I’d planned, much to Justine’s amusement/horror, pretty much every day of this trip from the start at Forster, through to Perth. I’d allowed some “free days” to either rest up or if we found something new. But from Perth I hadn’t really bothered, as I was never sure we’d be on schedule. Oddly enough we are pretty much 100% on schedule, really only out due to lack of Xmas accommodation at Esperance.
I had expected to spend more time here on the coast, but it’s just not very accessible. There are some roads out to some locations, but then it’s back to the main inland road. So where I had thought we might spend some time in some seaside towns, but there are not really any towns here.
So today we decide to take a trip down to pretty much the only section of coast we can see between Cape Leeuwin and Walpole, a place called Windy Harbour (sounds inviting). It’s about 30km south of Northcliffe, who to their own admission say on the side of their main hall “where the heck is Northcliffe?”
We take the scenic route via Pemberton. As mentioned this country is known as the southern forest, and for good reason. The Karri trees here are so tall, and many of them must be well over a metre in diameter. The ones closest to the narrow roads somehow seem bigger.
We then head to the coast and into D’Entrecasteaux National Park (yes I cut and pasted it, I had no chance of getting the spelling right otherwise) with zero expectation. This is pretty spectacular, and over a series of three lookouts we see some amazing coastline. There is a place called “the Windows” we nearly walk past it, but wow!
The Windows 
We’ve finally got the last piece of accommodation sorted for tomorrow in a place called Peaceful Bay. That’s the good news, the bad news is anything around new year’s is looking downright impossible. I had in the master plan us staying in a car park on the Great Australian Bight for New Year’s, not great but maybe memorable, now it just may be a car park. Oh well, we’ve still got a little over a week.
On the way back we drive by this solo little winery, Hillsbrook. What the hell, they’ve got a “wine tasting” sign out. 6 bottles of Sav Blanc later we’re on our way.
Back to the van park, past the creepy army of gnomes (seriously they have them lined up like an attacking roman army, if you’ve ever seen Night at the Museum you’ll know what I mean). The roos are back. Whilst, to use Justine’s vernacular this place is a bit craptastic, it is so quiet and peaceful here. You really only hear the noise of the birds and the bush. For a back end of a nowhere kinda place it’s been great.
