Gnomes, Frogs and Cows

We left our campsite in Yarloop, not planning to travel too far. Our main stop for the day was to visit Gnomesville a little intersection where someone popped a garden gnome years ago and it has grown to hundreds, probably thousands of gnomes throughout the bush. We explored through the pathways giggling at the different types of gnomes and setups we could find.

From here we made our way to our campsite for the night at Glen Mervyn Dam. It was lovely to be camped on the water however watching the ski boats go back and forth in front of us made us miss our boat and ski gear sitting at home collecting dust. It was nice to try out an overnight stop in the van and we are already getting fairly efficient with setup and pack up.

The next day we headed towards Busselton stopping on our way at Frog Hollow. This was kind of like Gnomesville but smaller and with frogs. We still had lots of fun finding all the different frogs hiding in the nooks and crannies.

At Busselton we planned to explore the jetty, the longest timber pile jetty in the Southern Hemisphere at 1.8km long. We decided to walk the jetty rather than take the train and enjoyed the scenery and the colours in the water on the way. As we walked back we stopped to watch the seagulls on the old pylons who had nested there and were looking after some young chicks. It was interesting to note that the baby seagulls are coloured the same as their egg shells that we had seen at Penguin Island. The girls also enjoyed the free museum at the start of the jetty especially looking at the birds eye view of Busselton over the last 200 years in 10 year increments and how it changed.

After some toasties back in the carpark we decided to visit the Shelter Brewery which was on the foreshore while the kids played on the playground. Dave had a tasting paddle while I ordered myself a spider because I love them. As fate would have it the kids returned just as my spider hit the table so they were looking for a treat. We sent them over to the icecream shop to see what was on offer and returned with amazing icecreams topped with sprinkles, fairy floss and white chocolate mermaid tails.

We topped up the groceries and did a load of washing at the laundromat before finding our next campsite just out of town. We were planning on spending 2 nights here but ended up staying 3 so we had 2 days to head out and explore the Margaret River region. The first day was an eating day. We visited the fudge factory in Margaret river (and bought fudge), the Candy Cow and Temper Temper Chocolate in Cowanrup (and bought some lollies and great hot chocolates) before having lunch in the park and finding some of the local cow statues.

We then headed out to the Margaret River Chocolate Factory enjoying some delicious truffles and then to Cheeky Monkey Brewery for some tasting. Our final stop was the Margaret River Dairy to get some cheese.

Our second day was spent visiting the scenic stuff. We started with a walk to Quinninup falls which was a nice walk but the steep sand dune was a bit of a killer on the way back to the car.

We then stopped in at Canal Rocks which was really impressive to watch, especially when the big waves rolled over and through the channels. Once again we were amazed by how clear the water is down here.

We then drove up to Cape Nautiste and did another walk around there. Unfortunately after our other walk that morning we were all exhausted by the end of it so probably didn't enjoy it as much as we would have otherwise. We think the walk actually broke Charli as she didn't talk for half an hour after we had got some food into her - some fantastic hot chips on a small Busselton beach, followed by a paddle in the ocean. We then returned to our campsite to begin preparing to leave again the next morning while the girls finished off the fairy village they had been building.

We have had a lovely time in the Busselton/Margaret River region but it's time to keep heading east.