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We said goodbye to our friends Ninka and Fife and took 3 hours to pack up this morning - our longest on record so far! I think it’s the first time we've had so much out of the trailer and so much new stuff that had to fit back in!
We then had a leisurely drive to Mandurah where we looked at the inlet and the incredible amount of posh new houses built on a new deep water frontage estate. We didn't stop and continued through to Bunbury and finally stopped in Busselton for lunch. We wanted to dive at sites in both Busselton and Dunsborough, another town 20 minutes further on, but decided to find a camp in Dunsborough because it is located on Cape Naturaliste.
Finding a camp ground was the hardest part of the day - there are still too many Xmas Holidayers about and the camp grounds in this area have elevated their prices according to demand! A regular camp site costs $14 for power and one place tried to charge us $26 per night until I complained and beat him down to $21 and then we told him we wouldn't be staying! We would normally choose the best camp ground in town with views and good facilities but this time we agreed to opt for the cheapest option since this stop was primarily for diving and we'd only be needing 3 nights. We ended up at a brand new camp ground that didn't have any trees or protection from the 30 knot winds that were still blowing, but at least it was only $16 with power.
It took us 3 hours to get organised this morning for diving but when we were ready it was a beautiful calm day down at the Busselton Jetty. The jetty is 2 kms long and no vehicle access is allowed. Thankfully we didn't have to walk all the way out there with our dive gear because of a small passenger train that operates from dawn to 10pm every day of the year - except today!!!! We didn't realise this until we went to pay for our tickets and were told that the electrician was working on the lights at the end of the jetty and so the train was not running.
Thinking we'd wasted our time we started to head back to the car when I noticed a dive boat full of divers just returning from a dive. After they had set up on the beach for a lunch break I approached them and asked if they would take us out - which they did. We had a fabulous dive - it is one we would both love to do again.
Today's the day we dived the Swan - a purpose sank diving wreck of a Navy frigate in 30m of water off Cape Naturaliste in Geographe Bay. It was a big day starting at 7.30am returning at 1.30pm. Later in the afternoon we did some business with Shelley the owner who bought all the stock of Diver's Companions (20) we had on this trip.
For more details on diving the HMAS Swan click on "Diving the HMAS Swan" in the Diving Hotspots menu.
We didn't have much of an idea where we'd end up today but our first stop was the Yungarra Estate winery, one of the first of the Margaret River area wineries after leaving Dunsborough. The cellar door opened at 10am and that was about when we arrived. Our wine tasting host, Glen, just bowled us over with his eccentricities and then offered us to stay in his home for the next few days while we explored the Margaret River region. This suited us fine, as did his offer to cook us a BBQ dinner that night so off we went with suggestions from Glen to explore the area.
After our BBQ and entertainment from Glen we had a late night but didn't mind because we didn't need to be up early - nothing is open in the area before 10am.
Today we planned to visit as many wineries as we could and purchase a few wines from the good ones we'd found so far. We also dropped in to a wood carver's gallery who had pieces in Glen's house we had been admiring. We found the carver, Brendon, to be another eccentric type but had a lot of fun with him. In fact, he asked me to video his pieces to send back to him. This concept then developed and now we'll edit together the 15 minutes or so of material we shot into a promotional video and in return he said he'd carve me a hammerhead shark. Brendon is particularly fond of carving sea creatures and it was a 10kg dolphin carving that we'd admired at Glen's.
Back at Glen's we had the place to ourselves and made use of the spa and sauna after a light dinner and a little wine.
We left Yungarra Estate this morning not knowing quite how far we'd go. We took our time to pull off the highway to visit all the beaches and bays along the coastline down to Augusta (Cape Leuwin), stopping for lunch at Hamelin Bay and picking up a hiker who needed to get back to his accommodation. He turned out to be the retired senior curator of the National Museum in Canberra.
Augusta was beautiful. The waters were a pretty blue and beaches crisp and white. We had expected windy weather but it was definitely calm, which made for pleasant camping anyway. We stayed at the Flinders Bay caravan park (on Flinders Bay) which had the best camping sites of any caravan park we'd seen. We stoked up an open fire and let it roar through the night to keep us warm as we sipped hot coffee and planned our activites for the next few days.
The weather is still calm and ideallic so we took a leisurely walk along the beachfront and watched the fisherman fish for tiny herring and other baitfish. David can't understand why people bother fishing for such tiny fish and isn't too keen on fishing here. Later, we visited the Cape Leuwin Lighthouse which marks the meeting of two major oceans - the Indian and the Southern. Around the headland we explored various tracks and tourist sites such as the waterwheel.
