We knew the great weather couldn’t last forever and as we left Augusta to continue northwards rain hit with a vengeance. The little town of Cowaramup which had looked cute when we had passed through previously was still worth exploring but more than a little damp. The highlight (apart from the cows) was definitely Temper Temper where chocolate is made onsite and we can verify was delicious!
The caravan park just north of there was our destination and despite parts of it being almost submerged, our spot was relatively high and dry and proved to be a good base for the next two nights.
The weather gave Russell a good excuse to cook and he made a lovely batch of Anzac biscuits before we set off to explore after lunch.
Cowaramup’s location made it easier to explore the more northern reaches of the South West and we spent the afternoon dodging rain whilst exploring Dunsborough, Cape Naturaliste lighthouse (gail force winds!) and the coastline west of there.
As we prepared to leave the next day the sky looked clearer and indeed the rain stopped after an hour or so on the road toward Collie.
Steph and John were re joining us today after solving their car issues and we were rendezvousing at beautiful Stockton Lake, once a mining site but now an azure lake with expansive free camping sites on its shoreline.
Nearby Collie sits in a jarrah forest area and is home to WA’s only coalfields. The town once known as a ‘dirty mining town’ has transformed itself into a popular tourist destination mostly through local community participation, a large part of which is the mural trail.
The Collie Mural Trail incorporates over 50 murals throughout the town which depict the heritage of Collie and its people and create a link to the spectacular 8,000 square metre Wellington Dam mural painted by Guido van Helten and titled Reflections. We had fun traipsing about town and managed to visit all but a few of them.
We really enjoyed our time here, we had a camp fire (still perfecting the damper 😉) and had a chance to catch up on each others news from the last week or so before diverging again for the next few days.
I really wanted to see the “Mandurah Giants,” the work of renowned Danish sculptor Thomas Dambo. Thomas is the world’s leading recycle artist, he creates larger than life sculptures and places them all over the world and this is the first time they have visited Australia. Each sculpture has a clue which you need to collect and then when you have them all they reveal the location of the final one. They are all placed somewhat off the beaten track with varying length walks to their locations, in some instances several kilometres, but were absolutely worth the walk and very popular! We managed to visit these three….
After our short stay in Mandurah it was time to head north, through Perth and on to an overnighter in Yanchep National Park which I had visited some 40 + years ago before Yanchep basically became a suburb of Perth. The National Park was a lovely old fashioned type park, the buildings somewhat reminiscent of Belair National Park in SA we thought and we had a fantastic site in the campground surrounded by all types of birds and numerous local kangaroos.
Tomorrow we continue north, aiming to meet John and Steph again in Cervantes, home of the Western Rock Lobster and more importantly, the Pinnacles.