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.