The Windy South - Southern Forests, Albany and Esperance

Leaving the Margaret River region we first headed to Augusta stopping at Jewel Cave on the way. While Dave and the girls love that stuff, I am really not keen on anything that requires me to go underground so I was happy to volunteer to sit with Jezy while the others visited the cave. According to the kids the cave was amazing and they loved that they flashed around coloured lights throughout the cave.

We had heard that Augusta was a very pretty place to visit but we didn't end up stopping long as there was some big grey clouds building and we decided it was better to keep moving to our next stop. This was a small private camprground called Sid's Campground, just out of Northcliffe in the Southern Forests region. It was cheap ($22 per night including power as our batteries needed a break), had good facilities and very friendly camp hosts who were fellow Victorians who had been stranded thanks to Covid.

It was back to miserable weather for a few days. The warm clothes came out, the annex walls went up and we enjoyed a communal fire each evening during our stay. Charli had a great time using the trucks for her Barbies and Elly found an array of musical instruments in the common room. We spent one day in the camground just having a rest. The other we headed out to visit Manjimup and some of the other local towns and then down to the coast to see "The Window." Driving around this area really made us think of home as the environment is very similar.

After an enjoyable 3 nights at Sid's we headed towards Albany. On our way we stopped to visit the Valley of the Giants. After a walk around the free walk, and a lot of begging from Elly, we decided to do the treetop walk and ended up buying a great pass that got us reduced entry to this plus the whaling museum and ANZAC centre in Albany. Dave and the girls ended up doing the treetop walk twice, I was happy to keep my feet on the ground the second time as I did not deal well with the swaying platforms, even with Mr engineer assuring me it was safe and an interesting design.

Our campsite for the next few days was Cosy Corner just out of Albany, a free camp on the beach, which is great in theory until you factor in that damn wind we just keep finding. The day we arrived was our wedding anniversary and we were fortunate to find a seafood truck at the campsite so we were able to enjoy some delicious tiger prawns for dinner. I had to spend some time doing homework as assignment due dates were looming so Dave took the girls into town to do the laundry and pick up the first of our Christmas decorations. We had a lovely time that afternoon setting up our very small Christmas tree and trying to figure out how we were going to travel and keep all the decorations attached. The wind continued as did patches of rain but we tried hard not to let it dampen our spirits. With the start of December came the arrival of our elves Rainbow and Olaf who had to find very inventive places to hide themselves in the caravan and ensure that they considered whether it was a travel day or a lay day.

We snatched up pieces of sunshine to go exploring, getting as close to the southern-most point of WA. The following day we visited the whaling museum which, while a little bit gruesome at times, was a very interesting place to visit and highly recommended. We learnt just how dangerous the whaling trade was for their workers and marveled at photos of groups of very young children taken to watch the whales being cut into pieces as a school excursion. The museum was also able to give us a new appreciation for sharks and their very important role in the ocean ecosystem. While we probably could have stayed a bit longer and kept exploring we had to leave and give ourselves time to eat some food before I was due to go in to donate blood, something I have tried to do while we have been in the south of WA as it is the only section of WA that has donation centres.

The next day we decided we should drive around to see some of the amazing natural scenery to be found. We drove back out towards the whaling station to view The Gap and The Natural Bridge. The Gap had a steel platform that overhung the rocks looking down over the crashing waves. Once again, no amount of convincing by the super-impressed engineer could ensure me that I was completely safe so I had a quick look and then stepped way back. I'm actually not sure if Dave spent more time looking at the natural formation or the steel structure that had been built. From here we ended up driving back towards Denmark so we could visit Elephant Rocks and Green Pool, both which we had heard amazing reports about and both which had just been reopened to the public after upgrades to the carpark area. They were certainly worth the drive, the rock formations were spectacular and we are still amazed at the clear blue water that we have found all around the west coast. The girls even had a little snorkel in Green Pool.

On Friday it was time to leave cosy corner, having stayed a couple more nights than we had planned and moved ourselves to a caravan park in Albany itself for the night. We had to put the ute in for a couple of hours to get the windscreen replaced, something we had been meaning to do since we cracked the windscreen on our way into Geraldton. That night there was supposed to be the local Christmas festival in town so we had a wander through the markets, saw some aboriginal dancing and got our photo taken with Santa.

On our way out of Albany we visited the National ANZAC Centre. What a great museum it is too! It is very interactive as each person collects a card at the beginning depicting someone involved in the war. As you move through the storyline you place the card onto little scanners and it gives you their individual story. It was fascinating to see who survived, who was injured and who never made it home. There was a lot of information, possibly a bit too much for the girls to process. We also got a tour of the whole area up on the hill, the barracks and the gun tunnels. Definitely worth the visit. We only had a short drive to our next campsite about an our to the east of Albany called Normans Beach.

On our first night there we met 2 older couples who were able to give us some tips of good places to go and funnily 1 of the couple was headed back to Cosy Corner to work as their camp hosts for the next month. When they left another family moved into their spot which was probably one of the best things that happened. The kids made friends, as kids tend to do and after some conversation Dave was looking like he had lined up some FIFO work in Port Hedland which was brilliant as he had been looking at lining up some work due to the dwindling bank balance. We stayed 3 nights at Normans Beach while I once again worked on my assignments. We had one day where we drove out to do the Granite Skywalk. While the walk up the hill was a bit of a killer the view at the top was amazing!

From Norman's Beach we headed to our next campsite at Munglinup Beach and here of course we encountered more wind! We pretty much had the place to ourselves which was nice but we were really getting sick of the wind by this stage. Dave took the girls off to try their hand at fishing while I continued to plug away at my homework. Unfortunately the mobile phone reception here was not fantastic so to download what I needed I had to climb a huge sand dune and then wait patiently for everything to slowly download, not ideal in the wind and oncoming rain but the view was good at least.

Next stop after Munglinup was Esperance, a place I was certainly keen to visit and it didn't disappoint. We got into town early, fed up with the weather and enjoyed a little treat of McDonalds for breakfast while we worked out where we were going to stay. We chose a caravan park a little out of town hoping the wind might be a bit less (wrong) but it was cheap and the facilities were fine (except if you wanted to shower at a consistent water temperature that is). We went back out for a drive around the Great Ocean tourist drive, enjoying the beautiful scenery and finding the pink lake which is not actually pink anymore.

The following day we left Jezy at the campsite and drove down to see Cape LeGrand National Park, visiting Lucky Bay and the famous kangaroos, as well as Whistling Rocks. On our way back we made a random stop into a place I had seen advertised called Mermaid Leather. Expecting to just walk into a store we were amazed to be invited to the back of the factory where they take you through the entire process of how they make leather out of fish skins. It was so interesting hearing about this process and seeing how the skins looked at different stages of the process. They use the leather to make all sorts of things and they even sell the scales that they leave plain or colour which are a fantastic natural product for crafting. We were so glad we had made the decision to stop.

On our final day in Esperance we took Jezy for a play at one of the local beaches and then spent the afternoon at Lucky Bay Brewery where Dave was once again spoilt for choice in their range of beers to try. This is as far as we plan to go on the south coast, it's now time to start heading back north-west towards Perth and Christmas and whatever comes from there.