I was eager. I had been too long away from the sea. Liz does not quite share my enthusiasm for salt water, but was equally keen to settle in air which was not pollen laden and to actually drop anchor for some time. Believe it or not, constant travelling and sightseeing can be quite demanding. Great fun, but demanding.
We left Wagin with a real sense of excitement and with our fingers crossed. Would Busselton, our chosen destination for five weeks or so, live up to our expectations?
We left Wagin with a real sense of excitement and with our fingers crossed. Would Busselton, our chosen destination for five weeks or so, live up to our expectations?
Initially our 235 kms trip more or less due west to the coast at Bunbury took us through the last of the Wheatbelt country
and into the beginning of the rolling hills near Arthur River where a sign proclaiming "Where the Forest Meets the Wheatbelt" did not initially mean a great deal.
Beyond the next town, Darkan,
this all made sense to us as we rolled on into quite dense eucalyptus forests through which we then travelled for many kms. It was really quite odd to be seeing managed forests of something other than pinus varieties.
And then our first real surprise for the day. I had noticed when doing our trip planning the part of our journey would be along the 'Coalfields Highway'. I must confess to thinking little of it at the time but it certainly came into focus as we approached the town of Collie.
We rarely pull into 'photo opportunity' stops when on a travelling mission, but in this case we made an exception
And then our first real surprise for the day. I had noticed when doing our trip planning the part of our journey would be along the 'Coalfields Highway'. I must confess to thinking little of it at the time but it certainly came into focus as we approached the town of Collie.
We rarely pull into 'photo opportunity' stops when on a travelling mission, but in this case we made an exception
because immediately beyond the carpark was this monster.
If we had any reason to doubt that WA has some quite extensive coalfields, they were dispelled.
This 850 tonne shovel began its life in 1976 at the Mount Newman mine before being dismantled and brought south to the Premier Coal mine at Lake Kewari in 1994. In 1996 it was 'walked' the 10 kms to the Premier Mine where its shovel with its 50 tonnes capacity dug away until it was decommissioned in 2010 and moved to the site by the highway. The driver's cab is over 10 metres above ground level and in the course of its working life, it is estimated that this shovel moved over 200 million tonnes of earth. Made the 'Big Ram' look small.
The mines of the area are all open cut, and they are extensive. From the point where we saw the shovel we travelled for many kms past huge open pits such as this
where work was certainly well underway as we watched.
As could be expected, the large smoke stacks of power stations became part of the passing scenery
as did numerous overburden piles. The 'Coalfield Highway' it was indeed.
The major town of the area is Collie, through which we passed without stopping, but with every intention of revisiting during the school holidays period when we want to be anywhere but in crowded beach side resort parks.
And then, and then.....the coast at last...our first glimpse on this grey and hazy day of the high rise of Bunbury in the distance. (you do have to look closely!)
From here our descent onto the coastal plain began. It was a shame the weather was such that the sea and sky were virtually the same colour, but I could tell the difference (you can actually just see a quite large ship just offshore at the right of the shot)
We soon left the Coalfields Highway and joined the Bussell which skirted past Bunbury itself and took us south through small township of Capel to Busselton where our trusty Tom Tom came into its own and guided us unerringly to the Mandalay Holiday Resort and Tourist Park, our chosen home for the next few days.
This was a treat. At $50 per night it was a serious treat. We chose this park for two reasons. Firstly it offered a magnificent pool with a lap lane, and I was desperate for a good few swims. The second reason was that we wanted to check out our preferred park, the Kookaburra, before we committed ourselves to a relatively longish stay.
The entrance to the Mandalay, which is about 4 kms west of Busselton's main CBD and jetty, set the scene for what was to follow...the most magnificent park in which we have stayed to date.
As we pulled up at the office I was beginning to see why this place is so expensive...everything is first class.
And the service is second to none. 'Daniel' guided us to our site in the 'pet friendly area' and gave me the necessary directions to back on. What at spot, under the shade of the Peppermint trees, a ready made shadecloth annex floor, paved roads and lawn in every direction.
I suspect that the dust, dirt and heat of the Wheatbelt parks made the luxury of these surrounds even more welcomed, and I quickly decided that this was to be money well spent.
I was not quite as impressed with the presence of our treetop neighbour, a tiny possum which made its home in the tree above our van. You can just see the little fellow asleep on the top of his box. His nightly toiletry did nothing to improve the state of our awning or van roof!
Liz and Max were very quick to settle in.
