Perth to Albany, Australia Roadtrip - Part 1

Welcome back, this week I tell you about a trip we did from Perth to Albany in Western Australia. This was part of the Follow the Sun Relay and in part 1 I will tell you about all the place we stopped off at including, Penguin Island, Mandurah, Collie, Bunbury and Busselton. 

Transcript

Welcome back to Shire travels. In this one we are heading back to the west coast of Australia and driving from Perth to Albany. We did this trip back in 2018, and it was part of the following the sun relay. This was an event or tourism promotion that was organized by let's go caravan camping and datic. They had a big Apollo Winnebago motor home and it was doing a big lap of Australia. They asked different people to apply to do different legs of the trip, so Tom and I applied to do Perth to Albany. We really wanted to explore the Margaret River area and it worked well with the amount of time we could get off work. The leg of the trip that we did was around about seven days. to apply for it we just had to go on let's go caravan camping website, say which leg we wanted to drive a bit about us. They also asked for a link to one of our Instagram accounts. They basically wanted to make sure that we knew how to work, Instagram, use hashtags, etc. So one then got back to us and said, yep, you're in, you can do this leg. Here's the draft itinerary and the dates, so they sent us through an excel spreadsheet it told us all the different caravan parks that we were going to be staying at on our stay, and then they had a few ideas of places that they wanted us to visit as well. Now Tom and I had never done anything like this before, and we didn't really know how it worked. We did this trip back in November 2018 and that was before being a full-time travel influenza or Instagrammer, etc. was a thing, so we just had no idea what we were kind of expected to do, so luckily they sent through a very detailed brief on exactly what they needed from us each day in terms of the number of posts on Instagram. They wanted us to send as them a few photos, write a blogp posts. They had also organized some happy hours at some of the caravan parks. This pretty much involved Tom and I handing out some datic merch, the person running the caravan park would buy the food and drinks, and then we had talked to people who came up just about the follow the same relay, what it was promoting, etc. All in all our leg of the trip went pretty well, our talk you through in detail all the places that we stopped off at. The only thing that was a little bit confusing we did have the list of everywhere we were going to stay on the trip, but what was confusing was that when we turned up to the caravan park we never knew whether we were paying or if it had already been paid for, which was just a little bit awkward. So the aim of the game of the fall of the summer relay was to promote caravaning, camping, showcasing that sort of lifestyle, all the different places you could go to on a big lap. Now we had to pay for our own flights, insurance, food activities, but they did help us out with some of the costs of accommodation as I mentioned before, but they did give us $500 for the week to help towards the cost of fuel, food, etc. The motor home that we traveled round in was really big and comfortable. It was a lovely big Winnebago, very spacious, plenty of places to sit, relax. It was quite a standard motome layout. There was a bed above the cabin where we slept, a sleeting area at the front with the table, bathroom with a separate shower and toilet, and then a club lounge at the back that could be converted into a bed. It also had a full kitchen as well. It really was an excellent vehicle to take around Australia. We did this trip in November and the weather was pretty good. I'm sure people who know the southwest of Western Australia it can be colder and more predictable than other parts of Western Australia. We had a bit of a mixed bag. It was windy quite a lot of the time, but there was some days where it was hot enough to swim at the beautiful beaches in Margaret River, and over all it wasn't too cold. We flew from Melbourne to Perth, picked up the motem and got straight into it. The very ple face we stopped was Penguin Island. is a small island just outside of Rockingham. We took the ferry across to Penguin island and you might have guessed it from the name. It's an island full of little penguins or fairy penguins. The ferry ride across it was about five minutes. It was blowing an absolute gale. The sea was very rough, but luckily it was quite shallow, so it wasn't too rocky. Now is actually free to go on to penguin Island however, the fairy is run by a private company and you do have to pay. It was $25 for an adult return, but this does include the $10 marine park levy. Now back when we went you could go to the Penguin Island Discovery center, and this is where rangers would do talks on all the penguins in the center that were in their care. They may be penguins that were slightly underway or had got injured, and are being fed by the keepers to get them back to health. unfortunately, that's now closed and that's a shame because it was a really good experience