6th March 2009

Today we set off to visit some of the many wineries in the area but we were diverted to visit Busselton a pretty little seaside town.This has the longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere. Building commenced in 1865 and took more than 95 years to complete. It was used for shipping and eventually fell into disuse after operations ceased. In April 1978 it was damaged by cyclone Alby. It is now used as a tourist attraction and is 1841metres long. There is a small gauge rail track along the length but until further remedial work is done it is not working so in order to get to the underwater observatory it is a long walk. At the end of the 1 mile long jetty there is an observatory which allows visitors to descend 8 metres below sea level to view the thriving marine environment. The colours of the coral which had made a life on the wooden pillars of the jetty were quite incredible and the amount of fish swimming around was huge.

We then set off back to Margaret River making a number of stops at wineries, a cheese factory, a chocolate factory and a jam factory. Its a thankless task but someone has to do it!

7th March 2009

Once again we are on the move. Today we have moved 2 hours south east to a small town called Pemberton. After a drive through some glorious countryside, when we saw kangaroos and emus, we finally arrived at our hotel in time to take a ride on the Pemberton Tram. This was a 2 hours ride through the Karri Forest crossing 6 bridges, all of which looked not strong enough to take the tram, with two stops at the Cascades (small waterfall) and at the Warren River Bridge.

After this we went to look at the Gloucester Tree which is 65 meters high and has a lookout on the top. There are permanent fixed climbing spikes for those people brave enough (or stupid) to climb to the top. Needless to say, I didn't attempt this!!!