Perth – Perth

About three hours south of Perth is the cute little beach town of Busselton with its 1.8km jetty, annual Iron Man competition, fabulous white beach, proximity to Margaret River wineries and being so close to Perth it is a popular holiday and retirement destination. We were lucky enough to housesit there for three weeks and spent the time planning, researching and booking our next journey. Our housesit was next to the beach and we cared for a beautiful Staffordshire cross dog Sally whose mission in life was to run on the beach chasing tennis balls - hence we kept quite fit. We both fell for her loving happy nature and the hardest part of whole thing was saying goodbye!

After Busselton the plan had been to walk part of the Bibbulmun track and we had gathered up equipment for hiking/camping etc but as a result of our new scheme there wouldn't be time and we ended up with only just over a week to visit the southern coast before having to be back in Perth. The Bibbulmum track is famous walking track which covers over 1,000km from Perth to Albany and which you can join at many points to walk segments of the track, we crossed it many times while driving and walked on it for a short distance but if we ever return to WA completing it will definitely be on the agenda.

This southern part of WA is a little like NZ, green and beautiful with lots of trees, farming and edged by the stunning southern ocean. We made our way down through the Margaret River wine growning area to Augusta and the southernmost lighthouse in WA at Cape Leeuwin then camped a couple of nights nearby at lovely secluded Hamelin bay. The weather was still pretty unsettled, cold and wet but we got to enjoy the drive through the valley of the giants and do the treetop walk, 40m up in the tops of huge Tingle gums, then on to Albany. This town was the last port for the ANZACs in WW1 and it now has a huge commemorative ANZAC centre overlooking the harbour and is a popular tourist desination in the south. After a couple of days exploring there it was then a one day sprint back to Perth in order to prepare the truck for her journey - all neatly packed up and lashed down, our trusty beast Priscilla goes on holiday! Meanwhile we spend our last days in Australia exploring Perth, harbour cruising, visiting the zoo, Fremantle and Kings park with the wildflower festival in full swing. WA has two teams in the AFL semi-finals so the place is getting crazy with footy fever – time to leave town!