and a great opportunity to get up and close with the penguins. Once we've seen all the penguins that were inside the discovery center, we did a walk around the island. Now it really isn't a very big island at all. It is actually a bird sanctuary, so you do have to be quite careful where you are walking. There was a boardwalk area that went up to the top of the island and you could see back out to the mainland. Now you can actually walk to the mainland if you get there on an extremely low tide, there is a sandbar that links the two together. however, you would want to be sure that you were getting there on the perfect tide. You'd hate to be walking across and then suddenly find yourself swimming. After we being up to the top of the island and seen some birds and got blown away by the wind, we went back down to one of the more protected beaches. It is a really beautiful island, even if they don't have their discovery center open out, it's still worth a visit out there. They have a beautiful big grassy area with some picnic benches where you can have lunch and then beautiful beaches, lovely blue water, very shallow and protected. Definitely wanted to check out. Next stop was mandra. We checked into the Mandra Torus park and then went for a look around the town. We visited the Anzac memorial that was on the river front there, which was very beautiful. They had some beautiful stone pillars there. It might have been some sort of marble that they had, and it led down to the river really, really nice spot. We then decided to go and check out some of their Instagram slashot spots. This included a laneway with some really brightly colorful bricks that run along the road. They also had a cool mural on the wall which had a small wooden bench on it so when you sat on it like you were on a swing, a very cool spot. It's always nice when towns make a little bit of effort to get people there, take some photos, go for a walk around. They also had sound which were kind of bigger kind of sculpture styles. one which was a big photorame and one which was a big heart that you can sit in as well. If you go onto the manager C council website, they actually do have a map in there of all the different places you can stop and get pictures. Yes, you might be thinking it's a little bit cringed to go around to Instagram spots, but actually it was a lot of fun. It was a good way to get us going to all different places around the town. Now, a couple of years after we visited, they actually installed the mandari giant, so these are lots of different wooden giants that have dotted all around mand and the surrounding areas. Again, if you hop a mandra's website, I think they do have a map showing you where all the different giants are. The next day we got up early and we did a walking tour of mandra's historical sites. This was organized through the Mandra Museum and it was free. We were the only people on the tour so as no to have our own private guided tour. The guide who took us round was lovely as you would expect he was very knowledgeable. We walked round for about 45 to minutes was not strenuous at all. We went to some really interesting spots and learn all about the history of the area. The tour then ended up at the museum and so we got to have a bit of a look around there as well. We would highly recommend this tour. I've just looked online and can see that it does leave every Friday at 11 am. Details are on the Mandas City website. You can't get much for free these days so I think it's worth looking into if you are going to be in the area. After our tour we headed round to the marina area to get some lunch and then we hopped on a one hour dolphin cruise through the waterways ofandra. This was about $50 per person and they guarantee seeing a dolphin, which I thought was the kind of oz which I quite like to hear. Now I had thought that it was probably going to be a good chance of seeing one because when we were having lunch, we could actually see the dolphins kind of popping up every now and then in the marine area. this trip goes up the main river area and then along at some of the canals as well. The dolphins swim alongside the boat, they jump in the w wake, plenty of other boats around do doing the same sort of thing and you can actually see heaps of dolphins. We slowed down with one point. The dolphins came up and had a bit of a look at us. It was a really good tour. There were heaps of operators in the area that run the same sort of thing so make sure you check them out. That evening we headed back to the caravan park because we were hosting the happy hour, drinks and nibbles. We didn't really have much much to do. We had a few chats with people who came over and wanted to know more about the trip. Some people did think that we worked for geetic, though, because we were handing out the dometic merch and they were asking us why their fridge was taking so long to get fixed was a little bit awkward. The next couple of days were spent in the collie and Bumbury districts on our way down we drove past the lake Clifton Thumbolites. Now you may have heard me in one of our postebroom podcasts talking about how old the stomatellites are. Well, I'm pretty sure that that was