This is one park where the reality more than matches the promotional photographs, and the prices match. Two nights in any of these 'second tier' cabins will see little change out of $600! A two storey spa beachfront cabin, sorry, chalet, will reduce the bank balance by about $800 for two nights. And would you believe it...they were all full on the weekend!
One drawback of these types of parks, of course, is that they cater for children, most of whom have no idea of the concept of 'quiet time' until 0700 hours (mind you we blame the lazy parents more that the children). At the Mandalay their needs are well catered for with the playground and bouncy pillow
and the adjacent oval which leads to the extraordinarily up-market camp kitchen. This area provides heaps of room for running around, or as we saw on one occasion, a group cricket match. Because there are no gates to preclude entry to the park, all resident children have to wear wrist bands during the holiday periods to confirm they are not ring-ins using the facilities for free. Shades of West Beach!
The gardens are superb. Plantings of shrubs and flowers are dotted throughout the park,
and, as for the amenities....well, one would be more than happy to have these at home. This place is really top shelf. Strangely enough, this level of camp opulence in the heads did nothing to particularly increase our enjoyment of the place. As long as the showers are hot and strong and there are enough hooks for our bits we are happy. We are caravanning after all!
But for me, the piece de resistance was the pool....it actually has a lap lane which is long enough for a decent swim, in addition to three other pools for less strenuous activities, and, of course, the water slide which was very well patronised (not by your correspondent....there were enough adults making fools of themselves)
Fortunately the weather during our stay at Mandalay was warm and still, with emphasis on the word 'still'. We had been told previously that WA stands for two things... 'Wait Awhile' and 'Windy Always'. Both are true, but we were fortunate at Manadaly and Liz and I made very good use of this facility!
Immediately in front of the entrance roadway is the pathway which leads to the nearby Geographe Bay beach (here seen looking back towards the park)
From the beach one can look east to the main part of Busselton, including the enormously long jetty, which is the dark strip filling the entire horizon past the land (more of that later), or
west to the holiday town of Dunsborough and Cape Naturaliste (also more of both later). Unfortunately the beach itself in this location on the bay is a bit grotty....we later found much more pristine locations.
Between the beach and the roadway lies a long walking tack which take ramblers and cyclists for many kms along the bay. We did one long walk on this track through the coastal scrub and bushes which line both sides. This provided another form of much needed exercise.
This park was a perfect place in which to celebrate our birthdays (and was another reason we splashed out). Rather than go out for dinner, I made a trip to a nearby fish shop (owned, believe it or not, by a guy who grew up Elizabeth) where I procured a seafood feast. Prawns, scallops and fresh bronze whaler shark pieces were duly crumbed and fried in Chef Pierre's galley and made their way to the dining table.
And what's a birthday without a cake, even if it is only from Woolies (and pictured on a tilt which was the best we could manage with our little camera tripod, a very short focal length and an automatic delayed shot). We did have a good night.
We spent the next three days here in Mandalay luxury before moving into the much cheaper Kookaburra Park which is wonderfully located near both the jetty and the CBD. More of Busselton, Margaret River and the South-West to come.
If we had any reason to doubt that WA has some quite extensive coalfields, they were dispelled.
This 850 tonne shovel began its life in 1976 at the Mount Newman mine before being dismantled and brought south to the Premier Coal mine at Lake Kewari in 1994. In 1996 it was 'walked' the 10 kms to the Premier Mine where its shovel with its 50 tonnes capacity dug away until it was decommissioned in 2010 and moved to the site by the highway. The driver's cab is over 10 metres above ground level and in the course of its working life, it is estimated that this shovel moved over 200 million tonnes of earth. Made the 'Big Ram' look small.
The mines of the area are all open cut, and they are extensive. From the point where we saw the shovel we travelled for many kms past huge open pits such as this
where work was certainly well underway as we watched.
As could be expected, the large smoke stacks of power stations became part of the passing scenery
as did numerous overburden piles. The 'Coalfield Highway' it was indeed.
The major town of the area is Collie, through which we passed without stopping, but with every intention of revisiting during the school holidays period when we want to be anywhere but in crowded beach side resort parks.
And then, and then.....the coast at last...our first glimpse on this grey and hazy day of the high rise of Bunbury in the distance. (you do have to look closely!)
From here our descent onto the coastal plain began. It was a shame the weather was such that the sea and sky were virtually the same colour, but I could tell the difference (you can actually just see a quite large ship just offshore at the right of the shot)
We soon left the Coalfields Highway and joined the Bussell which skirted past Bunbury itself and took us south through small township of Capel to Busselton where our trusty Tom Tom came into its own and guided us unerringly to the Mandalay Holiday Resort and Tourist Park, our chosen home for the next few days.