With no wind in sight we felt we'd done all their was to do in Augusta and started our trek EAST for the first time this trip. My 4WD book identified a way through to Pemberton through the D'Entrecasteau National Park and some pretty serious four wheel driving. We stocked up and checked our maps at the Tourist Bureau and began our journey early in the morning.
The tracks were certainly interesting, being only the width of the car (sometimes less!) in places and very soft and sandy. With the trailer, our rig is over 8m long which makes it interesting around tight corners and reversing out of trouble but David seems to have had enough practise by now! (I don't like to drive with the trailer in 4WD situations).
It only took us a couple of hours to get down to Black Point where we had lunch and set up camp in deep, black, sandy soil. It is meant to be National Park and therefore $5 per night camping fee, but no one came to collect. We had the place to ourselves and cooked roast beef and vegies in our camp oven on an open fire.
We pulled out the next day and continued along more narrow, sandy tracks. We were starting to think that not many people would be as adventurous as we by pulling a trailer through this kind of territory. It certainly was the roughest we'd taken the trailer through. Mostly because to get through the soft sand we had to drive fairly fast and that meant that every time we rounded a corner or hit dips and bumps the trailer would launch itself up high and bash around a bit. We avoided a particularly steep descent to Jasper Beach after reading that no everyone gets out and turned inland towards Lake Jasper and the way out towards Pemberton. We rouned a corner and came across a steep uphill that was deeply rutted. It caused us a few problems for nearly 2 hours and involved the use of both the winch and high-lift jack to get us sorted. Once on the way again we had no more troubles into beautiful Lake Jasper. Here we found one of the best camping sites we've had for quite some time with an soft covering of melaluca leaves underfoot and peppermint gums and spear head grass trees surrounding our camp. We cooked oyster blade steaks, potatoes, brocolli and a side salad of avocado filled with red salmon and dressing.
Lake Jasper is rather unique and apparently attracts ski boats, windsurfers and fishermen (although we couldn't imagine how they'd get the boats in these tracks). Conditions weren't ideal for us to windsurf and we couldn't be bothered fishing so we moved on again. (We are trying to see everything and still make it back to Sydney by late February).
It only took about an hour to arrive in Pemberton where we stocked up with food supplies and sent mail. It seems there is lots to do here. One of the best attractions are the climbing trees, 60-75m trees that were used as fire lookouts. We went to the Glouchester Tree which is a 63m karri gum with 350 metal rungs to climb to the treetop platform. David scrambled up there like a monkey and I shook and sweat and made it up about 12m before backing back down. At least David took the camera and video up with him so I can see what I missed
Leaving here we drove about 50km south to Windy Harbour, in the D'Entrecasteau National Park and camped at the only 2WD accessible beach in this national park. In fact, there are only 3 places where 2WD vehicles can access the southern coast between Augusta and Albany.
David sensed that I was a little miffed at not being able to complete the tree climb yesterday and so we drove to another climbing tree in the Pemberton region to have another shot. The Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree is even taller than the Glouchester Tree at 75m but it has 4 platforms, the first at 25m. I thought I might make it to that but I was shaking and sweating and even crying to get there but I did make it. David continued the climb and made it all the way up the 75m. I can't imagine how people do it - it looks so dangerous as there as no barriers or guides, just metal rungs sticking out of the tree and I kept imagining I'd slip between the rungs.
After our achievements we drove through the Great Forest Trees Drive, a 25km loop road with radio broadcast information about the trees that you hear by tuning into your car radio. From there it was less than an hour's drive to Walpole where we wanted to visit the Valley of the Giants Tree-Top Walk in the Walpole-Nornalup National Park. It was too late to do it today so we found ourselves a free camp in another part of the D'Entrecasteau National Park at Mandalay Beach, Banksia Camp. Unfortunately, we met another vehicle leaving the National Park on the one-lane wide soft sandy track and got hopelessly bogged down trying to let him pass. David's ego suffered a terrible blow at having to accept a snatch out of the sand. The campsite was just around the corner but we'd been beaten to it - someone else had set up in the prime position and we were left trying to find another position where we could get the trailer in yet still have a view of the fabulous coastline. We fiddled and fussed and unhooked and then rehooked the trailer a number of times - finally, we found a spot on a headland with magnificant views of Chatham Rock and the beach below. We had to be careful not to break too many bushes or trees as this was a true "bush" camp. We cooked some lovely marinated lamb steaks with wild rice and then sat out and watched a beautiful starlit night sky.