absolute rubbish and all the information I found online was quite misleading, so I amm not going to pretend to know how old the thrombolites are. I did attempt to have a look online, but honestly the park's website all it did was mention five or six times to not leave casual valuables in your car if you're parked at the Thombolites. They really didn't have much other information. So we did a quick walk round the boardwalk there. It was very quick because it was absolutely pouring with rain. There wasn't really that much to see the strombolades didn't look that interesting to be honest. The most excited thing we saw was a big lizard that was trying to warm itself up somehow in the rain. As the weather still wasn't great we were looking for something to do indoors, we found a big orange towerep it's a gigantic orange at the top of a tower. We went inside had a bit of a look, there were some pictures and some history boards there. It was okay worth a look at a driving past. There was also a winery there as well as we had a quick tasting. The weather didn't improve so we decided to go to the Darup heritage park. I'd had a quick look on their website and could see that quite a lot of their things to see there were indoors, so I thought that would be an ideal place to go seeing as it was raining. It was one of those kind of interesting random places, lots of old farming machinery, but also a lot of old military items too, such as tanks, quite interesting, a bit random, maybe one to check out. That night we checked into the Bumbury lakes, caravan park and spent the rest of the evening relaxing. The next day it was on to Bumbury wildlife park, but first we swung by a big swamp for a look. This is where we ended up parking. I think it was the best spot for us in the motor home as the wildlife park is located here pretty much in the center of town. Now at big swamp we did get to see a beautiful swamp and some signets and we also got to have a bit of a laugh at a sign which says you can't dump domestic ducks in the pond. It's not something that I ever really thought of being a problem, but I guess it is in that area. Bunbury wildlife park is home to mainly native Australian wildlife. You can do things like buy bags of pallets to feed all the various animals there. It's very relaxed you just wander through different paddocks and most the animals will come up to you for a feed. We saw some very cute ducks, a wombat, some emuss, various kangaroos, which were actually quite nerve racking to feed. if you had to be really still, and they kind of grab hold of your hands with claws, and there's lots of signs around which tell you not to move your hand back quickly. I guess they might get aggressive, thinking you're taking you the food away from them. We also saw a very stunning peacock who was strutting his stuff round, desperately trying to impress someone anyone in particular a few pigeons who were just not interested. That afternoon we decided to go for a walk around Bumbury city/town center. The weather wasn't great, and to be honest, there wasn't really that much to see or do. We walked over to the Dolphin Discovery center, but unfortunately it wasn't open. The café though was so we grabbed an ice cream and then went back to the caravan. The next day we spent exploring the sights around Collie. This is slightly inland from the rest of the places that we were heading to on our trip. We attempted to go to I think it must have been in a brewery, but it was closed, so we just steered a kind of cringy Instagram photo shoot in the orchards there and then sped away. We then drove into Collieown itself for a look around and walked through the memorial park they have there, which was just beautiful. One thing we always notice about regional towns is the effort they go to maintaining their parks and landscaping. They always look so green and just so well maintained. It is definitely true of collie's memorial park. They had rows and rows of beautiful big trees. We were actually there not long after remembered day, so there were still some wreaths at the memorial a very beautiful spot. Next up was black diamond Lake, which I was really excited to see, but I was slightly worried that it might be an Instagram versus reality moment, because in everyone's pictures that I've seen the water always looks really blue. Now, luckily it was that color in real life. The water gets its color from being an old mine. definitely don't drink the water and if you do go for a swim, they do seem to give yourself a really good wash afterwards. We drove to a couple of different spots around the lake to get some pitches. I think many years ago used to be able to free camp there. However, that's unfortunately now all gone. Tom drew the straw strawer and jumped in for a swim so that I could get a heap of pitches of him. The base of the lake was kind of a weird chalky mud sand substance. After we got some quick photos, Tom hopped out before he, I don't know, grew an extra arm or something, and then we went back to the motome to have some lunch. Now everything that we did had to be made into content. It was quite funny. So we made a lovely platter and then took some very stage pictures of me