14th Jan

Today we caught a bus & train into Perth City.
First thing was a visit to the Perth Mint which was worth doing. A great collection of gold bars, coins and nuggets and watching a gold bar being poured.



Perth Mint



Perth Mint

After this informative tour we just wandered around checking out some of the old buildings and finally into London Court.

That managed to fill out the day and so it was back to the Resort via train & bus.    



London Court



London Court



Oldest church in WA



                                                                



13th Jan

Departed Wagin just after 8:00, after a brief stop at Armadale for an early lunch it was off to Perth.
Stopped to visit the Belltower just as the bellringers were doing their thing.



 
Cilla picked up her souvenir coins from Belltower, Barracks Jetty and then we dropped into Perth Zoo to pick up one there before heading out to the Karrinyup Waters Resort to check in for the next 4 days.
 
Once settled in we ducked out to Hilary's Boat Harbour to pick up another coin and back to Karrinyup Shopping Centre for the weeks groceries.

11th, 12th Jan

11th
This morning it was back to Bunbury to try some more dolphin interaction on the beach.
Once again we were lucky enough to have a couple of dolphins come in while we were there.
After a couple of visits by dolphins it was time to head off to Wagin to spend a last couple of nights with James, Chrissi and girls.

On the way we dropped in to Wellington Dam & Collie.

Wellington Dam

Wellington Dam

12th
Today is a quiet day with Chrissi and girls.
Tomorrow we will heading back to Perth.

10th Jan

This morning we went to Busselton to check out their famous wharf & underwater observatory.

This is as close as we could get as they were refurbishing the jetty and it was closed to the public. According to the sign this was to be completed mid 2010.

So we headed off to the local information centre to see what else Busselton contained. The lady there told us that apart from a museum and art gallery everything else was out of town.

We therefore decided to go to the next town, Bunbury, for the day.

At Bunbury we checked out the spiral tower for 360 degree views of Bunbury and then went to the Dolphin Discovery Centre. Despite being told that dolphins rarely come to the beach in the afternoon, one turned up within ten minutes of our arrival.

Later in the day we went on a eco cruise to view dolphins and did in fact see dolphins. The guide also showed us a school of Bream which has apparently been hanging around a rocky point for a week or so. There must have been 100 pan size bream in this school which were just swimming in this small area in one big mass and even the boat did not overly disturb them.

9th Jan

What a day, on the road by 8:30 back for dinner at 18:30.
Today we visited Mammoth Cave, Lake Cave, Jewel Cave and Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse with quick stopovers in Margaret River and Augusta.
So for most of the day we were either going up steps or down steps, must have been over 1500.
Despite all the exercise, it was a great day.

Mammoth Cave

Mammoth Cave

Lake Cave

Lake Cave

Jewel Cave

Jewel Cave

Leeuwin Lighthouse

Leeuwin Lighthouse

8th January

Took a quiet stroll through town before heading out to the Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse.
Very interesting tour, one thing which impressed me was the internal stair treads are hand carved teak, initially carved on both sides so they could be turned over when the tread had worn out. After over 100 years they still do not require turning over.

teak stair tread

Then it was off to Ngilgi Cave for a tour of the oldest tourist attraction in Western Australia.

cave entrance

This tour was only part guided and then you head off by yourselves at your own pace. I thought this was better than those fully guided tours where you have to keep up with the mob as we could just take our time looking at what we wanted.

After this tour we headed down the coast to Cowaramup to check out the Candy Cow ( a lolly shop ) and the country side before heading back to Dunsborough.



7th January

Today we trekked from Albany to Dunsborough.

Highlights on the way were the Albany wind farm, Denmark (home of worlds largest baraometer), Pentland Alpaca Farm, The Giant Tingle Tree, Walpole & The Bicentenial Tree.