After going to all the fuss of getting to this great spot, we didn't rush to leave. We headed back out the same sandy track, turned off to Mandalay Beach proper (accessible by 2WD), and walked out along a boardwalk to a memorial plaque depicting the wreckage of the Mandalay, a Norweign ship that was shipwrecked here in a southerly storm in 1911. The wreckage is on the beach but is due to variances in sand erosion is only visible every few years (and not this year).
After all the sand driving we had to stop to put air back in the tyres before hitting the bitumen road back into Walpole. We wanted to get the Walpole-Nornalup National Park before lunchtime to avoid meeting a crowd at the Valley of the Giants Tree-Top Walk. As it was, it was around 11am when we got there and the carpark was starting to fill. The Tree-top walk is an architect designed walk about 40m high up through giant red tingle trees. The walkway is built of aluminium ramps 60m long that are completely suspended across their length. At each end of the ramps is one long foundation pole. Only 20 people per ramp and 10 people per foundation are allowed at any one time - so we wanted to avoid the crowds of kids on school holidays. Walking in the canopy of these gigantic trees is quite an experience, especially when you are suspended 40m high and you can see the ground beneath your feet through the wire mesh ramps!
By now, we were both completely treed-out and so we drove onto Albany (only 60kms south-east). We arrived around 3pm after stopping for lunch at William Bay National Park near Denmark. This place is accessible via bitumen road and so it was packed full of people. We pulled into a beautiful place called Green's Pool and the carpark had close to a hundred cars in it. In this area we also found Madfish Bay (which is the name of a winery nearby where we later bought a case of wine). We'd first tasted Madfish wine in Broome and feel it is the best wine we've tasted on this side of Australia.
Arriving in Albany we were stunned at the size of the harbours and the surrounding metropolis. There were about 8 van parks to choose from so we took our time to find the one most convenient to our needs. Needless to say, with so much choice it was 6.30pm by the time we agreed to stay at Emu Point where we have a site near the back beach entrance. We're planning on being able to rig our sailboards and carry them over to the beach.
Because we think we'll stay 3 days or more we put up the tent - it also gives us somewhere to put the sailboards out-of-sight if we go out in the car. There are 600 people staying in this caravan park and we are very concerned about security.
Unfortunately, we are not allowed to light ground fires in the van park so we can't cook the 2 roasts I have in the fridge. There was no other choice but pasta bows with pesto for dinner.
We awoke to an overcast day, which was very disappointing. There was also a light 5 knot southerly blowing which didn't hold much promise of a good sailing day. We went sightseeing in the car for a while until we noticed rain in the distance to the direction we were headed. The township completely shut down trading today, including the dive shops and so we returned to our tent to read the paper. I had some work to do to keep the diary up-to-date and David decided to replace the rear brakes on the car. Just after our sandwich lunch the wind picked up and we carried David's gear to the beach and went sailing. A few people came and watched and then another man rigged up his gear (exactly the same board as David's) and sailed with him. I sat on the beach for a while and then gave in and put on my wetsuit. It was so cold I was tempted to put on my steamer but it was at the bottom of the trailer and I couldn't be bothered. I had a little sail, but the wind was dropping. We carried it all back over to our tent site, washed it and let it out to dry while we had hot showers.
David's is trying to light me a fire to cook the roast (really, it’s a lamb mince thingy in a filo pastry wrap). He's out there stressing because the BBQs provided do not allow enough air to get around the wood and all we've got is lots of smoke. In the end we've put the camp oven on our gas cooker to finish it off with hot coals on top to cook the pasty top.
Today was to be our last day in Albany so we drove around the tourist routes to see "Natural Bridge" and "The Gap" and the "Blowholes" in the Torndirrup National Park. We also drove around Frenchmans Bay to take in the sights of the King George Sound (an enormous Bay) where from June - October you can see humback and southern right whales on an almost daily basis. Being January, there were no whales but instead we went to Whaleworld a whaling museum located at the site of the historic Albany Whaling Company.We spent a few hours there and learned much about the horrific whaling industry but also how it help to support a community.
Later, we stopped to do some shopping and split up so I could get the groceries and David could go to the the boy's shop for a UHF aerial, batteries, and bonnet rubbers to hold the trailer doors tight on the seal. we didn't realise until we got back that we had both bought "surprises" for each other. A bottle of Gin from David for me, and a cocolate brownie for desert for David from me. How cute.
