WA's biggest phallic symbol and exploring Mother Nature's holes. Ooh er, missis!

Monday August 25.

Woke up this morning and discovered the local ABC news forecast on the radio had a severe weather warning for points from Bunbury round to Albany. The weather would come in after about 7pm this evening so we rushed our brekkers and headed out for the 10am start for our whale cruise. We drove to the landing stage area yesterday and worked out it was only around 1Km away so we’d walk and leave the van where it was. We set off at nine and were there by half past, and we’d dawdled! The Naturaliste Catamaran was riding at anchor in the bay and as we waited a guy in a ute with a trailer attached pulled up. He reversed down the ramp and floated off the tender from the trailer. This was out method of getting aboard the boat. It took about 8 people at a time and needed three trips to ferry us all across the waves.

The boat can hold so many more so it was quite empty with just 30 on board. This is the same chap and cruise we had last year when Mum and I went on it. That time we saw a bunch of Minkie Whales. I mentioned that to the chap in charge but he didn’t remember us but he remembered the Minkies (only to be expected, I suppose). He said that there had been a southern wright and calf in the bay for the past couple of days and if we were lucky we’d get to see them. To that end he heaed straight for where he’d last spotted them. I was impressed by the turn of speed we produced to skim over the very calm waters of Flinders’ Bay.

He cut the engines and we drifted for a while all eyes scanning the horizon for the tall-tale blow as the leviathans came up for a fresh breath. Eventually an eagle eyed codger thought he spotted a spout way back beyond the direction from which we’d come! The boat guy trained his bins on the area the codger indicated and sure enough he spotted the spouts too. So we headed off, at speed again, past the jetty and towards the Leeuwin Lighthouse. When we got closer to the light, as an aside, he told us that if we were planning on doing the light and any of the caves there was amega pass available which gained entry into all four attractions for a fraction of the price of all four bought individually. What a nice man to tell us this!

The law states we can’t chase the whales so once we were within a  hundred metres or so he cut the engines and out momentum allowed us to drift closer to them. He also said that if it was the same pair the baby was very inquisitive and would quite probably come up to the boat. It did! It was about a quarter of the size of its mum and it swam round the boat and then gently came up to the stern and nudged us with its head. We all got showered with spray from its spout as it circled off again. This is twice in under a week we’ve been whale snotted! Laura was filming foe England with her phone and got some brilliant footage of baby whale bumping us and spraying us.  After about half an hour of interaction with the two of them the boat guy asked if we wanted to stay put of head off to try and find some more. The consensus was to stay put. So we did.

The guy told us some more about whale behaviour and the actions we might see them perform. The one we had to watch out for was the peduncle arch. If our whales did that it meant they were going to do a deep dive and we might not see them for quite a while. He mentioned the tail slap and fin slap, the tail up dive and the tail down dive, the head bob. He told us so much more about whale behaviours than I had heard on all out whale trips prior to this. He did mention that southern rights weren’t as prone to these actions as the humpbackeds but lots were common to both. He did tell us that the baby hadn’t read the manual and so would do all sorts of weird and wonderful manoeuvres which only the juveniles do. They then grow out of them as they get older. We had to watch for the baby rolling along the length of its mum’s back – that was a favourite, apparently. Sadly, our baby must have grown out of that particular action (or its mum had told it off for doing it!)

All too soon it seemed our two hours were up and we made our way back to the jetty. It had been a brilliant morning’s viewing and I know that both Laura and I we elated by what we’d seen. We walked back to the campsite and had our sandwiches (made in advance and left in the fridge) and a cuppa. As we drove round to the Leeuwin light we could see the charter boat heading out again in to the bay for the afternoon excursion. We wished them as good a trip as ours.

The Leeuwin light is excellent. It will be the tallest of the lights we will visit and it does look the part – stuck at the end of a rocky peninsular thrusting out into the ocean where the two biggies meet; The Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean. Once again we had jokey commentary from the guide and we felt knackered on reaching the top platform area. The views are stupendous. It really is breath taking to be up there looking out onto the vast expanse of empty ocean, and that isn’t just because of the climb to the top.

After climbing the biggest phallic symbol in Western Australia we decided to go down the biggest hole in WA too, the Mammoth Cave. I chose to take Laura down this one as it is (IMHO) the least attractive of the three Augusta Caves. It is a self-guided one and we arrived there well before last entry time after making a minor diversion to look at the fossilised water wheel (on the road to the lighthouse). This is a pretty impressive example of the work of nature and the speed with which it can work. A lesson to all
Australians I think.

Laura though Mammoth Cave was pretty impressive but I told her tomorrow’s one would knock her socks off. I think she found it impressive because it was so empty we could spend a huge amount of time having a subterranean snog and fondle. Back in the van, in the car park, we had to continue what had started underground and we eventually rolled up at the campsite after it had gone dark! The benefits of having a mobile knocking shop!

We spend a relaxed night attempting to get the local news on our TV and watching a film that we found on GWN7. No, it wasn’t a porno film! They have a claim to ‘infamy’ having accidentally broadcast a porn movie that the guys at the station were watching out live to the public instead of the schedule! Heads rolled for that. I can’t claim to have watched it, having been not even a sparkle in Dad’s eye when it happened but it seems to have passed in to WA folklore. Laura could imagine the shite storm that would ensue if something
like that happened in the UK. Imagine if BBC ! broad cast Sapphic Erotica to the nation instead of Match of the Day! LOL

Tuesday 26th August.

We struck camp early in order to get to Jewel and Lake caves early. We arrived a few minutes past opening time at Jewel Cave but despite it being almost deserted we thought we had better curtail our sexual frolicking below ground in case we were caught in delicto as it were. After both Jewel and Lake Caves Laura declared that I was right, Lake Cave was the most beautiful and we had done them in the right order. They are well worth a visit if you hit this remote corner of the continent. I think the close proximity of them makes it a must.

We headed north next, to Margaret River where I took her to Mum’s and my favourite eaterie when we stayed here last year – the bookshop. We had a good old wander around the town first and did some minor retail therapy (main buying stuff to go into my goodie bag presents for back home). I do like the feel of the town or MR, it has a touch more class about it than other spots out in the bush; which can look a bit like one horse towns from the American wild west! Laura could see what I meant and agreed.

We then drove through the wine belt, northwards again, until we hit Dunsborough. Here I sprung a surprise on my blonde angel, she assumed we were going to another campsite. I had, in fact, booked us in for two nights at the Railway Carriages (on a deal where we got a third night free). She was delighted at the idea of the carriage stay, even more so when she got inside and declared it to be perfect. The tame, wild Kangaroo and offspring that come around the carriages and lodges were an unexpected treat for her. Tears welled
up as she fed the tamest roo with the special food provided in the carriage. The creature was so tame it takes the food from the palm of your hand! My timing was such that after some marsupial repast we had time to hit the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse well before closing time.

Laura joked that if the Leeuwin was WA’s largest phallic symbol, then Naturaliste must be its only circumcised one! Smutty jokes from my beloved. What ever next? We had the guided tour and then spent an age looking out from the light platform over the Indian Ocean. We declined the chance to walk the trail down to the promontory look out over the sea to go instead down to Canal Rocks before it went dark. These are a series of rocky outcrops on the coast which have formed natural channels through the action of the sea. They aren’t all that large but they do make interesting scrambling, with the added ‘bonus’ of getting drenched if a particularly large wave breaks over the rocks. We spent more time here, messing about on the rocks, than we had at the lighthouse. Sat in the van afterwards we had a cuppa and some sangers as we watched the sunset over the ocean.

We Skyped our respective Mums and Dads back in the UK, this took quite a while. Then we Skype Suze & Pete’s and we chatted for over an hour there too. They are all set for the Beethoven concert on Friday and have tickets for us to see the final round AFL game between The Dockers and Port Adelaide at Subi on Saturday. The game is a 1pm kick off, which was a bit of a surprise. I have told everyone we’ll definitely be back by 1pm on Friday. We are going to take the Transperth into the city for the concert so we have no mucking about driving and parking. For the footy we are going to drive to Freo and train it in from there to Subiaco.

We spent the rest of the night deciding which vineyards to visit and decided that we must go to Happs and Rivendell and we are going to fit in Fraser Gallop as well. We can’t go to too many as we’ll get too blotto to drive anywhere. We chose Fraser Gallop as they sound like they have a brilliant philosophy about their wine making, trying to preserve the taste of the fruit in the process and handling the grapes to an absolute minimum. It also helps that the Margaret River Chocolate Company is just round the corner, too!

Wednesday 27^th August.

Yee haw. We have wine tasted and sipped’ sloshed and guzzled our way through fifteen different wines today. I bought two cases from Happs, one from Rivendell and one from Fraser Gallop to drink back in Warnbro and then leave with Suze and Pete as a thank you. (They refuse to take money for our board and lodging.)

We went to FG first as it was furthest away. We had to phone to book a tasting and we got a 10am slot straight away. The property is built to look like an English country house and the wines are very classy indeed. They don’t have a vast range but the ice pressed chardonnay was delicious. I am usually a nay-sayer when it comes to chardonnay but I loved this one. It was possibly the nicest one I have ever tasted. I also loved the Parterre Cabernet Sauvignon. I do like a nice Can Sauv and this exceeded nice by miles. Laura wasn’t too taken by either but ‘could drink them’. I know Pete’s taste quite well and knew he’d love both so I bought six of each.

