16/03/2023 From Perth to Bunbury
Trying to stay flexible
Today we were starting another road trip! The whole van situation was a bit of a hassle though. Always wanting the highest amount of flexibility and booking everything last minute on this trip can be a little stressful at times – at least for a German like me who loves to plan. But to be fair, for the longest time we didn’t know when we’d be on the West Coast of Australia, how long we would like to travel along the West Coast and whether we’d make it all the way up to Darwin. I hate saying Blake was right. But it turned out that it was good we didn’t book the van ahead of time as the roads up to Darwin were completely flooded.
First day “on the road”
Alternatively, the idea was to do a loop on the South West coast (I had done this trip in 2012 already and absolutely loved it) and then travel up the West Coast above Perth to Exmouth and back to Perth. Let’s see how far we will get in the next 19 days…
Once we did some last minute organizing, such as booking a national park pass, doing laundry, re-packing, picking up the van, buying groceries as well as bed sheets for the van, it was already afternoon. And just like that our first day “on the road” was almost over – good start!
Picking up our flower power hippie van
Our van is…different. Our plan is to do freedom camping, but this bright blue and green massive van will definitely be hard to hide, that’s for sure. We even got an upgrade to a five sleeper on our wicked camper van and 10% off (just by asking for a discount).
A little saffocating
When we found a sleeping place about an hour north of Bunbury, we thought we’d be sleeping in the little cubbyhole at the top of the van. However, this little hole felt so claustrophobic, even when I tried to lie in there on my own. I have NO IDEA how we would have both fitted in there!
Luckily, we found a good sleeping arrangement on the lower level without having to set up the bed every evening (like we had to do in the wicked camper van in New Zealand). Figuring this all out in the dark was definitely a bit of a challenge.
17/03/2023 From Bunbury to Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park
First night in the van
Our first night in the van was comfortable, but cold. That is why later today we bought a thicker blanket, even though it’s really hot throughout the day.
After a first really tasty breakfast on the road in our new camping chairs, we were off to Bunbury.
What to expect
Bunbury
I was very excited for Bunbury since this is the town I had worked and lived in in 2009 when I ran out of money during my work and travel year in Auatralia. Back then I had found a job as a waitress in a hotel (Lord Forrest Hotel), another job in a cafĂ© (Mojo’s) as a waitress and one as a nanny. So I was quite pumped to show Blake all these places again.
Spot some dolphins
But first of all we went to the beach. Since Bunbury is known for its dolphins coming to the beach daily, we had to check it out. And by “we” I mean me dragging Blake to the beach, because who are we kidding: I’m the one that gets excited about dolphins. Unfortunately, we only spotted one dolphin in the far distance. I had definitely pictured this differently…
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
It is St. Patrick’s Day today and Blake loves public holidays and seeing people getting together. However, to Blake’s disappointment the only Irish Pub in town was closed – on St. Paddy’s Day! We did, however, find another bar where Blake could enjoy his well deserved pint of guiness. We also played a round of pool, which I won. First no Irish Pub to celebrate, then no pool game to celebrate – it just doesn’t seem to be Blake’s day today…
Visit Back Beach
After a quick stroll through town, we walked to Back Beach, which is a beautiful long stretch of sandy beach.
When we went back to our hippie van, a family asked us to take a photo with our van. Looks like our van is quite famous amongst kids, as we’ve always seen kids either point or smile at our van. (At least in our minds they are smiling at it and not laughing about it.)
Busselton
See the longest jetty in the Southern Hemisphere
Busselton has the longest jetty in the Southern Hemisphere. So of course we had to check it out and we can confirm: it’s looong!
Extending 1.841 kilometres over the protected waters of Geographe Bay, the heritage listed Busselton Jetty is the longest timber-piled jetty in the Southern Hemisphere and is home to one of six Underwater Observatories in the world!”
busseltonjetty.com.au
Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park
Watch sunset at Sugarloaf Rock
Next we drove to Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park, where we watched sunset at Sugarloaf Rock. It wasn’t the best sunset we’ve ever seen, but the spot was certainly beautiful.
