Thursday, 20th May - Mandurah to Busselton

We had breakfast at the Dome in Mandurah this morning. We sat outside, and a woman at a nearby table was cuddling her dog on her lap, which made me miss my dogs.

Sue looked up cheap fuel prices on Fuelwatch so we topped up the tank on the way out of town at a Gull petrol station on Pinjarra Road. We took the inland route to Busselton, via Pinjarra and Harvey. At Harvey we stopped at the Tourist Information Centre and a very helpful man suggested some places to visit. We discovered that May Gibbs (Snugglepot and Cuddlepie) had lived there when she was a child for a few years. We looked at Harvey Dam, and then went out through Harvey to Harvey Fresh: a winery with a Big Orange. South of Harvey we visited Harvey Cheese and bought some OMG (triple cream) brie, garlic olives, chilli olives, and marinated fetta to have with drinks that night.

Further south down the South Western Highway we turned off at Brunswick and cut across to Australind to visit a wood factory. Although their stuff was beautifully made it was either incredibly expensive or remarkably tacky (in my humble opinion).

We drove up Cathedral Drive, where the paperbarks meet over the road to form an arch and there were mobs of kangaroos roaming the vacant blocks, and then cut back to the Highway to head south to Bunbury.

Bunbury is a large regional centre. We visited a lookout near the lighthouse with panoramic view of the Bunbury and the coastline north and south, and then had a late lunch at a cafe. We found the mangrove walk on the Leschenault Inlet peaceful although it was right next door to a sand mining operation.

I dozed in the back seat on the trip from Bunbury to Busselton, but remember waking up enough to see beautiful tall trees in the Tuart Forest.

In Busselton we checked into our connecting rooms at the Gale Street Motel. The views aren't as great as Seashells but they have everything we need and ae considerably less expensive. We booked ourselves on a winery tour for Friday, and then took wine, beer and nibbles down to the beach at the end of the street and sat and watched the sun set and the horizon turn from pink to a glorious deep orange red. None of us were very hungry after that, but we walked down to the main street and had soup at Albies. Pete was horrified by the price of beer ($8 for a pint!). We picked up the makings of breakfast at Woollies on the way home.

It's only 9 pm but we're all ready for bed - boring old farts!