Margaret River Coast

Thursday. One more day in Western Australia. And an entire state one-third the size of Australia still to see. What to do? We opted to drive around the Margaret River area, south of Perth.

We first drove to the very bottom of the region, Cape Leeuwin, and its lighthouse -- mainland Australia's tallest lighthouse, said the sign.

It is also the end of a somewhat famous five day, 150 km walk -- that we did not take.

The lighthouse lies at the most southwestern point of Australia, at the meeting of two oceans. But it's still a very long way to the South Pole, as this sign pointed out.

We totally lucked out on the weather. Bright blue skies and 20 degree days (that's Celsius -- in Fahrenheit it was about 68 degrees).

The sign points out the two different oceans. I don't think I've ever stood on the border of two oceans before.

Some people at the lighthouse said that whales were breaching in the distance. Our tourist map also had a picture of whales at Cape Leeuwin, and stated that whales migrate there between June and August. We were between June and August. So we spent a very long long time staring out at the ocean trying to see a whale.

Grandma thinks she saw one. Tim thinks he saw one. Jonathan and I just shrugged our shoulders.

Do you see any whales out there?

I forget why I wanted to post the next picture. I guess it looks pretty?

Anyway, this is the best we could do on the whale spotting that morning.

So back in the car, we headed to our next stop.

If we can't see whales, maybe we can see some sting rays? I read on the internets that sting rays patrol the beach in Hamelin Bay. Not just the small rays -- we're talking about the rays that are a metre across. Huge and beautiful and right there on the internet pictures. Right there! So we had to go find them.

Off to a good start -- rays have been seen there before, says the sign above. Below, Tim scanning the water for rays.

Tim, Grandma, and Jonathan still scanning for rays. Or maybe just walking/jumping.

But again, the sign at the beach was the best we could do for ray sightings: (I don't think they hang out there in the winter.)

The beach was gorgeous. White sand, empty of people. Beautiful waves. But it was windy -- some rain was on its way in. I did not regret having no swim suit. Too cold.

Goodbye Hamelin Bay with your white sands and summer sting rays. Back in the car, we headed north again along Caves Road.

This area of the country is full of limestone caves. You can sign up for tours in about six or seven different caves all just a few kilometres from the coast. We stopped at Mammoth Cave, which did not require a pre-booking for a tour, and was reported to be large and wide to keep all the claustrophobic people in our car sufficiently happy.

Here is a picture of Jonathan and Grandma with their Mammoth Cave Audio Tours.

The mouth of the cave had teeth.

The inside also had teeth. And ribbons and flow stone and columns. It was impressive.

Although most of my photos did not turn out well, as is typical for cave photos, taken in the dark.

Here is Tim, climbing out of the cave at the end of the audio tour.

And the exit from the cave -- also a hole with teeth.

From the cave, there was a short nature walk back to the car. I finally got a picture of one of the cool grass-palm trees that we had been seeing earlier in the day. So there was that.

And there was a small stream crossing, absent the stream -- which, apparently, usually flows by July. Hopefully the stream comes back or that may be bad news for the cave.

In any case, that was the end of our cave tour.

Final stop: Redgate Beach.

Jonathan likes to scramble on rocks on the side of the ocean, so I picked this beach for him. It was supposed to have some nice rocks to view and climb. The sign at the beach reminded us that there were also strong rip currents, large waves, slippery rocks, and SHARKS!

There were indeed some rocks.

And SHARKS! Someone had very recently spotted a shark in the ocean there. So the beach was closed to swimming. We weren't going swimming anyway. But maybe we would see a shark??? That would be cool!

Here is a picture of Tim, looking for sharks.

Jonathan went scrambling on the rocks (mostly well away from the water -- he was safe).

(See? Being safe. And plus, I climbed along after him. Because I am a paranoid mother.)

Tim and Grandma, contemplating life and looking for sharks.

We did see some large waves, crashing in a most impressive manner over the rocks further out to sea. Even my phone camera makes the beach look spectacular. A better camera would have made it look amazingly spectacular.

But alas, no shark sightings. No whales, no rays, no sharks. We did see a large number of crabs. So that counts for something.

Oh, I forgot. There was one more stop: our road home passed by the Tuart Forest National Park. So I instructed Tim to drive along the road through the forest, parallel to the main highway, so we could check out the trees there. They looked like this:

There were supposed to be two kinds of possums living there, but it was too bright outside for possums. We did see ring-necked parrots, which only live in Western Australia, so even this stop was a success -- right up until Grandma spotted a single mosquito, and we all ran screaming back into the car.

And that was the end of Thursday.

And Friday we flew home. So that was the end of the vacation.

Phew! I hope you enjoyed re-living our adventures through my photos.

The End.