We wobbled round to the Margaret River Choc. Company next. It is a really funny looking building in a style which can only be described as builders’ yard plank stack. However, they do free tastings (which we did) and have a café with cakes and choccy products for sale too. We had a good old sample of the choc and I was suckered by the orange flavoured one and the dark choc with red wine. Laura loved the nougat. So after a nice palate refreshing cuppa and a couple of slices of the most delicious chocolate cake on the planet, we stocked up with gourmet chocolates. I bought a small truffle selection for the Rhodes back in Warnbro too.

Our plan next was Rivendell. We hit there much quicker than anticipated. Their cellar door is much more functional than most but they have a selection of all their Howling Wolf range. We already knew the Cabernato so I had order 6 of those before we even tasted the rest. What we hadn’t found on our journey round the bottom corner was their Pink Shiraz. This was brilliant, almost as good as their Cabernato, so I bought six of those too. Because we were booked in for lunch in the restaurant the chap at the cellar door let us sample 10 of their wines rather than their usual five. I was impressed by this common sense approach but despite tasting almost all of their range we decided that we had chosen the two wines we liked the best for our case.

We indulged ourselves in the restaurant with their porterhouse for me and the deconstructed paella for Laura. They were both delicious. We sat around for a while afterwards with a cuppa (they actually made us some tea!). After a suitable rest we headed off for Commnage Road and Happs winery.

I have been here before and I just adore their sweet wine selection. They have extended their range from the ubiquitous Fuchsia to another pink and two whites (ditching the cringeworthy appellated Marreeme white). Laura was as impressed as I was when I first tasted their selection. I loved all they put before us to be honest but I bought a case of pink (6 Fuchsia and 6 Muscat a Pink) then a case of white (6 late picked Verdelho and 6 White Fuchsia). The guy at the till must have had dollars signs rolling round in his head at the size of my purchase. He helped stow them under one of the seats in the camper for me while Laura went wandering in the pottery and was flabbergasted at the amount we had under there already.

I joined Laura in the pottery and we admired the work on display and bemoaned the fact that even with a 40Kg baggage allowance taking any of the marvellous artefacts we spotted was just thoroughly impractical. We bought a couple of small pieces; some leaves which are blue and will look brilliant mounted in a frame and an oil burner which had a really sensuous tactile curvy shape. The idiot tried to sell us some oil to go with it but I said I’d wait until I got home. He asked where home was and seemed surprised when I said “England”. I guess there are a lot of ex-pats in WA nowadays you can’t be sure if they live here or not.

Tea was sangers again back in the van, and we spent a delightful two hours hugging, cuddling and sexing each other up. You can’t beat it.

Thursday 28^th August.

Up and roo feeding first thing this morning. We’d bought some more roo food from the carriage owner and used it to feed the tame creature that came right up to the door. It is a wonderful thing to have on your property. Apparently the roo we feed is the second generation of one the owner rescued.  Local news, on the radio, had a feature about a codger who had driven his car straight off the Blackwood River ferry in Augusta. They said the local newspaper would carry the pictures. If I ever do anything as stupid as this when I get to be an old codger you have my permission to shoot me. Still, the road is full of dozy old buggers who drive as fast as snails so they are safe! Safe you dozy buggers, from being murdered by the queue of irate drivers behind you? NO!

We spent the day in Busselton. Laura was in awe of the jetty. It is a sight for sore eyes, stretching away into the ocean, with a little train to ferry you to the far end. That was what we did and then walked back to the shore after spending an age down in the underwater observation centre, which is truly amazing. On the way out to the end we thought we saw some dolphins frolicking around and hoped we’d see them from the observatory but we didn’t. We walked the two levels down and looked and looked but they didn’t appear. The woman inside said there were a couple of pups out swimming with the pod somewhere so we were probably going to be luckier out where we’d spotted them from the jetty than down below. (We weren’t.)

Busselton reminds me of Rockingham without the islands off the coast. It is quite nice but a bit of identikit Australia really. We found a nice restaurant to have a sea food meal though and it even had Happs wine on its wine list. I had the tiger prawn dish and Laura went for the barramundi (she is developing a taste for it). After our repast we hit the shops and once again I collected a few little items for my goodie bags. They are going to be quite full when I’ve finished. We drove ourselves back to Dunsborough and walked along the beach there heading towards the rocky foreshore to the north and west. Guess what, we spotted more dolphins. They were in a smallish pod and must have been fishing for small fish by gathering them up into shoals and then guzzling their way through them. At least that’s what they looked like they were doing.

Back at the carriage we saw reports of the idiot driver and his blue Hyundai i30 having been driven into the river on the TV news. The reporters were far from deferential about the guy and his driving ability. We spent our final night of the trip having a look at all our photo’s and Laura’s bits of film, and collating the whole lot together on my lap top and then burning two DVDs of stuff. We parcelled them up and got then ready to post off to Sheffield (my Mum) and Tallentire (Laura’s Mum) in the morning. Despite having walked hardly anywhere really – 1.7 Km along the jetty and back isn’t far – I felt really tired and we must’ve been in bed by 10.30! Phew.

Whale watching and tree climbing - a Rainbow Coast weekend!

 Friday 22^nd August.

Today we took a break from being tourists and had a shopping day instead. I think during the course of the day we must have explored every single shop (worth exploring) in Albany. OK, they were mainly clothes shops and knick-knack shops, with a book shop and internet café thrown in for good measure. We also did a food shop to restock the fridge and freezer from IGA (plus we got a cask of wine too). We even hit Albany Plaza too. This is a rarity as I am usually averse to shopping malls of any kind. Three stops at cafés other than the internet one kept our hunger pangs at bay too.

We drove around the area rather than stroll everywhere as the area seems rather more spread out and York Street seemed a lot steeper than I remembered. We discovered there is a Farmers’ Market tomorrow, which we’ll visit and then on Sunday another Market so we’ll go that one too.

From the internet café this morning I contacted the whale watching tour people in Augusta and we have got ourselves booked on a Monday morning sailing, weather permitting. We also booked the Silver Star whale tour from the harbour here on Saturday afternoon, it leaves at 1pm. This is the one where, if they don’t find whales you get a free trip next time. I did it with Jill and Annabelle last year. I wonder if Paul will remember me? I doubt it; thousands will have been out since then.

Having spent what we thought was going to be a leisurely and relatively untiring day shopping we were knackered by the time we got back to the van again after the Plaza. I had been buying the little set of Aussie trinkets for the people at work and Uni when we get back. Laura had the brainwave of buying a pencil case and then filling that. We found some beautiful aboriginal design ones which will hold a goodly amount of sway and then went about choosing stuff to put in them. I decided we could enjoy a cuppa and our cakes at the top of Mount Clarence, so I drove the trusty camper up there to the war memorial and we had a brew and a bite. We watched the sunset from there and then made our way down to the site for a shower and a proper meal.

We headed for the spa section again and had it to ourselves for ages and ages. I was half expecting the two boys to return but maybe we had scared them off. Two blondes in bikinis being extremely sarcastic probably didn’t fit their mental picture of what women ‘should be’ like! We even had a go at the table tennis (terrible) and pool (not quite so terrible) in the games room before retiring for the night.

Saturday August 23^rd

Up fairly pronto to look at Dog Rock without traffic around. I had to take several photo’s for Laura to send to her Mum & Dad. I had told her about this rock when we were on Arran as there is a Cat Rock there. I may have mentioned this before. I then zoomed us round to Torndirrup National Park to look at the Natural Bridge – as spectacular as ever – and the blow hole (always a bit of a disappointment, I feel). This left us enough time to drive to the end of the point and look back at the town of Albany. It does look good nestling in the hillsides with the double bays in front of it. As we drove back  Laura asked about the Whaling Station Museum and I told her I had never been to it and didn’t really want to now as the very idea makes me sad. I was kind of scared she might express a desire to go and see it but she said she felt the same as me. (Phew!)

I don’t know what I was expecting from the Farmers’ Market but it was quite small and fairly well stocked, I suppose. There were quite a few stalls selling ‘exotic’ meat; emu, roo etc and I could see that Laura wasn’t keen on the idea so I didn’t press it. We bought ourselves a ‘healthy’ burger for lunch with really nice chunky chips and then headed for the jetty where the whale cruise departed.

The cruise went from the same jetty, was the same boat and had the same guy in charge too. I don’t think he remembered me but then I wasn’t accompanied by two precocious children who talked about sailing their Mum & Dad’d yacht up the top end. I had warned Laura about how chilly I got last year so we dressed in clothing which kept us fairly well covered with an extra sweater in our rucksacks just in case.

The boat was only about a third full, I think and we seemed to have plenty of room to move about and grab a rail at the gunwales if necessary. Once again the difference between Princess Royal and King George was quite noticeable and Paul headed due south immediately having been there on the morning cruise (9.30 start) and found a pod of about four humpbackeds. They weren’t making their progress at all today, they seemed to be just restocking on whale food and larking about. He told us they looked like young adults and were probably four males. We switched off and drifted towards them, being rewarded for our patience by two of the group coming to investigate us.

I had told Laura about being snotted by whale blow but I don’t think she realised just how wonderful it is until it happens to you. We got showered about five or six times and Laura had to keep wiping her phone to remove the splashes. She filmed for ages and ages, in the evening we found she had over half an hour’s footage of them and some of me being squeally and girly when I got showered while she was filming me. (She is going to send that to my Mum to show I am not as rufty tufty as I make out.)

