We’re up early, pretty much with the sun. We leave the van behind and get over to the jetty about 30min early. At least we get a close parking spot. The kids have a ball again in the fantastic playground.
We see the train coming out of its overnight garage, it is a noddy train, but it’s in top nick and it’s a credit to the town how they run it. As we board, it is pretty full, but there is still some room. Seems like people on holiday don’t like early starts.
The trip out is pretty slow. The Jetty may be long at 1.8km, but it is very narrow, so with the train on it, there is really only just enough room for people to walk single file past it. At a few points where it widens out with rest areas. It’s a nice sunny day, not too hot and while it’s windy it is not blowing a gale.
We get to the end and we’ve booked in to do the underwater observatory. They’ve built this, I can only describe it as a large concrete silo down to the sea floor, which is only about 9mtrs down. A large (thankfully) spiral staircase leads around the edge down to a series of levels with windows looking out. There is a 15min talk about what we can see at each of the “levels” and then we can just look for ourselves. The kids love it so much they find a kids table and play dominos with each other. It’s not till we’re leaving they seem to show any real interest outside.
We finish our time at the observatory and the train is still about 10 mins or so away. It’s such a nice day I suggest walking back. The kids can’t agree (mostly with each other) about if they want to walk or train back. Liam it appears wants to do whatever Caitlin isn’t doing. In the end Liam and I start walking back, while Justine stays with Caitlin. I’m surprised, as getting Liam to do any walk voluntarily is a feat in itself.
I think it helps that he can see the end, so he knows exactly how long the walk is. As we head off, we pass the train on it’s way back out to the end of the jetty. We talk about if we will beat the train back or not, as it turns out, we arrive at the start of the Jetty when I see the train has only just started it’s trip from the end.
Yesterday we did the north cape, so today I want to head to the south cape or Cape Leeuwin. We take the coastal road down, but it is quite a way inland. There are some caves along this road, but as we don’t know much about them, we don’t stop.
We are driving through forest for the first time in ages. The trees are really mature, and incredibly tall. We make it to the end and the small town of Augusta, and through to Cape Leeuwin. You can take the tour of the lighthouse here too, but no thanks. We take a wander of the grounds and see the place that the Indian Ocean meets the Southern. Apparently in the right conditions you can see where the two oceans meet, but none of us can see it. It’s still cool to be there though.
Back via the main highway, and through the town of Margaret River. The town is super busy and very touristy, it would probably be nice to visit on a lazy weekend without the kids. The river the town is named after, well let’s hope the wine is better. We discuss visiting a Winery, but which one, in the end it’s all too hard and we drive back to the van. Maybe we’ll find one out Pemberton way tomorrow.
Again, the kids race to the “playground” – this is really doing our heads in now.
Not sure they could tell the difference from the one this morning!
That looked like a really great day. Loved the train and the playground. Great photo of the pylon covered in marine growths, lots of very interesting things to see there.
Go to a bottle shop…buy wich ever wine….or more…go back to the van…find a paper or plastic cup…or drinking straw….then suck…strong