive.  This area is fairly new and there are a lot of new homes around and many more new ones still in the process of being built.  We left here and found a national park nearby, called Yanchep National Park.  There was a lovely green grassy area where we stopped to have our picnic lunch before heading off to see yet another cave.  This was called Crystal Cave (and it’s nowhere near Atherton) and the first white man to find this limestone cave was Henry White in 1903.  He used to do some tours for his friends through this cave, and in doing so, they would quite often cut off the point of some of the stalactites as a souvenir which you can see above you as you walk in. The other thing that you notice is the very long root from a tuart tree which has grown deep into the cave in search of water, reason being is that an underground stream used to be very prominent throughout this cave but it has now mostly dried up and there is very little water now in it.  The tour lasted about 45 minutes and once finished we went for a further walk – this time along the Koala Boardwalk.  The koalas were a bit hard to spot as there are not many of them but also because, as expected, they were all fast asleep in the forks of the trees.  We were in time to listen to a short presentation about koalas which was good to hear all over again.  Funny thing is that whilst listening to the talk, Sami happened to drop a thong through the boardwalk and onto the ground below – lucky there weren’t any ferocious koalas about and we were able to get it back.  Our last site for today was the Yanchep Inn, which was built in the 1900s and has the character of an old English Tudor lodge.  It is stunning as it is made from local limestone and looks to have been a very sophisticated place in its day.






































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