We spent the afternoon browsing tourist brochures and then discovered that squid could be caught from the beach where we were camped. we don't need much motivation to go squid fishing and within an hour we had 4 squid in the bucket. We cooked 2 and put 2 in the fridge for another night. We threaded pieces of squid, onion and red capsicum onto wooden skewers and cooked them on our hotplate after marinating them in the satay sauce thinned with a little coconut milk. Served on a bed of jasmine rice with more satay sauce it was like going to a seafood restaurant.
Leaving Albany today we dropped into the dive shop to collect a Dive Log Australasia (a free publication that often publishes articles and letters we submit). The owner seemed a good guy and took time to explain the various dive sites we could do around the area. The main dive in the area is the wreck of the Cheynes 11, a whaling ship that was purpose sank in 1982 for diving in 30m. We had read all about it yesterday at Whaleworld and it was a shame that to miss the dive. The weather is not always kind in Albany and we couldn't wait around for a good day.
We had planned to drive as far as Bremer Bay but once we started driving we realised it wasn't really far enough. It was 50km off the main road too so we didn't even bother to take a look. I spent most of the trip with my head in the maps and brochures and picked our next spot to be Stokes Inlet in the Stokes National Park just out of Esperance. I know we missed some great coastline and beaches at Hopetoun and Bremer Bay but we've seen lots of this coatline already.
We drove until quite late for us and didn't set up camp until around 5pm. There wasn't much to "set up" just a matter of popping the roof and setting up the gas cooker. We weren't quite the only campers but it was a quiet night. The ranger came to chat for a while and helped us plan our visit to Cape Le Grand and Cape Arid National Parks just east of Esperance. Unfortunately, this is one of those stupid National Parks where it is not allowed to make a camp fire - gas bbqs are provided. I can't cook a roast on a gas bbq! Luckily I'm getting used to being prepared with back up dinners and cooked a spaghetti bolognaise with fresh mushrooms and fresh rosemary herbs and a salad with the last of our Margaret River feta cheese.
Before leaving the Stokes Inlet we drove out to the inlet itself which we couldn't quite see from our camp site. The inlet hasn't been opened to the sea for 9 years but due to the floods experienced in Esperance a couple of weeks ago the lake flooded and the inlet is now over 100m wide. The ranger told us the fishing was on at the moment and guaranteed we'd catch silver bream. Sure enough David caught 2 small bream but tossed them back in. The Esperance area is also experiencing a strange problem with a mulie virus which is seeing literally thousands of mulies wash up on the shore - and they were even in the inlet. For some reason the virus only affects the mulies (pilchards) but no other fish or marine life.
When we finally arrived in Esperance we went straight to the dive shop to inquire about diving the wreck of the Sanko Harvest, apparently the second largest diving wreck in the world in 40m of water about 30kms offshore. Unfortunately, we have an unhappy tale to tell.
The sales pitch alluded to an all-inclusive double boat trip taking in the Sanko Harvest and a reef dive in the more sheltered islands of the Achipelago. A 2 hour surface interval would be undertaken whilst non-wreck divers would do their first dive of the day on the reef. BBQ lunch, then all divers would complete their second dives. Sounds great doesn't it? The cost for this day out would be $120 per wreck diver (with all our own gear) or $80 per reef diver. It seemed costly but their was no competitor dive shop in Esperance with which to compare. Now there's an anomoly - same trip, 2 dives but different price.
We agreed to book the dive and pay via Eftpos. It was only as the salesman had the debit card in his hand that he mentioned that lunch would cost an additional $5 and an additional steel tank $10 (total $255). The transaction was quickly processed. We then discussed the pick-up plan for the next day and learned that our steel tank "top ups" would also cost another $5 each (currently at 240 bar). We questioned the charge for a "top up" of only 5 -10 bar considering the already costly dive charter. Our reasons for requiring the top up was to ensure we got the best dive time available to us considering the upfront costs. The response to our enquiry was that "high pressure air costs more". Following this outlandish remark we discovered that we would also have to pay for post-dive airfills, making it the first time in our diving careers we would have had to pay for fills used on a paid dive. As you can imagine we let our opinions be known (without unkind words or malice of course).