The idea was to camp here as well. After the first night at an actual free camping spot (we are still using the app “campermate” for free camp spots just like in New Zealand), we weren’t sure how easy it is to freedom camp in Western Australia. So it was probably best to hide. When we turned around from the viewpoint, our bright blue and green hippie van was so obvious and not at all hiding that we decided then that this would probably not be the best spot to sleep at.
Never set your bed up during sunset!
Another reason why we didn’t want to stay there were the gazillion mosquitos inside our van! Before moving to a better sleeping spot, we wanted to “enjoy” dinner inside the van. The sheer noise of what seemed to be one million mosquitos inside our van made it absolutely impossible to do so, let alone sleep in it. So we decided to drive to another spot with all our windows open in the hope that all the mosquitos would magically either fly out or get blown out. Surprisingly, this “trick” worked. Once we got to our new camp spot inside the national park, we only had to take care of the last dozen of mosquitos ourselves. This was definitely a bittersweet lesson we had to learn the hard way: never set up your bed during sunset when all the mosquitos are out!
18/03/2023 Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park
Walk the Cape to Cape trek
Waking up at the start of the next hiking track is always practical. After another delicious breakfast in our camping chairs in the national park, we started the cape to cape track.
Along the coast of Australia’s southwest edge is the longest coastal walk in all of Australia. The Cape to Cape track traverses 135km from the Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse to the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse.”
auswalk.com.au/
The part of the track from the lighthouse almost back to Sugarloaf Rock, where we watched sunset last night, was an easy and beautiful track, which was very well maintained!
A great start to the day
Besides watching the surfers in the water, we even spotted lots of bottlenose dolphins in the background!
Hike from Meelup Beach to Eagle Bay Beach
We were quite ambitious today and wanted to do a second walk. This time we drove to the other side of the coast and stopped at Meelup Beach, where a lot of families had BBQs, picnics and played at the beach with their kids and friends.
The coastal track to Eagle Bay Beach stopped at different viewpoints overlooking the beautiful coastline and the red rock formations along the beach.
Shower time
Once we got back to the starting point, it was time for a shower. I love how there are free public showers at almost every beach on the West Coast. Technically, they are mainly used for people after swimming in the sea. But it works perfectly for people like us as well who are traveling in a van with no shower.
Fish and chips
After those two walks, we wanted to fuel our bodies again. Since we are still at the coast, we thought seafood would be quite fitting and of good quality here. Blake’s mom was so kind to give us some money for our coming up birthdays which we used for today’s meal.
With AUS $24 for fish and chips and two fish tacos EACH the food was definitely pricy (like most of the food in Australia unfortunately). But it was tasty.
A local recommendation
The restaurant manager gave us some great recommendation for where to freedom camp tonight, letting us know that the ranger would only come at 7.30 a.m. in the next morning.
Amazing sunset
The spot inside the Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park was truly amazing! We watched sunset from the cliff over the beach. There was even a bride and a groom taking professional pictures next to us while we were sitting there in our backpacker clothes – quite the contrast.
Once we hopped into our van, we had an infinity oceanview from every window inside our van. It was amazing and such a perfect ending to another great day on the road!
19/03/2023 From Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park to Hamelin Bay
Our first warning
Well, the ranger didn’t show up at 7.30 a.m. as predicted – he surprised us at 6.30 a.m. instead! Even though we had already been awake (we are waking up with the sunrise here – who are we these days?!), we were still lying in bed aka in the back of the van. The ranger wrote down our license plate and gave us a warning. We are, however, registered in the system now and would have to pay $100 next time we get caught. We are really lucky that our bright green and blue van is so “easy” to hide…
Bath in the Injidup Natural Spa
Now that we had already been caught, we only drove about five minutes further down the coast to take a bath in the Injidup Natural Spa. Unfortunately, this natural spa wasn’t actually hot, but it was a secluded part of the ocean in between the rocks. For 7 a.m. and it being still very cold outside, I was quite proud of myself that I lasted an entire five minutes of sitting inside the “spa”.
Walk across the Canal Rocks Bridge
Next we drove to the Canal Rocks Bridge, which was another stunning coastal stop.
See the “Aquarium”
The “Aquarium” is known for being a great snorkel spot. Since the water was still very cold and we didn’t have snorkel gear with us, we only enjoyed the view from the lookout over the long coastline.
Go to “Smiths Point”
Our last stop along the coast was “Smiths Point”, which was another beautiful lookout over the coastline.
