Busselton Jetty
We took off towards Fremantle and spend half a day there. Luckily, it was Friday and so we could get lunch at the market and also some cheaper fruits and vegetables. After having a look at the sights, we enjoyed iced coffees at the Cappuccino Strip.
Unfortunately, we then got stuck in traffic for a while, drove into the wrong national park, didn’t like the campground there and therefore lost so much time (at least we now know that the 4wd of Hero works, since we had to drive on sand a little.)
We finally found the campground we wanted to stay. Only now it was already dark and when we entered the campground, we saw big signs that there were poisonous fox baits laid out that would kill pets and also harm humans. That and the fact that just three cars crossed us when we drove into the park and there also were “no camping” signs irritated us a little.
However, there were other people camping in the park. Mostly Australians and even families with kids. They didn’t seem alarmed at all but also hadn’t seen any of the signs.
We then decided to just stay there for the night, trying not to touch anything. At least a really cute animal approached us while we were brushing our teeth. I still haven’t found out what it was but it wasn’t a fox 😉
The night was freezing and I really will have to put on more layers when we are sleeping now. When the sun was up, everything looked more friendly and there was a beautiful lake right behind the trees. The air was still cold and we always tried to stay in the sun (we could do that the whole day since it only became about 19 C. Brrr, if it continues like that I won’t be able to enjoy the ocean many times more). Most people told us that they hardly ever had to pay for this campsite (Belvidere, just a little north of Bunbury), so we took our time with getting ready the next day. Just as I was starting the car, I saw a ranger walk towards us in my side mirror. He wished us a good morning and asked for 7.50$ a person. At least we now knew that there was nothing wrong with camping here and the baits would just be dangerous if we ate them from the ground (I didn’t see anything).
If we had just hurried a little more we
’d have had a free night, damn!
We drove to Bunbury to have breakfast at the beach. There is a dolphin discovery center, where they do pretty much the same thing as in Monkey Mia, except that the employees there were much more friendly and the dolphins came sooo close and even played a little right in front of us!! I don’t know why this isn’t more highlighted in the Lonely Planet or any other guide. I found this experience much better than in Monkey Mia and it’s so close to Perth! Not such a waste of gas money and harming the nature by driving up there just for dolphins. I think you could also swim with them in the center but we didn’t go inside and just drove on to Busselton when the dolphins left the beach again. In Busselton, there is a 1,8km long jetty. A train would bring you to
the end and back but you could also just pay 2.50$ to walk across it. We didn’t want to spend any money to walk on a jetty and therefore just took a stroll along the nice beach, where we had a good view of the jetty.
There also was a small art festival but since they didn’t really sell any food, we just made our tomato sandwiches again for lunch. This time, we could even add delicious hummus to it.
Our next stop was the visitor center in Dunsborough. We were looking for a beach where we could body surf or even try out our real surf board. They told us to go to Yallingup. The coast there looked nice and wild. There were some surfers in the water but the waves were much too big and unfortunately there was a reef in the water too. Honestly, I was too cold to go for a swim anyways. Therefore, we just read for a while and then drove back to the Anglican Church Campground between Busselton and Donsborough. With 12.50$ pp it’s by far the cheapest we found around here and on top of that, it’s really beautiful. Tonight, we take “a room with sea view” to a different level 🙂
Happiness is only real when shared 