Paul then headed towards Two People bay where there had been some Southern Right whales there yesterday. He hadn’t spotted them this morning but thought it might be worth a look just in case they had returned. They hadn’t! That was a pity but we are going to Augusta tomorrow and may spot some on Monday if the weather is good enough to put out. Flinders Bay can be another good stopping off point for both types of whale.

We had a bit of a surprise as we headed back towards Princess Royal Harbour as the humpackeds we’d seen earlier had moved further up the sound towards the Middleton Beach area. We circled round to have a look see but they weren’t too bothered about visiting our boat this time. Paul thought they were the same ones as there were four of them too.

After landing we zoomed off back to Middleton Beach (where the site is) and sure enough you could seem them quite clearly from the beach and with bins they were a great sight. As we sat on one of the benches along the shore we could make out their spray; their humps as they breached the surface and their flukes (the easiest to spot, obviously) as the dived. It was a really unexpected treat.

After a shower (shared) and our evening meal we headed to the spa again to find it full of a family; mum, dad and three little ones – two girls and a boy, the oldest (girl) about seven. They had come down from Perth and were staying for the week. They hadn’t been south before and were wondering what to do. I did wonder how they had got the kids out of school for a week but didn’t ask, it may have been contentious! Laura enthused about the whale tour we had done this afternoon and they decided they would probably do that, if they though the kids would cope with being at sea. The only time they had ever been on a boat was either the Swan River Cruise or the Rotto Express. Laura expressed surprise at this, she said she thought everyone out here had a boat or was a sailor of some sort.

I told them about the tree top walk in the karri forest at Denmark. We were going there in the morning on our way across to Augusta. It is a place called Land of the Giants and even though you are many metres above the forest floor, the walkway is constructed in such a way that even inquisitive littlies can’t squeeze through the railings. There is also a trail through the forest floor which, in some places actually goes right through living trees! I told them about Pemberton’s climbing trees too, which will be beyond the scope of their children but are worth a look just the same. These are spiked and you have to use the spikes like a spiral ladder round the tree to get to the fire lookout at the top. I was hoping to do those too. They are further away from Albany though and might be worth a detour on their way across to Augusta.

The kids were really sweet and full of fun. They loved the idea of going to see real whales in the water! Laura went to fetch her phone and showed mum and dad (Roger and Leah) her footage of the day. The kids loved the sequence of me getting a whale spray shower; I think it was the spray rather than my silly squeaky reaction to it they liked!

They seemed surprised that we were using a camper van. I told them it was a palace on wheels which they seemed sceptical about until we showed them round after our spa time was over. The bed wasn’t made up so the two long benches gave enough space for us all to sit down. They were very impressed with it after I had given them the grand tour. I had to confess it wasn’t mine, it belonged to my sister and brother-in-law, but I had unfettered use of it when I was over visiting. They were even more gobsmacked when Laura told them I had done the whole circumnavigation of the continent in it in 2010. We talked about that for a while too. The kids loved the idea of the high level bunks, which we never use obviously. You could see little cog wheels spinning round in Roger and Leah’s heads. I had to mention the only downside was the fuel economy. It does tend to be a bit thirsty if you try to clog on, but with steady pottering I could get 40 miles to the gallon. They had no idea what that meant (they use metric out here) so Laura did a swift mental translation for them. 7.1 litres per 100 Km. That impressed them too.

This led to a discussion about what we did and what our plans were. (We didn’t mention we were a lesbian couple – you don’t know how strangers may react.) Laura had the, by now familiar, “You don’t look like a maths wizard.” The oldest girl described a maths wizard to us: “She will have old fashioned clothes, her hair in a bun on the back of her head, really big glasses and will weigh out all her food before she eats it!” Laura said she was like that usually but was on holiday for a while so had left all her old fashioned clothes at home.

They wandered off to their cabin and we had a cuppa and a bun. I was going to offer the family a bun and drink too but realised with horror that we only had four buns left! It would have been good to have entertained them in our mobile palace.

Just before charp hitting we went for a final stroll along the sea front; it had dropped in temperature quite a bit, to probably not much over 12 degrees. The sea breaking on the shore and the wind whistling through the trees was so typical of sea-sides around the world. I said if you closed your eyes you could be on any coast anywhere. Laura said, “Not Blackpool, though!” We giggled and shivered and snuggled together for warmth as we walked. At the point where Middleton Beach rounds the headland of Mount Barker we stopped and I kissed my lovely girl. Getting seriously chilled by the breeze we scurried back to van, made up the bed and continued where we had left off.

Sunday 24^th August.

Breakfast  and a final shower at the site before we drove off to the karri forest. We headed for Denmark and the Valley of the Giants, which is a brilliant experience. The walkway through the tree tops has to be experienced. Sadly I guess the structure must have driven off a fair number of wild bird and mammals from the area but there are still some tough old bird hanging around in the canopy. We saw a few pretty, colourful specimens but we have no idea what they were. They ranged in size from the tiny to bigger than a parrot. If the family from Middleton Beach come here they will really enjoy it. The walk is fairly short but very spectacular and when you descend you are immediately taken on the low level walk they have called the Ancient Empires walk. This is a board walk which does take you through one of the Karri trees. It does look a bit clean and sanitised compared to the wild bush that you encounter if you head out to the Serpentine area (and I guess most of the other managed state national parks). I told Laura we’d have a hike through truly wild bush if we go to Dwellingup during our visit. You get there by train and it’s a great day out.

We hit the visitor centre and had a shop in the gift shop (fridge magnets mainly). I then explained how to get to Pemberton (up Highway 1 and then along the 10) as Laura was going to drive the next bit. It isn’t too far and we were there fairly quickly. We found the Gloucester National Park, parked up and had lunch before setting off on our arboreal ascent. The tree is about a twenty minute walk from where we’d parked and when we saw it, it was nothing like I remembered. I knew what spiked meant but to see the thing in the flesh, as it were, was impressive. The spikes are just huge nails driven in to the tree to make a spiral staircase where the steps are like rungs of a curving ladder. There is a mesh net type thing on the outside to stop you falling off and the spikes are spaced so close that you couldn’t easily fall through them. As there was no-one attempting the climb when we got there we swarmed up it. Laura went first and I offered guidance from behind.

The platform at the top gives stunning views over the canopy of trees and is quite breath taking – you are panting anyway as the climb is pretty physical needing both arms and legs to assist the ascent. The last bit is from the platform up a proper ladder to a sort of cage enclosure at the top which is quite roomy. Enough space to allow someone to wait to descend, whilst someone else is climbing. This happened to us and we waited until two kids clambered through the trap door. The boys had left Mum & Dad down below and climbed up by themselves. I was impressed at their pluck. I think they were impressed that two girls had climbed up, too!

The descent was tedious compared to climbing up. At the visitor centre I said they ought to offer the choice of abseiling down for experienced climbers but I doubt if they took my suggestion seriously. They did tell us about the two other climbing trees – The Diamond Tree and the Dave Evans Tree. We were told that the Dave Evans was the tallest of all three trees, so after buying our certificates of proof of climbing, we headed off on the Old Vasse road to try and find it.

We found a wonderful road name: Snottygobble Loop as well as the tree. It was a bit bigger than the Gloucester tree but seemed thinner, if that is possible. Once again the spikes and mesh and half way house platform were the same (or similar) and the tree top hut was slightly larger. The views were just as stunning but they seemed to be over a different type of tree to the ones the GT looked out over. Well, they had a different coloured canopy anyway. You could even see the sea from up here. Unlike at The GT, here there was almost nothing. A platform / seating area type thing at the bottom and some dunnies and that was about it. It seemed a much less commercialised experience than the GT, too. Maybe that’s just me being silly. After our climbing exertions we decided to press on to Augusta where I had booked two nights at the Turner Caravan Park. We arrived mid-afternoon with me being the navigator again and after the desk formalities were allowed to choose our pitch. We selected a triangular one right on the edge of the foreshore reserve which seemed ideal. Especially as we were told it was a short stroll into town and the hotel where I had planned to have our evening meal.

The Augusta Hotel is right on the Blackwood River and has glorious views down over that and south to Flinders’ Bay too. We dined from the a la carte menu and had a glorious gourmet burger (Laura) and grilled barramundi (me). We got through a bottle of Rivendell Claw Cabernato with our meal, being Tolkien fans we just had to, and after we’d eaten we took a second bottle into the lounge bar to keep it company for the evening. I sort of expected we’d get company in there and throughout the evening the odd couple of guys would wander over and attempt to engage us in conversation every now and then. We didn’t get plied with free drinks all night as we had earlier, at Northam, which was a shame as the Cabernato was really nice.

As we left, two of the guys who had come across to try and chat with us were waiting outside, probably to see if they could escort us home. They had a ute and were perched against the back but once they saw that we were heading off down the riverside path they seemed to lose interest and got in their car and drove away. My torch was pretty good at finding the path but no matter how many times we shone it over the river we saw no marine life. Two bottles of wine are pretty good at making you sleepy, but coupled with the bottle of water we had served with the meal and a cup of drinking chocolate as a nightcap, it was really no surprise I had to do a 2 o’clock walk, and a 4 o’clock one as well. Good thing the van has its own loo.

The Southern Ocean on our doorstep. It just rolls on and on...

Monday August 18^th.

It was four degrees cooler today than yesterday and even we noticed. I am sure you get used to the temperature over here which is why, every time I go back to the UK, I think it is so cold! We whizzed into town after brekkers and waited for our boat out into the bay. I told Laura to bring her Paramo as it would be cold on the boat. She wasn’t convinced having experienced only the Rottnest Express. Our boat was a cat, too, but tiny in comparison and with lots of open deck to wander about on. We left from the Taylor Street jetty at bang on 9am and did a wander around (that’s a technical term, apparently) the islands before heading out to Woody. She put her coat on after a few minutes of being underway.