This was a treat. At $50 per night it was a serious treat. We chose this park for two reasons. Firstly it offered a magnificent pool with a lap lane, and I was desperate for a good few swims. The second reason was that we wanted to check out our preferred park, the Kookaburra, before we committed ourselves to a relatively longish stay.
The entrance to the Mandalay, which is about 4 kms west of Busselton's main CBD and jetty, set the scene for what was to follow...the most magnificent park in which we have stayed to date.
As we pulled up at the office I was beginning to see why this place is so expensive...everything is first class.
And the service is second to none. 'Daniel' guided us to our site in the 'pet friendly area' and gave me the necessary directions to back on. What at spot, under the shade of the Peppermint trees, a ready made shadecloth annex floor, paved roads and lawn in every direction.
I suspect that the dust, dirt and heat of the Wheatbelt parks made the luxury of these surrounds even more welcomed, and I quickly decided that this was to be money well spent.
I was not quite as impressed with the presence of our treetop neighbour, a tiny possum which made its home in the tree above our van. You can just see the little fellow asleep on the top of his box. His nightly toiletry did nothing to improve the state of our awning or van roof!
Liz and Max were very quick to settle in.
This is one park where the reality more than matches the promotional photographs, and the prices match. Two nights in any of these 'second tier' cabins will see little change out of $600! A two storey spa beachfront cabin, sorry, chalet, will reduce the bank balance by about $800 for two nights. And would you believe it...they were all full on the weekend!
One drawback of these types of parks, of course, is that they cater for children, most of whom have no idea of the concept of 'quiet time' until 0700 hours (mind you we blame the lazy parents more that the children). At the Mandalay their needs are well catered for with the playground and bouncy pillow
and the adjacent oval which leads to the extraordinarily up-market camp kitchen. This area provides heaps of room for running around, or as we saw on one occasion, a group cricket match. Because there are no gates to preclude entry to the park, all resident children have to wear wrist bands during the holiday periods to confirm they are not ring-ins using the facilities for free. Shades of West Beach!
The gardens are superb. Plantings of shrubs and flowers are dotted throughout the park,
and, as for the amenities....well, one would be more than happy to have these at home. This place is really top shelf. Strangely enough, this level of camp opulence in the heads did nothing to particularly increase our enjoyment of the place. As long as the showers are hot and strong and there are enough hooks for our bits we are happy. We are caravanning after all!
But for me, the piece de resistance was the pool....it actually has a lap lane which is long enough for a decent swim, in addition to three other pools for less strenuous activities, and, of course, the water slide which was very well patronised (not by your correspondent....there were enough adults making fools of themselves)
Fortunately the weather during our stay at Mandalay was warm and still, with emphasis on the word 'still'. We had been told previously that WA stands for two things... 'Wait Awhile' and 'Windy Always'. Both are true, but we were fortunate at Manadaly and Liz and I made very good use of this facility!
Immediately in front of the entrance roadway is the pathway which leads to the nearby Geographe Bay beach (here seen looking back towards the park)
From the beach one can look east to the main part of Busselton, including the enormously long jetty, which is the dark strip filling the entire horizon past the land (more of that later), or
west to the holiday town of Dunsborough and Cape Naturaliste (also more of both later). Unfortunately the beach itself in this location on the bay is a bit grotty....we later found much more pristine locations.
Between the beach and the roadway lies a long walking tack which take ramblers and cyclists for many kms along the bay. We did one long walk on this track through the coastal scrub and bushes which line both sides. This provided another form of much needed exercise.
This park was a perfect place in which to celebrate our birthdays (and was another reason we splashed out). Rather than go out for dinner, I made a trip to a nearby fish shop (owned, believe it or not, by a guy who grew up Elizabeth) where I procured a seafood feast. Prawns, scallops and fresh bronze whaler shark pieces were duly crumbed and fried in Chef Pierre's galley and made their way to the dining table.
And what's a birthday without a cake, even if it is only from Woolies (and pictured on a tilt which was the best we could manage with our little camera tripod, a very short focal length and an automatic delayed shot). We did have a good night.
We spent the next three days here in Mandalay luxury before moving into the much cheaper Kookaburra Park which is wonderfully located near both the jetty and the CBD. More of Busselton, Margaret River and the South-West to come.
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