eating it in the moat home, enjoying the beautiful view of the lake out the window. Now, if you want to see any footage of the places that I amm talking about, make sure you check us out on YouTube, shy travels. After Black Diamond Lake we drove to honeymoon pools and this was a really beautiful spot. It had a lovely shallow river that you could swim in. You can also camp there, but I think from memory it might have only been camp camping. It was an incredibly beautiful picturesque spot. If you' heading through that area, pop in there, you could easily spend an afternoon swimming in the lake, plenty of places to stop and have lunch and check out what the camping is like there. You never know they might have changed it now. Maybe you can bring in caravans. Our final stop for that day was tonomesville, which is interesting, but to be honest, a little bit creepy, I definitely would not want to be there at night. It basically is a whole area just full of gnomes. I think if someone started it a few years ago and then every time someone drove past, they added to it and added to it. Now, when people come from all over, they bring gnomes with them, it's quite interesting to see people have set them up in kind of very specific ways. There's ones which are playing football matches, ones which are on buses, all sorts of things. If you're going to be passing through the area, definitely pop in and have a look for memory they had heaps of parking around there, all free, free to get in. An interesting spot to stop off. Now there were plenty of other places to visit in the collie area. We just didn't have the time because we were on such a tight schedule. I watch quite a lot of people on YouTube when they do their big laps or people who do full-time travel, and hardly any of them come to this area at all. I think it is definitely worth spending a night or two there. There is so much to explore. Is it such a beautiful green area? And it's just something a little bit different when you're, you know, constantly traveling around next to the coast. It's nice to get inland and get back into the greenery, the forests. Want to check out. Final stop that I'm going to talk you through on this podcast is going to beustleton, which I'm going to name as the gateway to Margaret River. I don't know if it officially is might be making that up. Now we didn't see too much of Busleton at all to be honest, we only really saw the jetty. We walked all the way to the end of the jetty, which was 1.6 kilometres. It was quite a nice walk along. At the end they had a few murals painted on the floor. I think there were some big whales that they had there, and they also had one of those signp post which as you how far it is to all different locations around the world. We booked ourselves onto the underwater observatory tour, which goes eight metres down below the jetty. This was fantastic. It was fascinating seeing all the different marine life down there and what's grown on the jetty's timber legs. It's really, really interesting. as you descend down the stairs to the observatory, there are huge windows, and your guide tells you about all the different animals, marine life that live at that level in the ocean, and lots of different facts about the jetty as well. Now the highlight of our time there was as we were at the very bottom part, looking at all the different windows there, up popped this octopus and he completely stole the show as our guide was talking. He slowly made his way, I say he it could have been a few female. It made its way the whole way up the window, which was very interesting to see because it's not often that you get to see the underside of an octopus, especially when they're alive. I mean, yes, or when they're dead, you could always flip them over and have a look. But it was very interesting to see the way that it made its way up the glass, using its suckers on its legs. It really was a highlight. We also saw all the different types of, I guess coral they have done there, algae, lots of different fishes. I think for memory, it wasn't super cheap and you actually have to pay to go on the j Jesse anyway. However, I think if you're going that whole way there, you might as well go and pay the money and see it, especially if you're coming over all the way from the east coast, for example, or if you're doing a big lap, you're just going through the area once, pay the extra money, walk to the end of the jetty and all do the underwater observatory tour. It is really well worth it. That brings me to the end of part one of our post to Albany Road trip podcast. In the next one, I'm going to talk to you all about the places that we visited in Margaret River, including the many beautiful beaches. I'll tell you about a tour we went on with Margaret River discovery tours. I also tell you about some gigantic bulrays that I got to pat and cuddle. We find some massive trees and we make our way finally to Albany or Albany, whichever way you like to say it we get there in the end. As I mentioned earlier, you can see all the footage from this podcast on our YouTube channel atar travelvels. You could also find us on Instagram as well at Shiredro Travels and I'll see you in the next one.