On Monday morning we checked out of the Gale Street Motel in Busselton where we stayed for four nights. Pete complained that we were rushing him, as Sue and I were ready to go and he was still packing. Sue uses the FuelWatch website to find out where the cheap petrol is each day, so we filled up on the way out of town. We took the long scenic route via Nannup to Balingup, following the Blackwood River. We stopped at Balingup, which is supposed to be an arts and crafts centre for the region, to look at a craft centre. It was a very big building and I have never seen so much unsaleable 'craft' - some of it looked like it had been there for years, gathering dust. But apparently there's another arts and craft centre that's better.
At Balingup we turned on to the South Western Highway and headed south to Greenbushes where we saw an open cut mine, mining for tin, lithium and tantalum. We parked near the primary school, walked up a path, and at the top there was this great hole in the ground that you'd never have guessed was there from the parking lot.
Further south at Bridgetown we called into the visitors centre which had a museum attached, and the Jigsaw Gallery. The museum included some marionettes created by a local retired couple. The Jigsaw Gallery had a collection of framed jigsaws donated by a local lady who ran a guesthouse. Some of them were 9,000 pieces.
Next stop south on the South Western Highway was Manjimup. We had lunch at the Timber Park Cafe and went for a walk about the Timber Park. They had an interesting collection of old buildings, relocated to the park: gaol, school room, post office, settler's cottage. We'd talked about finding accommodation here but decided against it as there didn't seem to be a lot to see in the local area.
We kept going south towards Pemberton. On the way we strayed off the highway to find the Wine and Truffle Co which offers truffle hunting tours with trained truffle hounds, but we'd missed the tour. Further along the same road was Fontys Pool and Caravan Park. The pool was a dammed creek around which the caravan park had developed - very quiet at this time of year so we kept driving. Further south we stopped at the Diamond Tree Fire Tower. It's a 90 metre Karri tree with spikes driven in a spiral pattern around the truck so that you can climb up to a platform at the top where people used to spend their day watching for bushfires. Deborah climbed about halfway and decided that was high enough, and Sue climbed up a little way as well.
When we got to Pemberton we called into the Pemberton Hotel which has Best Western motel units and had a look at the units - they were a bit depressing, so we went down to the Visitor Centre and asked for advice. They booked us into a two bedroom apartment at the Old Picture Theatre which was a real find. It's a converted picture theatre and beautifully refurbished as apartments. We stayed in the Dress Circle, which had a big kitchen, living area, and two bedrooms and a bathroom and separate toilet (which Pete very much approved of). We were the only guests for the first night, I think. They had a free washing machine and dryer in the laundry downstairs, and a spa which we contemplated getting into but decided it was too much hassle to get wet and then get dry again. Instead we snacked on some of our gourmet purchases and drank champagne and beer. We had dinner at the Pemberton Hotel.
Pete's notes based on the brochure say the picture theatre was built in 1929. It is the only purpose built timber picture theatre remaining in WA. It was in use until the 1970s and is now refurbished as 4 and a half star accommodation. It has many film posters adorning the apartment walls, polished jarrah floorboards, stained glass doors, jarrah wash stands, high ceilings with ceiling roses. We highly recommend it as a place to stay if you're ever in the area. Graham, who was the only staff we met, was really helpful.
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