A week in South West, WA… by car!

Merry and I have spent the last week touring South West WA. It’s wonderful for me to have Merry here and also good to have a rest from riding Azulo. The quality of food and lodging has also improved significantly.

This is just a quick update …not much commentary. Just a few photos from our trip for the record.

We spent our first night in Eaton, near Bunbury with my cousin (once removed) Alex and his wife Rachel. We phoned Juliet, my cousin in England. Alex and Rachel have a lovely home in Eaton and a 6 acre block in the hills nearby, Currently they have a shed and 9 Alpacas on the property, but their dream house is in the planning phase!

Photo – Busselton Pier… It’s very long…2 kilometres!

Photos: Vasse Félix Vineyard in the Margaret River district

We saw some lovely beaches… this one is Hamlyn Beach

The Karri Tree forests are superb. The trees grow up to 80 metres!

We visited a 500 year old Jarrah tree… it was saved in the nick of time from being cut down!

We visited the Jewel Cave… there are many others but one was enough! It is spectacular. We chose well!

We visited a Truffle Farm, the largest in Australia and one of the largest in the world. They have Labrador dogs to sniff out the truffles and tours are possible but unfortunately the season starts in June.

We stayed in a variety of places from a very nice Airbnb in Fremantle to comfy a cottage near Nanup

It was pizza night in Nanup. The local café lays it on every now and then. There was loud live music of very doubtful quality but the pizza was terrific. As you see they made a fuss of us with the table sign

We saw this sign outside a beach shop which amused us (sign enlarged on second photo below).

Our last three nights were spent in Fremantle. I am really impressed with Fremantle. It’s got lots of character and is full of life, restaurants, lovely old buildings etc.

We took the “hop on tram” ….an amazing coincidence happened…The tram driver RECOGNISED ME….He said… “You were in the same hotel as me in Kalgoorlie… just a few days ago… you set the smoke alarm off burning your toast didn’t you.”

It turned out that I even slept in the same room as him…Don’t worry, he left a day earlier than me. Just to complete the coincidence, his name is also Geoff.

We visited the Gaol which has been welcoming guests since 1850’s and only closed in 1991. It was built by the convicts.

Some more photos of “Freo”

Swan River Cruise to Perth and Perth hop on bus

Merry and I are very impressed with the quality of the infrastructure here. The trains and stations are clean, the busses are excellent…there is a free bus service called the CAT They are building a superb new Football/Cricket stadium which looks impressive. There are good roads and more!….Also there is very little graffiti!

They had a free wine tasting on board..

 

 

Magnificent meals

Naturally, we’ve had lots of good food and wine on this trip… as always!

Perhaps the pick of the restaurants’ though is “Bread in Common” in Fremantle.

It is modern and the food is fantastic. Food prices are reasonable but wine is expensive.

It is packed out all day from breakfast till dinner. You must go there if you are in Fremantle!

Now sadly Merry leaves and I start the journey again. Merry will meet me again in Darwin in three weeks. I’m looking forward to that already!