Monday, November 2, 2009

Day 142 – 147 The South West, Yallingup to Esperance – 28 Oct – 2 Nov 2009

22,957 kms, 22 degrees C




From Perth we headed back to Dougie and Beth’s at Yallingup – this time to meet more relos as Hilary and Norman had arrived. Hilary and Dougie are Nicky’s cousins from the Kilpartick side of the family. The Kirsops threw another awesome dinner party – we met some more of Dougie and Beths friends, had great food washed down with Margaret River wines.

Next we headed South East, to Walpole – Dougie, Hilary, Norman, Nicky and Stuart that is as poor Beth had to stay behind to try and sell the house! We moved into Rest Point campsite, a beaut spot right on the water. Steaks and snags were on the menu for dinner, for the humans and the cheeky kookaburras – one took a piece of steak off Dougie’s fork before he had chance to get it to his face. He was probably talking too much...

...which became a bit of a theme for the weekend, check out the video!!! Next was a wonderful morning boat ride with WOW and our wonderful, if slightly mad tour guide Garry. The arvo was spent at the top of the tingle trees in the Valley of the Giants. It was wonderful to spend so much quality time with Hilary and “stormin” for the first time since our wedding 19 years ago.


We then turned “left” to head East – a direction we will be in until we return to Melbourne. But next stop was Emmie and Paulie’s in Albany. And Budga, the dog! We visited our first distillery of the trip and Sunday saw a ripper 4WD trek to Paulie’s favourite surf areas. We gave the car a good work out, which it passed with flying colours.



November already –Nicky’s bottom lip is starting to appear at the thought of going back to Melbourne! Our next stop East was Esperance, yet another Auzzie town with glorious beach location, partially blighted by heavy industry on one of the best beaches you will ever see. Besides that the views were awesome. Twilight beach was voted best beach in Australia in 2006 – there is lot of competition for that particular gong.







The South West has many tree plantations, mostly branded Great Southern or Timbercorp. This was a slightly bitter reminder of a sum of money we put into Great Southern a few years back on the recommendation of our accountant, who is also into the horses. Great Southern and Timbercorp both went to the corporate graveyard this year. If my accountant had a tip for the Melbourne Cup tomorrow, I would not be backing it!!


Tomorrow sees us do battle with the Nullarbor, the long road to Adelaide. We will be spending many hours in the car over the next week, 500-600km per day.

3 comments:

Honora said...

Cute cookaburra; can't believe it was tame enought to come to the table! It seems a little sad to see you now heading east towards home but hope you are still seeing some amazing view of the ocean. X Mum

Nicko said...

Good to see yous are having a good time, even if it is without me. I am with another cousin Paige and her family in La Conner in northern Washington State. It's pretty cool hear but a beautiful sunny day with fabulous views of the cascade mountains with Mt Rainier at over 14,000ft the star of the show. Hope you have sorted out the wallering duties and who pays for diesel!! Love to you both. It was just an awesome trip -many many thanks again

Enjoy,

Nicko

Stuart Riley said...

Mum - yes very cute but very cheekly also. They like meat, and showed that in fine style. As the video shows one almost allowed Nic to stroke her.

Nicko - sorry we have not had chance to call, struggling to get on the net, timings tricky etc. We are in Ceduna now in SA. Have done 2000km in 3 days and we are both sick of the steering wheel. More tomorrow also! Remind me of your dates again - when are you flying home? Get your butt on skype back home, will chat.

S