We saw quite a few fur seals having a well-earned rest (no doubt) having come all the way from New Zealand and as we moved out further into the bay some dolphins too. The dolphins were bottle-nosed ones, there are also some common ones but they were probably off annoying sharks somewhere else. I haven’t told Laura that we are going to the Bunbury Dolphin Centre on the way back to Suze’s and may swim with some! Too much excitement may make her explode! We saw some Aussie sea lions too which was a bonus, they were lazing about trying to be even more cool than the All Black interlopers. The explosion almost happened as Loll couldn’t believe we had seen so much in so short a space of time and so close to the boat, the Southern Niche (pretty crappy name for a boat if you ask me). I had to point out that we would probably not see all that much more to get excited about when the guy on the tannoy announced sea eagles! I almost popped too! All this before we had even set foot on the island!

We landed in time for a swift breakfast at the visitor centre and then set off for a guided walk up to the lookout at Woody Summit. This was scheduled to take an hour but took a bit longer as we kept asking lots of questions and found a couple of skinks, grey ones I think. We were hoping to see a Barking Geko but we were out of look. [The idea of a lizard having made all the way across the Oceans from Essex was lost on our guide.] The brush wasn’t as dense as I thought it would be and the view from the lookout was worth the (minor) effort involved. There were some really enchanting paths and tunnels made by over-hanging foliage at one point. You had a great view of some of the islands in this massive chain of them. I hadn’t realised they stretched so far and were so numerous.

We heard about Twiggy, the dog from whom Twiggy’s Landing is named. Apparent this lucky mutt fell overboard from Don Mackenzie’s launch in the archipelago and managed to swim her way over to Woody Island despite being lost overboard about four Km from it. Here she survived a few months on her own until she was rediscovered by Jack Arnott, the owner’s friend, who tried to recapture her and take her back home. After three and a half months she seems to have gone a bit feral and it took several attempts to coax her to Mr Arnott. Eventually he succeeded and took her back to the mainland. She recovered from her ordeal and lived with Mr Mackenzie until her death in 1979. They assume she must have survived on the island eating lizards and drinking from freshwater pools in the rocks! A rather grainy photo showed a dog, which looked a bit like a Labrador, being hugged by her grateful owner.

After the stroll and look out we headed back to the visitor centre and did the other trail to the eastern edge of the island looking out for Twiggy’s Landing on the way. If she did get a shore here she is a very lucky dog indeed, as there isn’t  a gradually shelving beach or anything so canine friendly at all. It really seemed to be very rocky.

We headed all the way round the second circuit looking for a sooty oystercatcher; it was only when we got back to the visitor centre for our barbeque lunch did we discover that we were looking in totally the wrong place. They are normally found on the other end of the island. I blamed the map reader for sending us the wrong way. Laura was able to point out I was the map reader.

If Rotto was an ideal of simplicity of life style then Woody’s takes it to n’th degree. It is very, very ecological in its outlook. Makes Rotto look like a polluting super power like America or China. They do loads of stuff which is pretty standard as far as eco-warriors are concerned, water capture and solar energy collection, for example; the composting toilets took a little getting used to though, I must admit. What I was really impressed with was the replanting of the island using only native specimens and then irrigating the lot using a grey water system.

After our barbeque lunch, under the verandah at the visitor centre which was open at threes side but under a huge roof, we pottered for the short amount of time we had left doing what the girls and I did when came here last time. Mainly in Shearwater Bay.

It seemed rather too soon to leave at 3pm but we had to zoom back to the mainland. This is the third island we have visited together so far. I said we’ll have to do some more. Laura agreed.

Back in Esperance we bought our selves the wherewithal for a hot meal from the supermarket, which we cooked in the camper and despite being willing to head out to the site’s verandah hang out we began to fall asleep by about 8.30. We did steamed chicken with a mixture of vegetables washed down with the last of the verdhelo. I think it was the wine which knocked us asunder.

Tuesday 19^th August.

We set off after a cooked breakfast, OK, bacon butties and headed westwards. Our next stop was going to be Albany but after a mishap with the Fitzgerald River National Park and a camper van that wasn’t suitable for its unmetalled roads we decided, after consultation with the map to head from Bremer Bay instead. It is often mentioned on the Channel Nine weather forecast and I thought it could be worth a look. With no mobile phone signal and with it being the off-peak season for travelling we decided to just head that way and turn up on spec.

It is a long drive from Esperance to Bremer Bay, obviously not as long as to Albany but you do seem to double back from Highway 1 before you hit any sign of life! In fact if Esperance seemed a bit cut off, this is nothing compared to BB which is at the end of a 60 Km cul-de-sac. Once on this road you are going to Bremer and that is all! (Unless you have a 4x4, I suppose.) There was no sign, at all, of a tourist information spot but on driving through the settlement we found a sign to the Bremer Bay Caravan Park which was where we holed up for two nights. It was pretty empty when we arrived and we found our allocated pitch; inspected the toilet block and then headed back into the village centre in search of victuals. I use the word village deliberately here, Oughtibridge – where my little house is – is classified as a village and it is way larger than BB. I must admit it isn’t quite as pretty though.

We drove into town and found the main shop The General and Liquor Store, right on the corner of the road with parking on the verge on the opposite side of the road. I told Laura that I was going to sound like Dad for a while as we shopped here, to avoid stupid conversations when my English accent was detected. She said she’d keep mum. As I anticipated we did get engaged in conversation but I obviously passed the test as the guy really did believe we were from Freo and I worked at Myers. It helped that our camper had a Freo Licence plate and was obviously not a hire vehicle. Plus we had a dusty red patina after our misadventure in the National Park and its un-metalled roads which gave us an air of verisimilitude.

The grocery section was pretty ordinary but the wine stock was pretty good. We bought four bottles from Margaret River, two Clairault whites and two Hamelin Bay whites. The guy at the till made some disparaging remark about us being wine snobs, so I added fuel to it by saying that I actually had a palate and avoided the paint stripper in casks. That got a laugh from a couple behind us in the queue who teased the guy behind the till saying he had no idea any way because all he drank was bloody Carlton!

Back in the camper Laura said, “It really is Hicksville out here, isn’t it?” I told her if she heard the sound of banjos playing we had to run like hell! Back at the site we had a late lunch / early dinner then went to the site office to chat to the woman in there about local activities, whale viewing etc. She told us the headlands to the south and west of the settlement were quite good places to spot them as they saw past heading into the area between here and Esperance. The Best Place, apparently, was back in the Fitzgerald River National Park where pods of them often spend time there resting with their calves. We walked out to the nearest headland just east of the site. This had a really rocky shoreline, with strata of rocks coming in off the ocean in quite an impressive array. I call it a headland but it was relatively flat I suppose. We scrambled about over the rocky terrace like thing heading south to a really long empty beach with very pale sand. It stretched for miles and miles. At the end of this beach we could see some sort of buildings complex that looks like it could be in need of further exploration. The coast here looked as though it could get some wild and woolly weather, especially at this time of the year.

This contrasts with the estuary type thing along Bremer Bay Road which looked sort of marooned as thought the river which flows down to the sea here is only tidal at very high tides. On the long beach we had a walk about and even contemplated paddling in the sea. As it was getting late we headed back to a path we crossed on getting to the beach, in the hope it would take us back to the site.

Having got slightly lost, I think, we eventually pitched up on Cuneo Drive. I thought I remembered that this passed the campsite so we followed it and I was right – we arrived back at the campsite just as the sun disappeared below the horizon. We toyed with heading into the centre of the settlement in search of entertainment, but then decided to empty the second bottle of Hamelin Bay instead.  A rather tipsy pair of giggly girls hit the charp early this evening. Putting head to pillow at about 9.30pm. I did feel strangely tired today. Laura’s ministrations did rouse me back awake for a while but once I had pleased her too, I was out like a light.

Wednesday August 20^th.

We got up early and strolled into the settlement this morning and learned that the sand does close the mouth of the estuary so well people drive their 4x4s onto it and the beaches just here are really safe for bathing and paddling. The Wellstead Estuary is actually pretty deep and looks very pretty, especially from the new looking jetty we found along its shore line. We were hoping to find a café or something overlooking the estuary but were disappointed not to find one at all. We asked in the shop, remembering to imitate my Dad again, and were told there was a really good one at the Wellstead Museum. I also asked about the industrial bit at the end of the beach and was informed it was a commercial abalone fishery which is sometimes open to the public. I asked if the two places were walkable and got laughed at, being told I obviously was a townie if I was prepared to walk out here! (I felt a bit insulted at that but laughed along anyway.) I did not comment on the fact that the daily papers don’t arrive here until about lunch time!

We went back to the site, fired up the camper and, armed with the local map we were given at the shop, set off to find the museum and café. The Wellstead Museum and Gallery is a sort of tribute to a guy from England who came out here in the early 19^th century, settled and made a home for himself (and wife and eventually huge family). The original little shack thing he built is still here and is tiny. Over the years the size of the place grew and grew as did the size of his family. It is quite humbling to think that this guy left the relative civilisation of the UK to eventually attempt to forge a life for himself in the wilderness out here. It is pretty isolated now, it must have been like a man on the moon in those days! The big homestead is a rambling affair called Kent House and is unique in its architectural style. The old photographs are an amazing record of the place.

