Great Southern

The Great Southern is a region of WA that includes Albany, Denmark, Plantagenet, the Stirling Range and other small inland towns. Last weekend we headed down to a township within Plantagenet called Mount Barker that we used as a base to explore the region.

Several years ago we visited Albany and decided it was worth another visit as the coastline is so spectacular but our goal over the weekend was to visit the Sterling Range and climb Bluff Knoll.

The Sterling Range is one of Western Australia's few mountain wildernesses with beautiful wild flowers and rugged mountains peaking to 1095 metres above sea level at Bluff Knoll. There are many day and overnight walking tracks and over 200 rock climbing sites around the Sterling Range area.  We decided to climb Bluff Knoll for the challenge and to take in the views that apparently go to the coastline, unfortunately not on Saturday when we walked.

It was a challenging walk, especially if you don't like heights, as there were times when it was a sheer drop to the side, as long as I held onto a rock or plant on the high side of the track I felt fine but there was no way I could look at the view.  The track was well marked but occasionally you needed to move out of the way for walkers coming in the opposite direction. When we were approaching the summit/peak we could smell sausages being cooked, and as we got closer to the peak there was actually a portable BBQ that someone decided to carry along as they thought it would be the quintessential Australian thing to do. I'm sure there's a business idea here as it was a cool 12 degrees with a probable wind chill factor of 8 and as the walk had been strenuous your clothes were damp when you stopped to recover, so a hot sausage sizzle would be great to help you recover and keep you warm but I don't think the National Parks would agree.

It's suggested that the walk of 7 kilometres return takes around 3 - 4 hours, which is about what we did. My fear of heights didn't seem to kick in on the way down, it was a lot easier than I thought but physically more challenging than going up as there was a lot of pressure on the knees. At about half way down we stopped at the waterfall and enjoyed some cold fresh water before walking towards the car park. We both loved the walk and hope to visit for an extended period next time so that we can enjoy a few more walks and maybe visit some of the wonderful vineyards in this area.

One of the beaches at Torndirrup National Park outside Albany

Driving towards Bluff Knoll

On the way up

BBQ at the peak of Bluff Knoll

View from the summit

View on the way down with the car park in sight

The walk at a  lower point on the climb

A profile view of the Bluff Knoll

Clothes and Sport

The last week has been mixed with seeing exhibitions and watching sport.

Currently Perth has an exhibition called Mad for Fashion featuring original costumes from the Mad Men series. As a lover of clothes I couldn't get enough and was disappointed there were only 20 outfits, including shoes, handbags, jewellery, dresses and debonair suits that the stars have worn.  So I kept walking around the exhibition and took lots of photos as I would love to replicate some of the dresses.

From there I went to the Perth Art Gallery to visit the Princely Treasures from the Victoria and Albert Museum that features some beautiful garments from the 18th century and other art artifacts.

Perth also held a Hockey International Super Series where we were spectators watching several games including the Hockeyroos and the Kookaburras who both won against India. There was a variation to the rules for these hockey games which included only 15 minutes a half with 18 players but 9 on the field.

Water Water Every Where

We've just had a wonderful week with Mum who flew across from Sydney.  Mum has visited Western Australia several times, though not in recent years, so we thought we'd visit places that have changed in recent times.

One of those places was Mandurah that's approximately one hour south of Perth and has grown expediently in the last 10 years from an isolated holiday community to a major regional area of Western Australia with a  railway line and freeway linking it to Perth.

Mandurah is situated on the Peel Inlet and Harvey Estuary and is one of Australia's largest inlet system and is twice the size of Sydney Harbour. The city itself lies in and around the waterway system with a large number of suburbs having been built around artificially created canal systems. Some of these houses are massive with large cars parked out the front and big boats out the back on the water.

We had a quiet picnic next to the beach, watching boats and kite surfers enjoying the sea breeze.

Beach alongside Halls Head Parade

Lazy days

The old and the new

Another Weekend

On Friday afternoon I headed down the Kwinana Freeway towards the Margaret River District to a place called Bunker Bay, a three hour drive from Perth. Tim had been there for a three day conference with work colleagues and now it was time for the wives and families to join them.

Bunker Bay is a sheltered northerly facing beach near Cape Naturaliste on the western tip of Geographe Bay. This beach has pristine white sand with gentle rolling waves, unfortunately though a surfer was taken by a shark from this location only a few weeks ago.  There were few people in the water but of the 12 men from Tim's work Tim was the only brave sole to take a dive in the surf.

Saturday's entertainment was watching the whales frolicking in the bay.

On the horizon you can just see the tail of a whale

Eastern end of beach

Vegetation on the beach

Bunker Bay

A Weekend Drive

We hit the road around 5am Saturday morning to make the trip to Kalgoorlie, there was little traffic except for the grey nomads crisscrossing the countryside.  Nature provided us with a array of colour in the form of wildflowers that boarded the roadway and there was not much else to break the rhythm of the rolling kilometers, except for slowing the pace when passing through small towns with only a pub and service station.  But there were two towns that were somewhat larger called Southern Cross and Coolgardie, with Coolgardie having several significant historic buildings as this is the place gold was first found in 1892.

Gold was found in Kalgoorlie in 1893 and it has been the main source of income for this town, with the other being in the 19th century sandlewood that was exported to China. On the edge of Kalgoorlie there's a fenced off area where you can see mounds of dirt and vegetation but nothing else until you drive through the gates to the Viewing Platform. There you see the Super Pit which is unimaginable enormous, there is no way you could take one photo of the pit as it is so extensive, you can just make out the trucks at the bottom of the pit and they look like match box toys.

Kalgoorlie for all its roughness has a wonderful main street where new developments hasn't occurred and the beautiful old buildings have been maintained giving you a feel of what it might have been like in its hay day. A visit to the museum and  an evening at the Palace Hotel we left Kalgoorlie early Sunday morning for a 6 hour drive to Wave Rock.

Wave Rock is outside a small township called Hyden, it is a granite outcrop that has a wave like formation.  On top of Wave Rock a retaining wall has been built to collect precious rainwater for the town and there are marked walking tracks over the rock  so that visitors can appreciate the rock and the surrounding landscape.

We arrived home around 7pm after a full weekend.

Wild flowers and Kalgoorlie's water supply - the pipe from Perth

Super Pit

Building in the main street Kalgoorlie

Views towards the Super Pit

Exchange Hotel Kalgoorlie

Wave Rock

A rock on top of the Rock