SW Corner Road Trip

We're back in Perth after our brief road trip around the SW corner of Australia.

Coming down from Carnarvon to Perth, the endless desert plains stretched off to the horizon. We've driven this stretch back and forth a few times now and it's always the same: very hot, very windy, very dry, very dusty and after a number of trips, very long and very boring.

Once nearer Perth, the landscape changes. We stayed overnight at Yanchep National Park, one of our favourite stops, which has a large koala and kangaroo population in a forested enclave near to the shore. We woke up to this tiny joey, all by itself, feeding at the back of the van.

After leaving Perth, we passed through the Perth Hills, just east of the city. It's a farming area, quite pretty, with a few historic towns, like York WA. The whole town has been designated a historic site due to the presence of many fine buildings. The stunning Town Hall was just one example.

The Town of York provided a free stopover for RVs next to the Avon River and it was a very enjoyable spot to stay by the water in the shade of the trees and watch the flock of Little Corellas (a kind of cockatoo) on the bank opposite.

We next headed inland towards Coolgardie before turning south towards Esperance. Generally, the first half of the trip was through dry farmland with not much to capture our fancy. Then, we arrived in Esperance, to a "wow" moment. This has to be the prettiest coastline in all of Australia (although we haven't seen it all yet). The weather was fine and the crowds non-existent. You can take your pick of nineteen!, pristine, white sand beaches, each one different, some in town and the rest just a short drive from town. One had a lagoon, one was good for surfing, one was good for families, you get the idea. The lack of development was refreshing. The turquoise water was stunning.

The town and its beaches are protected offshore by a group of 105 islands known as the  Archipelago of the Recherche (Bay of Isles).

The only negative was the cost of campsites in the Esperance area as freedom camping was forbidden. We went a little way out of town to stay at a farmstay property which was very reasonable and we really enjoyed camping out among the cattle with the sound of the frogs in the pond behind our van that night.

Next up was Albany. It seemed a thriving town in a pretty setting with a great natural harbour. We made a detour to visit the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse. Situated at the most south-westerly point of Australia it's the tallest lighthouse on the mainland. Cape Leeuwin is also the point where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean.

We pushed on to Busselton, another beach town. On the way, we were pleasantly surprised to find that we were driving through cool, sun-dappled forests of large gum trees, with some old growth specimens still intact. We came out of the forest into the vineyards of the wine region around Margaret River before arriving at Busselton. We were intrigued by their jetty (pier) project. Only second in length to the one at Southend, UK, it has a natural aquarium, apparently only one of six in the world. It seemed like a great idea to raise funds for the jetty's construction and upkeep. Sure beats the usual tacky video and amusement arcades found on most other piers we've visited. Other derelict piers looking for funding should take note.

Our tickets entitled us to take the little train the length of the pier to the aquarium at the end, but, we chose to walk the 1.8 km length instead.

Once there, we were taken on a tour down the circular staircase with viewing windows at each level. It's only about eight metres down to the bottom, but, you could see colourful coral encrusted on the pier's legs and many fish. Of course, it wasn't quite as good as scuba diving, but, was easily accessible and interesting. A huge school of anchovies, flashing their silver bodies as they darted this way and that in the sunlight filtering through the water, was mesmerizing to watch.

On the way back to Perth we were excited to view a new (to us) bird species. The red-tailed black cockatoo is spectacular in flight with red patches under its wings. You can just see a small bit of the distinctive red patches in this picture.

We headed back to Perth in a bit of a rush, cutting our planned two week trip down to about eight days. Why? Well, second day out, I had uttered the words that G has come to hate "I have an idea". This idea was that maybe we should try and sell our van before we leave rather than waste money storing it and only have to sell it when we come back. So we did. Quickly, we put the ad on gumtree, then, cleaned the van from top to bottom, inside and out, to get rid of the Australian red dust that gets everywhere. The perfect young couple then came and bought it. We really hope they enjoy it. So, our beautiful van is now gone. It was a lot of work to fit it out and we were so proud of it, but, we'd only gotten to use it for maybe eight weeks in the past year. Gjoa now has priority for our future time, energy and money and unfortunately, the van had to go.