The museum is a collection of stiff gathered over the years and pretty fascinating as it gives a glimpse back to a life that has been largely overlooked in the UK, the Victorian / Edwardian era. Most of the stuff from that time doesn’t get the prominence it deserves as in most Brits’ eyes it is still pretty close. When you have antiquities which are Pre-Roman, Victoriana is more of a niche attraction. There were old vehicles and tools and photographs and all sorts of daily ephemera. There was even a collection of blue glass. (As a little girl I collected blue glass things and probably had about half of the number here! Mum still has them in four crates in her loft.)

We had a cuppa and bite at the café and asked about the abalone works on the shore line. It works wonders if you play at being the helpless woman who wants to know stuff, people will tell you all sorts of things. The café guy told us all about Ocean Grown Abalone, which is the name of the company. Finding a gap in the exotic sea food market they realised that growing the molluscs from their larval stage in tanks and then transferring them to their own marine reefs to mature and harvest was a sound business policy. They are pretty successful, apparently, with their produced being covered by a huge range of magazines and other media, including one of Aussie’s top Gourmet magazines!

  

The guy wasn’t sure if the company did tours so we asked about the dunes we’d heard about instead. He directed us to the nearest ones but said there were others further west that were even more spectacular. The close ones weren’t hard to find and we were gobsmacked at how big they were. Locals use them for dune sledging and I was really disappointed we had nothing we could use to try it out ourselves. If these local dunes were less impressive than the ones further west, they must be enormous.

From here we sort of back tracked until we hit Point Henry Road and then headed south to the point. It was very impressive. We actually pootled down to Little Boat Harbour first expecting to find a settlement (how naïve). Then we headed back to PHR and parked up looking first for Sparkling Island. We soon realised that we needed to do a total circuit (according to our map) from Little Boat Harbour around the headland. So we drove back down, parked up, again, and with our rucksacks stocked with sangers and drink and waterproof coats and probably a year’s supply of Cherry Ripe, we set off on our mini expedition. We found Sparkling Island (it doesn’t – which was a disappointment) we had our lateish lunch sat looking out over the island and the great expanse of the Southern Ocean rolling away beyond it.

We had a cuddle and a snog and Laura said she thought, as it was so isolated, it would be an ideal place for some open air bonking! (What sort of nympho am I going out with?) Never one to pass up the chance of pleasure I agreed. She was right. We had a good hour of passion on our blanket with no-one else appearing at all! [Of course they could have hidden in the brush and filmed our entire naughtiness. Watch out on Sapphic Erotica for two blondes indulging themselves in a pristine coastline scenario on a tartan blanket!] Suitably refreshed and a bit sandy in place where sand has no right to be, we dressed and set off to complete our headland circuit. After another hour’s gentle wandering we arrived back at the camper, where we sat and had a cuppa of our own and watched the sunset.

Driving through the bush in the dark is a bit un-nerving at the best of times and I was really wary in case a dozy roo came bounding through, in front of us. Luckily they must have found a party to go to elsewhere and we eventually found our way back to the site. We parked up, again, and cooked ourselves a late meal. It really is quiet as this time of year, as the site owner told us. It is very peaceful and the sounds of the bush are all around you. Laura still can’t get over the lack of grass there is out here, especially when you venture out of the settlement areas. Even more so than Esperance, out here it is mainly sand and scrub vegetation with masses and masses of smallish eucalyptus trees everywhere. I explained Albany will be more like Warnbro and Rockingham.

Thursday 21^st August.

We packed up and bade a fond farewell to Bremer Bay. It may be quite and at the end of a road to nowhere, but I really liked it. I suppose its relative isolation will mean its growth may be limited and it could stay like this for ever! They really ought to make more of the Wellstead Estuary and Inlet, like they have done in Mandurah. (Well that’s what I would do, anyway!)

It is about 200 Km to Albany so we took it fairly steady, with Laura driving the 60Km back to National Highway 1 before I took over to take us to the ‘big city’ LOL. Once we drew closer to Albany I looked out for a left turn that would take us down past Oyster Harbour and then down through Collingwood to Emu Beach and then Middleton Beach where we were staying. The road was Mead Road which leads down to the King River Bridge. It is very pretty along this route in, but you have to be careful in Collingwood or you’ll miss the turn down to the shore of King George Sound. Being born with an inbuilt sense of direction I found the turns with no trouble at all.  The site at Middleton Beach was just as I remembered it from last year and Laura was really impressed, it is easily the ‘swishest’ site we’ll be staying on for the whole journey.

We checked in, found our pitch and then caught a bus into the town centre. Yes, a bus! Just before 11 am to Peel’s Place in town. We had to catch the 2.40 pm one back or we’d be walking. This gave us a good three hours of strolling round the centre, down the Amity in Princess Royal Harbour and a good time window shopping too. We were going to drive to the IGA later in the afternoon to stock up for our stay.

After we’d wandered down to the Amity we strolled up back through the shops and I found a gorgeous dress in one. It is like a long tunic dress; it zips down the front and has a button at the neck (scooped neck). It is sleeveless and has an elasticated waist then a sort of tulip style skirt section which ends about five inches above the knee. I tried it on in the shop and it looked lovely. It is in the brightest Cornflower blue colour and is a sort of linen fabric. I just couldn’t resist it. $170 but we got the purchase tax removed because we had our passports and travel documents with us. How cool is that? Laura said she loved it too and if I hadn’t seen it first she would have bought one. She liked the way the zip provided access to what was underneath! [I called her a dirty cow and she told me she would show me just how dirty when we got back to the site.]

Laura tried on a dress they called a ‘Miley’ which was a lace overdress over a mini / slip dress. It looked gorgeous too but she said she wasn’t sure about it. The mini dress / slip was a little black number and the lace over the top had a repeating pattern of foliage with larger tri-leaf design all over the smaller leaves. I thought she looked beautiful in it, but she thought it was too expensive at nearly $300. Plus, she said she had about four weeks of the holiday left and would look for things to buy in the last week.  I felt really stupid when she said this, not because it was an eminently sensible approach to holiday shopping (which I obviously lack) but also I might have been pressuring her into squandering her limited amount of spending money and she was too polite (or embarrassed) to tell me. I do sometimes forget that she is a student and has a very limited income from her part time job.

We window shopped some more then caught the 2.40 bus back to Flinders’ Terrace. I whispered in her ear on the bus that I was looking forward to her being dirty when we got back to the van. She told me to stand up and then sit down again. When I did she had her hand inside my skirt and fingers feeling for my honey pot.  “Outside or in?” was all she said.

“In, please” was my reply and we spent the fifteen minutes of the bus ride with me being fingered in public by my girlfriend on the back seat of a bus! I remembered all the times I had let Richard do this to me and decided I had to get her to do it more and more. Maybe she’d even let me do the same to her sometimes? I hadn’t climaxed by the time the bus stopped but I was desperate to do so, so we tore to the van and spent an hour being very dirty girls!

The pitch we chose has its own en-suite cabin so after we had satisfied our carnal desires and had a rest from all the exertions, we tested whether the two of us could fit under the shower. We could. We haven’t washed each other since we arrived in Australia apart from one day when everyone was out (school or work). We spent an age in the shower and washed each other thoroughly. I am afraid to say we got naughty again whilst doing it. Afterwards I got to thinking it was a real good thing that the girls couldn’t come with us on this trip as we would have been so sexually frustrated by the time we’d driven the whole route!

We checked the fridge and discovered we had enough for a knock together meal and two bottles of wine chilling too. I defrosted some chicken pieces in the microwave and we made an ad-hoc stir fry with the items left in our fridge. We downed a full bottle of the Clairault with our meal, and feeling suitably tanked up headed to the shared spa section on the site. I had expected this to be deserted but there were already two people in the spa. Being pretty huge we joined them in the water, which was really relaxing. The couple had rented a cabin and were just down for a long weekend from Perth. We had a fairly long, inconsequential gossip with them and they seemed quite a nice pair.

They wandered off and we had the place to ourselves for a while until we were joined by a couple of teenage boys who seemed full of bravado and brashness until they saw us in the spa and they became as shy as kittens. Our attempts at conversation were pretty hopeless as they answered almost all our questions with monosyllabic answers. I was just about to despair of them both when a matronly figure appeared and cried out, “There you are!” It was their Mum, Caroline, who soon made up for her boys’ lack of communication. I told Caroline her lads were useless at chatting up totty; which brought huge guffaws from her and the most beetroot coloured faces from the boys.

Once again we confused New Zealand accents for Australian ones. It seems the family were having a few days break after coming over to a family bereavement in Albany. We offered our condolences and the reply was, “Thanks, but he was a mean old bugger!”

The three of them left before we did and we continued to turn our skin into a wrinkled prune texture as it got darker and darker outside. Eventually we succumbed to the lure of the van, had a mug of hot chocolate each and hit the charp.

Laura, not given to snap decisions as a rule, told me she though Albany seemed the best place we had been so far. That included Rotto, Warnbro, Freo and all the points on our tour. I am inclined to agree with her. There is something reassuringly marvellous about Albany. It has the most wonderful location and seems a town at peace with itself.

Oh shite, I am getting all philosophical. I will shut up.

Esperance by bike. The lake isn't very pink at all!

Friday 15^th August.