Margeret River
Do some chocolate tasting
Besides being known for its great wine and wine tasting, you can do a lot of other tastings in the Margeret River region, too.
We started with chocolate tasting at the Margeret River Chocolate Company. It goes without saying that I also bought some chocolate, while Blake had a massive red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting – on top of the chocolate tasting of course đŸ˜‰.
Go to a nut factory
Next we went to a nut factory. However, it was quite pricey and there was no free tasting – so nothing for us backpackers đŸ˜‰.
Do cheese tasting
Down the road we went into a cheese factory where I got to taste some very tasty cheese. Furthermore, I bought some more cheese for sunset that would go nicely with the wine I was about to buy later – thinking in advance.
Taste some nougat
After the cheese we needed something sweet again. So a nougat tasting at the Margeret River Nougat Company sounded just perfect. We both didn’t like it as much. But the wine tasting that we did at the same time was great fun.
Go wine tasting (again and again)
We went to one other winery called Juniper Estate where we had another interesting wine tasting and some good conversations with the somellier and some other guests.
Watch the surfers at Surfers Point
Once we arrived in Margeret River, we first drove down to the beach to watch the surfers catch some waves. “Surfers Point” is also where the big surfing competition “Margeret River Pro” is held each year.
Stroll through the town of Margeret River
Afterwards we walked through the cute downtown of Margeret River and bought some more groceries for next next couple of days.
Have a picnic at Hamelin Bay
Hamelin Bay is known for the stingrays coming to the shore. Unfortunately, we didn’t spot any. Our time at the beach was still amazing! While watching the sun setting into the ocean, we enjoyed a really nice picnic with all of our goodies from the day, including wine, cheese, crackers, hummus, veggies and olives.
20/03/2023 From Hamelin Bay to D’Entrecasteaux National Park
Augusta
Take a swim in Granny’s Pool
We woke up to another blue sky. When we got to Granny’s Pool on the way down to the lighthouse, we spontaneously decided to go for a quick morning swim. In Granny’s Pool you fittingly saw only older people swimming…and us. Since we have heard from a few shark attacks on the West Coast, we felt pretty save in this little turquoise bay with no current and (hopefully) no sharks. It was so refreshing!
The good thing about all these public beaches is that besides having a picnic table, garbage bins, drinking water stations and a free BBQ, they often have a public washroom including showers next to the beach. For backpackers like us this is always the jackpot as that means we don’t even have to sneak into some hostels for a shower like we sometimes did in New Zealand.
Visit the lighthouse and the most South Western point of Australia
The lighthouse south of Augusta is located at the most South Western point of Australia Furthermore, the Indian and Southern Ocean meet here.
Pemberton
Walk through the “Walkthrough Tree”
…obviously!
Next we drove to the Greater Beedelup National Park. We first walked to a suspension bridge to see the Beedelup Waterfall, which looked more like dripping water down a rock than an actual waterfall.
Luckily, this wasn’t the only attraction we came here for. The 30-minute-walk through a thick forest with some very tall trees was great. At the end we arrived at the “walkthrough tree”. It was cool walking through that hole in the tree. But at the same time it was sad to see how many people had scribbeled names into the tree’s trunk.
Climb up Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree
In the Warren National Park there is a 65m high karri tree that you can climb up – without any safety gear! In Germany where we are surrounded by rules (that we also love to follow), there would never be a tree that you can climb up without any safety gear. But we are in Australia, so we gave it a go.
I didn’t make it that far up because out of a sudden I didn’t trust myself anymore. (Probably looking through the bars and realizing how far I had already come didn’t really help either). Blake made it very high up which was so impressive (especially with his fear of heights).
Watch sunset at the viewpoint over Salmon Beach
In the afternoon we drove to D’Entrecasteaux National Park near Windy Harbour. We couldn’t believe it but when we stopped at the viewpoint over Salmon Beach, we were the only ones in this entire region.
We could look into every direction without spotting anyone else! All we saw was an endless coastline, big waves, high cliffs and green bushes. It was magical! We set up a little picnic at the lookout and enjoyed our drinks during sunset while constantly looking at this remarkable coastline. Since no one ever came, we also decided to stay the night at this outstandingly stunning place.
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