With 5 tanks to consider, a "top up" and a refill would add an additional $50 to our bill of $255 for one day's diving for two people. So at $305 we calculated that diving the Sanko Harvest was out of our budget. We promptly requested a refund only minutes after the original transaction. The response to this request was an amazing "I don't know how to do that - you'll have to come back when the boss is in", but that was another 4 hours away. We walked away knowing that on principle (and budget) we regrettably, wouldn't be diving the Sanko Harvest with this dive operator. Now where is the competitor when you want them??
At the time of returning to receive our refund we did not attempt to make issue about the matter. The owner however, wanted to know details as to why we wanted the refund. We began to give our version but she had obviously heard enough of another version and soon used name calling techniques to belittle us. We were labelled "big heads" - we assume this was because at some point we'd mentioned we had a diving related business and are assistant instructors.
We tried to let our issues be heard, she was the owner after all, and explained that the add-on prices had made the trip out of our budget. She quickly implied that we were trying to get something for free (but they already had our $255 in their till). This was far from the case but unfortunately her 20 years in the diving industry has not facilitated her with sufficient customer service ability to detect genuine service dissatisfaction nor equip her with skills to sufficiently resolve conflict. I agreed with her when she suggested she had done more dives than me but I disagreed when she said that all dive shops charge for top ups and refills after paid dives.
We are still at a loss to figure out what "we the customer" did wrong here, other than to know when our budget had hit it's ceiling. Our comparisons are with the last 7 months of diving around Australia on a lengthy holiday and with many happy occasions diving the North Solitary Islands in NSW for $60 double boat dive (tanks and lunch included) to a similarly distant location.
Surely, diving customers shouldn't have to suffer chidish name calling or skeptical inuendo regarding business dealings just for questioning the extra costs. This operator should try being on the other side of the counter for a day. Our dive trip to the Sanko Harvest will be a non-event and there wasn't even the alternative of diving with another operator. So was the devil the lack of a competitor in this instance or was it the customer?
(I sent the above as a letter to the editor to Dive Log Australasia).
Neither of us was in a good mood after that but the wind was up so we went windsurfing in Esperance Bay. We rigged 4.5m and both used it as the wind was quickly dropping off. We met a few people and chatted while our gear dried before going back to our camp site at the Esperance Bay Caravan Park a few hundred metres away.
Tonight's dinner was the other 2 squid cooked with a tin of crab in a tin of tomatoes with fresh rosemary and other dried herbs and garlic on pasta. Sort of like a seafood marinara I suppose. It was very good!
This morning we were still feeling unsatisfied with the events of yesterday's diving fiasco so we drafted the above letter to Dive Log and then went into town to find the local telecentre. We didn't actually find one but we learned that the local stationery store had a computer permanently connected to the Internet for customers at only $6/hr. While we were collecting and sending our email we tried to upload our html files but the techno-wizardry necessary for this task could not be handled by this computer system. It's always such a shame because we had so much ready to load - now we have to wait until we get to Adelaide when we can use the Sanderson office. We did however, notice the colour printer connected to the computer and thought it would be effective to send the dive shop a letter direct and a copy to the Chamber of Commerce who issued them with 2 years running of tourism awards.
With our "chores" done we began to settle into the day and went driving along the beautiful Esperance coastline. The water colour was astoundingly different to that of Esperance Bay and was incredibly clear. We continued to drive along the coast road which gives full views of the ocean and beaches for 38km. Along the way we stopped at likely places to windsurf but today, there was barely a puff of breeze. We figured it must be unusual to not be windy as we found 3 wind farms along the cliff faces which together produce around 20% of Esperance's electricity.
Later in the afternoon it began to rain and we had a very wet night (but at least the tent didn't leak!). Dinner was 'bangers and mash' gourmet style - sundried tomato and basil sausages with mashed sweet potato.
During the evening we had composed the letter that we would mail to the dive shop and copy to the Chamber of Commerce. We had a bit of banking and shopping to do in town so we printed off a few copies of the letter on our letterhead on the colour printer and then put them in the post.
Finally, with that business resolved we tried to enjoy ourselves at beach. Swimming in the southern ocean around Esperance is usually done in a wetsuit we noticed but we braved it and swam out about 1km to a rocky island where we could see other people enjoying themselves. It was a long cold swim but the amazing thing was that the water was so clear we could see our own shadows on the sand below us.
That evening we cooked a yellow split pea dhal with rice and then packed away the tent and slept in the car. The weather man was wrong, the predicted storm didn't come but the sky was dark and cloudy.