I woke up this morning from a shocking dream where I was involved with three guys. The guys were Alan, Christopher and Michael. [Alan the vet who I dated, Christopher from work who wants to date me and Michael – Dad’s colleague - who I seriously snogged when drunk at Dad’s wedding reception.] I will not go into details but it involved bodily fluids being ingested. I awoke as wet as anything and turned on beyond belief. I haven’t had a dream like this in years, not since the days when I was an undergraduate little miss cum bucket. I pulled Laura’s hand down between my legs and she needed no further encouragement. When she had performed her magic I reciprocated and we ended up in a sexed-out, tired and loving huddle.

A peek through the blinds revealed the fact that we had British weather outside, overcast, cold, rainy. Just like home. The islands tour had to take a back seat today; we hoped for better weather tomorrow. We lay snuggled up for a while just stroking each other gently. We decided that getting a couple of bikes for the next two days would be a good idea so we went to the site shop and asked about bike hire. We were directed to Laquo bike hire. So we drove down in the camper and hired a pair of bikes for two days. We fitted them into the camper and headed back to the site.

We spent the day dodging the rain spots and everywhere we went told us there hadn’t been any rain for ages until today! We cycled down to the Municipal Museum and looked at the exhibits in more detail than I did with the girls last year. Teenage girls and museums aren’t the most likely companions, so we had a whistle stop look. This time we had a good look round, had a bite to eat, and talk to the curator about the Skylab exhibit. I surprised the curator by telling them that the majority of the debris came down on Balladonia. I knew this because my Dad had a T-Shirt from 1979 which had a map of the area on it and the wording “Western Australia, the State of Excitement”. It was a horrible brown colour. Dad still has it somewhere, being rather OCD about his clothing. The curator showed me an exact copy of Dad’s T-shirt from the archive, it is obviously one of the same batch. He sounded very excited about his old shirt.

Owing to the fact the night is still falling pretty early out here (about 5.45pm) we spent the rest of the afternoon cycling round Esperance and out to Pink Lake. It wasn’t all that Pink to be honest but usually that only occurs in summer when the temperature is higher and the algae absorbs their (its?) beta carotene. It is only a few clicks out of the town and quite a pleasant bike ride. We can get really close to the lake along one side and there is a view point at one end too. It is really salty and used to be a source of local salt production. I think it may still be so. We went to Lake Warden and then round to the Leda Nature reserve. It is full of small lakes and tracks and is quite pretty.

We whizzed back into town and headed to the jetty. It is a bit like Busselton’s jetty sans train. It’s great for cycling down and there were masses of old men fishing from it. We stopped at the end for ages and watched out for sea life appearing. One of the guys said you could sometimes see the occasional seal around the structure. Unfortunately we didn’t see any but we had a great view of the Recherche Archipelago. We contacted the Woody Island tour company and booked ourselves on a full day tour for Monday. (The girls and I did the half day tour last year.) We have to hope that there will be twelve people booked onto the tour otherwise it doesn’t go ahead. Fingers and toes crossed then. This will take us through the islands for the first part of the tour, when we get onto the island and are given a snack. This is followed by a bush walk with a guide and eventually a barbeque meal before heading back to Esperance at about 3.30pm.

At the site we had our evening meal, which in traditional Aussie fashion included large slabs of meat being grilled and served with a huge salad and oven chips. We went and sat in the site’s communal verandah things after the meal and were joined by a handful of other people who were touring around the state (and one couple who were doing the whole circuit). We shared stories and potted histories and several bottles of wine. I had stocked up on Happs Fuchsia from the bottle shop in town but once everyone discovered how delicious it was they drank me out! Four bottles gone! Boo Hoo. As most of them were staying for a few days too we agreed to rendezvous tomorrow and do it again and this time I was promised they would bring their own Happs to the feast.

Saturday 16^th August.

The site has free wifi, which is pretty useful so I called Warnbro this morning to see how everyone was. The girls we glad to hear from me and jealous as hell that they weren’t with us. I promised them a trip up through the Pinnacles to Geraldton before we left, if Suze OK’d it. She did. Jeff was out somewhere for footy practice prior to a game tomorrow. Suze had heard from Mum and Gran seemed to be none the worse for her little spill. Mum had teased her that next time she goes on the whisky she has to cut out the gardening or vice versa. Gran didn’t think this was funny. I suppose she wouldn’t, I told Suze it was another example of where we got our sense of humour from. Mum was just as bad as Dad. She said she had forgotten how funny Mum & Dad could be, most of what she remembered was their nasty bickering that led up to them splitting up and then getting divorced. I was far too young to notice the bickering. All I knew was that Dad had gone to a job in Sheffield and we ended up stuck in Norwich without him.

Today we had an attempt at cycling a large circuit which takes you due west out of the town and ends up on Twilight Beach Road; out past Pink Lake again (still not pink) and more climbing than I remembered. I had driven out here in the camper van the last time so I wasn’t paying much attention to the topography of the route. Twilight Beach Road is beautiful and is even more so for taking our time along it on our bikes rather than whizzing across in a motor. We took several detours off the road to various headlands and also had our lunch at one spot where there was not another soul in sight. This is often nothing new I have found, out here. There are loads of pull off points and car parks (even a toilet and shower block in one of them). The feel is like being on Rottnest but with real vehicles included too. There is more coastal scrub than on Rotto too.

Back in the town we had lunch at a deli and then headed out eastwards past the campsite to get to Brandy Creek. It looked quite interesting and of course we could cycle most of the way there right along the coast. It is a little harbour development just south of the racecourse. There is still a lot of bush around it but it does look like a prime site to be developed. There are plots on the way there already cleared with their services installed, ready to be built on once the new owner has decided upon a house design they like. If I thought Norwich was a city out on a limb then Esperance is like Norwich in spades. It is so far on a limb that I do bet the only culture they have this far out (apart from the brilliant museums) really is yogurt. It also got us wondering what the hell a town this far away from anywhere else can do to support its growing population. They can’t all be old retired codgers, surely?

Back at the site we had more cooked meat for our evening meal and then rendez-voused with the fellow travellers again for more snacking, guzzling and craic. Two couples had bought Happs Fuchsia with them, I am afraid I trumped that with some really nice Verdelho which was from Margaret River itself. We only brought two bottles but once again Maia’s choice proved a wow. One of the couples was amused by the fact we had hired bikes to explore the town and its locality in greater detail than you can on foot or in a vehicle. I explained how I used my sister’s bike in Warnbro to get about when I came to stay and that if you’ve been to Rotto you realise that a bike is a brilliant way to get around and see so much that you might otherwise miss.

One of the women asked if we got hit on a lot, being two skinny blonde women out travelling. I dismissed the idea but Laura did mention the incident at Northam where we had freeloaded off three guys who thought their luck was in if they bought us drinks. She said she was embarrassed by my brazenness in accepting the drinks and leading the guys on. I said that as a feminist it was my honour bound duty to disappoint as many men as possible if they thought the easiest way to a quick shag was to ply any new woman in the area with drinks. I had thought this might lead us down into areas I didn’t want to go but virtually all of the other women agreed that this subtle way of scoring points for our gender was totally justified, given the almost totally sexist agenda followed by most males in the country. This sounded like stirring a hornet’s nest to me, but most of the men around the tables agreed with their partners. I had to tell them that they were a refreshing change to the guys I had met when I lived here and they were probably an endangered species!

We moved on to excursions and activities and I think we surprised them by saying we were going to the cinema tomorrow to see “Lucy” the new Scarlett Johansson film about enhanced intelligence. I think the film’s title may be a reference to either the Chimpanzee of the famous experiments, in the last century about intelligence, or even the ‘first woman’ of the Human species found in central Africa. A couple of them had booked for the Woody Island tour on Monday for which I gave a hearty cheer, explaining that they cancelled if they had fewer than 12 people booked on it. One or two of the others baulked at the expense of the day, but I thought it was reasonable if you considered it included two “meals” in the deal, plus a guide for the island section.

Once again, Laura’s chosen area of study was a revelation to the assembled crew. It is as if they look at her and can’t believe that this gorgeous, slim, Aphrodite of a girl could be a wizard at maths. I sang her praises about how she works out the unit price of things we buy in the supermarket in her head, to see if the bigger sized package is actually better value. She blushed so prettily I wanted to kiss her there and then. She got her own back by telling everyone I was busy working on translating a series on Mediaeval documents from Latin and Old French as part of my PhD. I am sure I blushed as deeply as she did; especially as they all agreed that they had judged the book of us two by the cover, not realising how so unlike their assessment of us we had been! [I am not sure of this was an insult or a compliment.] I explained that I was merely following a precedent set by my mother and father as they were an Assistant Head Teacher and a Senior Lecturer respectively. (I do brag about my folks a lot, because I am so proud of them and what they do – or did, as Mum retired last year.)

This led on to how we knew each other, inevitable I guess. Laura told them the history of the Thomases and Jays in our little Cumbrian village which seemed enough to satisfy their curiosity. If any of them discerned our deeper relationship it wasn’t alluded to. I asked Laura, as we were lying in a post coital glow later, why she hadn’t told them our secret and she replied that she didn’t want to tempt fate. Beautiful, sexy as hell and sensible as well; what more could a girl want in a partner?

Sunday 17^th August.

With a wind coming down from the desert, today was a shorts day for both of us. I had my sensible shorts on but Laura wore a pair which were totally unsuited to anything except rousing my libido at the sight of her soft buttocks protruding from them. I asked if she realised that she was in imminent danger if she continued with the idea of wearing such provocative clothing. She asked, “What danger?” and I replied by fondling the said buttock area and discovering that the fondling had given rise to an excess of feminine lubrication in an adjacent area. This, naturally, necessitated the removal of the offending item of clothing and inserting my digits below her flimsy underwear. We set off out about 45 minutes later, with much faster heart rates and deeply flushed countenances!

The bikes had to be back by 1pm so we spent the rest of the morning having another good cycle round the town, our concentration was on the sea front areas, which are much better explored on a bike than on foot. In the hot weather (well hot for us at 23 degrees) masses of locals had come out to avail themselves of a sunny Sunday, too. I didn’t begrudge them their pleasure. There were a lot more cyclists about than I had anticipated, the majority were like us two, just pottering about, but there was a group of Keen-Types in lycra and pro-jerseys looking like they were enjoying sweating rivers and knackering themselves out in the heat. Apart from, as a young girl, watching Linford Christie’s package moving when he was running in lycra, men in lycra generally have done nothing for me at all. I guess it was the size of Linford’s package which attracted this young girl’s attention without knowing exactly why at the time. It was only when I got older I discovered the size of the bulge in their trousers sometimes meant the size of the pleasure it could give you was increased.

We returned the bikes and sauntered back to the campsite to freshen up and have a meal prior to hitting the cinema to see ‘Lucy’. It was good but I thought it ended up being two films instead of one. Or even three. It starts off going in one direction and then wanders away into a different route. I am impressed by Scarlett Johansson’s recent films, “Under the Skin” especially. This was sort of science fiction too but totally different. I wonder if this liking for SJ films is an indicator of my recent change of proclivities – I remember her in Ghost World and Girl with a Pearl Earring as well as many of the others she has done – perhaps there was a latent tendency for lesbianism lurking under my rampantly heterosexual past?

There were quite a lot of films on show at the Fenwick, from the rather good Lucy to the crappiness of Mrs Brown’s Boys. We would have gone to see Calvary but we hadn’t seen the previous film in the series so we went for Lucy. It would have been How to Train Your Dragon 2 but it was on in about 1pm, far too early to be in the cinema.

After Lucy we went hunting for a place for an evening meal. We settled on Ocean Blues Restaurant and as a change from red meat we both went for fish / sea food. It was delicious. As a BYO we went there via bottle shop and brought a couple of interesting bottles: Capel Vale Sauvignon Blanc and a Houghton HWB.  One of the couples from the site came in before we got served so we invited them over to our table and they joined us for a snackerooni. They had seafood too. We enjoyed the meal, the wine and the company.

Sheila (yes she really was called Sheila) and Tony were dining companions, as we sort of knew from the previous evenings at the caravan site. They were taking accumulated long service leave from Commonwealth Bank. They had saved up three lots each and combined with their annual leave of this year had almost a full 12 months to tour their home continent. They were probably about 10 years younger than my Mum & Dad and quite young in outlook. They jokingly said they were busy spending their kids’ inheritance. I thought this was a wonderful attitude to have.

Laura picked their brains quite a bit about the role of graduate employment in the banking sector. She is thinking of going into banking or insurance in some way and these two were ideal candidates to have their brains picked. They had plenty of advice but thought it may be different, in a way, in the UK as the pool of talent is much wider. They asked if she’d consider moving out to Australia to work. [I held my breath in anticipation of her answer.]   She was quite diplomatic in her answer saying she hadn’t seen enough of the place to know if she’d like to live here permanently yet. She did say she thought I would like it but would miss my mountains, whereas she hadn’t really anything she would miss in the same way – apart from me. I wasn’t sure if they’d picked up on that reference as the conversation wandered around to things we would miss if we left our home country. For the two of them it was definitely the weather. I had to agree that the British weather wasn’t something that I would miss. It is too unpredictable and not really over warm.

They asked me the same question, if I would come out here to work. I ran the same answer by them that I always use, I would like a job which would keep me six months in each place. Tony, being a lot sharper than he looks, told me off for that answer, telling me it was a cop out. I had to agree that I was being ingenuous. I explained I had worked out here twice for periods of over a year each. The second one was for almost 18 months and would have been for longer if my Dad hadn’t found me a job in Sheffield. I told them I was happily living my life in Warnbro with my sister and family, filling my spare time as their unpaid baby-sitter, with a guy in tow from Fremantle. My job in the department store was mindless and easy enough to cope with. It was Dad’s imput which had changed my life in such a huge way.

They were pretty sharp, these two bankers. Sheila came out with, “So you weren’t gay when you were here, then?” She then bit back the remark and told me to forget she had asked such an impertinent question. Laura jumped in and told her, “She wasn’t when I told her I loved her but she has become my dearest love now.” We then embarked on a longish description of how this straight half-ocker became a confirmed rug muncher. We seem to be doing this quite a lot to complete strangers. Still if it flies the flag for same sex relationships, we are quite willing to do so.

We moved on to less contentious issues and had a pleasant after dinner gossip. Then we drove them back to the campsite in our van. (They had walked down to the restaurant.) Any early night was hit on the head by being invited over to the verandahs for a “final swig before hitting the hay”. The final swig turned out to be two 2 litre Yalumba casks shared between seven of us. Hic!

A brothel, a sex shop and a big pit - the delights of Kalgoorlie!

Monday 11^th August

I couldn’t bloody believe it; five women in the house and no sodding tampons! Not a solitary single one. Laura looked a bit guilty saying she had taken the last one from my bung bag in the night because she had run out too, as I dumped the contents from handbag on the bed to see if one was lurking among the layer of detritus at the bottom – there wasn’t! She thought I had another cache somewhere in my luggage. I hadn’t packed extra, I had assumed I would have enough to last this time and I’d buy some more out here for next month. I hadn’t realised Laura was helping herself from my bung bag too. I frantically knocked at the girls’ door, after discovering the family cabinet in the main bathroom only had pads, to see if either of them had any. They didn’t. Bloody useless or what?

I ended up having to use a pad and wait until the pool opened as I knew there was a vending machine in there which sold the Aussie equivalent of the kind I use. [Lil-lets in case you are wondering.]  Jill pulled a face at the idea of going swimming when I was ‘on’ but I always have done and worn a tampon. It works for me. Annabelle was all, “What if you leak, while swimming? That would be so gross…” I told her it was more gross having to wear a mediaeval style solution instead of something which kept everything tidied away and created no mess or uncomfortable feelings at all.

I explained I inserted a fresh one before going into the pool. Even if I had a flow like a severed vein I’d be good for about an hour. They both cringed a bit. I asked them if their Mum hadn’t given them the ‘talk’ and they said she had but she’d also said they didn’t ought to go swimming during their period. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe she hasn’t encouraged them to use tampons either. I can’t even believe that she isn’t using them as well. I mean, it is just so obvious and less messy all round. Even virgin Laura is a tampon user, OK she has had several things inside there – especially since I have had anything to do with it - but she thinks the idea of pads is so primitive too! Jeff just sat in the back seat and squirmed at our conversational gambit. He needs to hear ‘women stuff’ it may make him a better man when he grows up.

At the pool I was saved by a newly filled vending machine. Phew. I only bought one packet as they worked out so expensive from the machine. After swimming I nipped over the road to the shops and bought a mega boxful from the supermarket.

This morning was emotional in another way too, which had nothing to do with mine and Laura’s monthlies; today we were going off in the camper, doing the reverse of the circuit I had done with the girls last year. To that end we had loaded it all up after we got back from Bruce and Tania’s. This morning after our swim and breakfast we were taking the kids to school in the camper and then heading off to Toodyay and then Northam for our first stop of the night, however this didn’t quite go to plan as we got a Skype from Mum before we left for school, so we told her we’d drive the kids to school and come back and Skype her from Suze’s to use her power and computer rather than use my tablet.

Mum was in a tizzy because Gran had fallen and was in hospital with a broken arm and slight concussion. She had been attempting something in the garden, Mum wasn’t too specific about what had happened but it seems that during whatever she was doing took a tumble from a small stool thing she has. Luckily, she fell into a bush and then sort of rolled out of the bush onto the garden where she put her arm out to break her fall and hit her head on the lawn. She has actually broken her left wrist and grazed the left side of her head.  The neighbour on that side of the house saw it all happen and rushed round. She realised an ambulance was needed and summoned one. She also followed as it took her to Melrose, rather than one of the two piddling hospitals in Hawick. Once Gran was assessed and x-rayed and admitted the neighbour phoned Mum who brought her visit to Hawick forward. This all happened on Saturday.

Mum screamed up the M1, A1 and A68 to find Gran admitted for the night as a precaution for the concussion and as there was no-one else at home. Mum went back there as soon as possible on Sunday morning but the hospital wouldn’t discharge Gran until the consult had seen her and he doesn’t come round until today. It was just after 1 am when Mum called us and she was fine with us calling back when we had dumped the kids. She was still awake at 2pm having gone ‘past sleep’, according to her.

The consultant won’t get to see Gran until mid-morning and I persuaded Mum to go to bed as soon as we’d hung up and then once she had Gran back in her bungalow in Hawick to Skype Suze. She could then relay the details to me in Kalgoorlie. I didn’t think she’d agree but she said she would. It seemed a good idea to warn Suze so I drove us down to Mandurah to speak face to face, so much better than a phone call. She was quite sanguine about it – being a nurse that is hardly surprising, I suppose. She hasn’t seen Gran in person since 2000. They have Skyped occasionally but not too often.

What with one thing and another we weren’t ready to set off until almost noon. We stopped for the night at Northam after driving slightly further north to show Laura Dad’s property in Toodyay first. It is quite pretty up in the edge of the Great Plateau, where the Darling Ranges end and the’wheat belt’ begins to appear. Dad’s property still hasn’t been developed and there is talk of new legislation being brought through the W. A. parliament to make absentee landowners do something about the land they own but aren’t using. A sort of ‘use or lose it’ approach.

We had plenty of time to find the double-sized plot and see the hut which Suze and Pete have erected on it to show it is in use! (Laughable but effective, apparently.) We found the campsite that the girls and I used last year and had a better look around than we had last time, as it hadn’t gone dark by the time we’d set up. We strolled down to the Avon Bridge Hotel for our evening meal and ended up spending most of the evening there. Two skinny, blonde English girls seemed to draw the Ockers out of the woodwork. It seemed a good idea to avoid mentioning we were lesbians as the drinks kept coming our way. We had a ride in the back of a Ute, with Greg’s mate, Tim, making sure we didn’t fall out, to the campsite but Greg, Col and Tim were a bit disappointed not to get invited into to our camper. We asked them to drop us at the gates of the park which we could tell they found disappointing but they gallantly did. I supposed they imagined they might get some British pussy – Hah! They’d have got menstruating pussy instead.

Laura was a bit shocked that we had freeloaded ourselves to drunkenness in the bar but I was more pragmatic about it; it had cheered those guys up and we hadn’t promised anything for getting the drinks. Look upon it as payment for our company. Lol. (She didn’t get it.)

Tuesday August 12^th.

Up with the larks this morning and broke the first rule of camping – don’t fry bacon with your windows open; it drives everyone who hasn’t got bacon mad!

I promised Laura she could have a go at the driving today. So at Merredin we swapped roles. By Coolgardie she’d had enough. She expressed great appreciation for the fact I had driven myself around the continent without a spare driver to take over when I felt tired. I explained when I had felt tired I simply pulled over, locked up and went to sleep. I had good old Buster as company then so I felt safe. (That sweet little woofie has gone to the great play park in the sky.)

We arrived in Kalgoorlie in plenty of time to get set up on the campsite after visiting the local shop for extra rations. The evening meal was a Laura concoction of tuna steaks and pasta with peppers, spring onions and mushrooms. [They give you a sign to mark that the pitch is taken, should you drive off after registering. Neat idea.] We drove back into the town after dusk and I tried to get Laura to see the glories of the old mining town. I am afraid she rapidly came to the same conclusion as I did last year: Kalgoorlie is a dump. We went past the Hay Street brothel and I think Laura was genuinely shocked. I had a brilliant idea for the morning though, which I didn’t pass on to my beloved. Back at the campsite we decided on an early night after a quick Skype with Suze to tell me that Gran was back home and Mum was clucking round her like an old hen! Just like her really.

Wednesday 13^th Aug

Today was a day of two visits both connected with men going into dark holes! We found there was a guided tour of the Super Pit, as it is known, so we got ourselves booked onto the 9.30, two and a half hour tour. We had a dress code to follow in order to go it, which was worrying as we thought we might fail the shoe requirement. Our outfit had to be long sleeved, long legged [trousers not a skirt or dress] and our feet had to be fully covered too. That was the problem, until I found a pair of Jill’s trainers in the bottom of the under bed space. Lucky call that one or else Laura would have needed to buy a pair. I had only put my NBs in at the last minute. Good job, eh. The tour even had a dedicated parking space for camper van drivers, which was a first. We were also issued with a hi-vis vest and safety glasses.

The tour bus was very swish and air conditioned – useful out here in the heat. We had a safety talk about the mine and the hazards; what we were allowed to do and what we should avoid. It looks like the mine trucks are kids’ toys as you view them from the viewing area up top but close up and personal they are unbelievably ginormous! They dwarfed the bus! Each truck has a sort of staircase like attachment fixed to the front to allow the driver to get in them!

In fact the whole site is massive. Apparently it can be seen from the orbiting space station! Phew! There are what look like huge steps cut into the sides of the pit, which is how they worked out the ore; at first I had the awful feeling we were going to go down those but there is a road network through the site. In some of the places on the road down the turns and bends make you want to shut your eyes and scream. It was a good job we weren’t driving quickly! We didn’t go all the way down to the bottom but we were given a thorough tour of most of the plant and the workings. They pointed out some of the diggers on the floor of the pit and then we were told to look out for a man in a vest and hat to give it some perspective. We couldn’t see him at first! When the guide told us where to look he was minute, standing next to the digger’s bucket. You could easily have fitted two AFL sides and subs into one digger bucket!

Fimiston Mill was vast and really dusty. It would make a great film set for space exploration films. There are exposed girders and walkways and gantries and stuff. Most of it painted yellow for some reason. I was going to ask why yellow, but forgot. In comparison the control room was quite tiny but it had a huge bank of large TV screen/monitors – some with views of the site and some with charts and graphics on them. Complicated looking for sure. We saw the milling process and realised why the pit was so big and how much better it was than the old method of sinking a hole in the ground and hopefully striking a rich lode! Here you get everything there is to be found. We were shown some gold in its ‘raw’ state and you could understand why those guys went looking for, it all those years ago, in the first place.

It was a really well spent $70 and two and bit hours of our time.

We had a bite from the local Subway before embarking on our next quest; to the Questa Casa brothel for their guided tour. It was less than a third of the price of the pit tour and much less dusty, although I must admit some of the rooms themselves were a bit tacky. The woman guide, whom I must assume works here by night, was full of knowledge and details, especially about the history of prostitution in the town. She kept a flow of interesting comments, sometimes so politically incorrect it was unbelievable. I think that the guys on the tour were more embarrassed about the sex toys and sex talk than the women. The most amusing thing was a valuation of our worth as prostitutes working here. I won’t tell you what mine was but Laura was declared the most valuable out of our group of visitors. [She whispered that she’d start charging me as a way of funding her studies!]

The old, original site was horrendous though. The corrugated iron “stalls” just conjured up the most appalling images in my head of the degradation and humiliation some of those early working girls must have suffered. There were some old newspaper cuttings on display too which we equally as fascinating as the guide. I think it might be an eye-opener for any tourist to look at how this trade developed alongside the more legitimate means of earning a living.

I was a bit over whelmed by desire for Laura when we left the place but I remained calm and steadfast as we headed for our next port of call; my brilliant idea surprise, the Adult shop in Maritana Street. I had checked its location and had also discovered it was doing a special offer, if you bought one sex toy from a selection you got another one free. We asked the woman in charge about the offer and the items we could purchase. The free offer was a version of The Rabbit, smaller than ours at home and using water based lubricant. One of the items you needed to purchase to get the freebie was a 13”, double ended, vibrating dildo. We naturally chose this and bought some lube too (for the rabbit). The woman was intrigued that we knew so much about sex toys and the like and wondered why we hadn’t brought ours across from the UK. I told her about the embarrassment that I had anticipated if we got stopped at customs! She then asked us if we would be interested in a lucrative side offer with toys, she gave us a business card with the name, phone number and e-mail addresss of an ‘adult film’ producer. I just slipped it into the bag with our goodies. Naturally we won’t be phoning the guy’s number.

Outside we had a huge fit of the giggles at the prospect of our lovemaking being filmed, commercially. I told Laura it just reinforced what the madam in the Questa Casa had said, she was the most valuable commodity there. I got whacked on the arm for that one. Plus, as a severe damper on the proceedings she also said, “I am still on, BTW, so I don’t really fancy putting those to good use at the moment.” Boo hoo. Back at the site I did persuade her to use the new rabbit on me, in the interests of scientific research, which was truly gorgeous – she made me wear a scarf over my eyes and I wasn’t allowed to touch myself or her at all, until I came. I had the most overwhelming O and afterwards I used my fingers to tease her love bump into giving her a really long O too. She says should be finished by the weekend, so we can put the double ender to good use.

Thursday 14^th Aug.

I awoke in a sweat and found that my love bump was being nibbled by a long haired blonde girl with a sylph like figure. When I opened my eyes she smiled and used her fingers down there too. She said she thought she had stopped and couldn’t wait until the weekend. We tried the double ender. It bent sufficiently for us to hug face to face and push it between us [this is something we have practised over the last year with our double ender at home, it’s all down to vaginal muscle control]. I am not sure if we came simultaneously but it was pretty close. We lay hugging each other and feeling at peace with the world until, “Oh, bugger. I haven’t stopped after all….” We had a mop up, a bundling up of the sheet (for washing) and a giggle and I was so delighted that I had been able to inspire my girl to overcome one of her major taboos, without actually having to do any persuading. She did it herself because she wanted me!

After using the site’s showers [much better than wetting through the camper’s one, plus the 17 litre hot water heater needs refilling after one shower] we had brekkers and then set off for the drive down to Esperance. It is nearly 200 Km to Norseman where we stopped for a swift snackerino and then took a look at where the National Route to Adelaide sets off across the country. It is still a hell of a way to the state boundary from here. We then continued down the road to Esperance, it was another couple of hundred Km down to the sea. About three hours later we saw the Southern Ocean and the many islands dotted about in the huge bay. I drove us into the centre and stocked up with more supplies then headed out to the same caravan site I went to with the girls last year. This is on the eastern edge of town and is in walking distance back into the place.

After a swift cuppa, before the night fell, we sauntered into town so we could have a proper look at the Bay of Isles from the promenade. I pointed out the signage for the boat trips out into the bay and we decided, weather permitting, to do the full day version of the one I had done with the girls. We checked what was on at the cinema too and then headed back to the site for our meal and a listen to some music through the vans CD player (and my memory stick) before hitting the charp. Driving such long distances is very tiring, maybe I am just getting old…