SW Tour - Day 11

A morning walk along the coast followed by coffee at the local shop was a great way to start the day. It was still breezy but the sun was shinning.

Next we packed up Polly and began our journey to Nornalup hoping to hire canoes / kayak to paddle down the Franklin River towards Monastery Landing. Our luck was out though. The chalets where we thought we could hire the boats was closed in the mornings. We continued on to the little town of Walpole and  enquired at the information centre where we were informed that there was no one local who hired out canoes. The was talk of a guy possibly setting up a business next year... What a shame we thought give the beauty of the river. We retreated to a cafe which turned out to be closed on Mondays (it was Monday); found another little shop (no coffee) and ended up at the bakery to discuss our options.

Given that Walpole was on an inlet, the closest beach was Peaceful Bay (where we had just come from) and our itinerary had the failed canoe trip and the tingle trees that we'd seen yesterday so we thought we might try to find accomodation further afield in Augusta.

Perhaps our luck had turned as we secured a powered site at Hamelin Bay. It also looked like there was potential to hire a canoe or SUP's in Augusta. This meant the long drive earmarked for tomorrow was being done today. The route took us through the lovely forests of the south west towards Manjimup. Some 15km from town we veered left and made our way to Pemberton.

Lunchtime was close so we decided that we'd take the opportunity to stop at Gloucester Tree. The Gloucester Tree is a giant 58m tall Karri tree which was selected in 1947 to use as a fire lookout. It is the second tallest fire tree lookout. Seven other karri fire lookout trees were built in the south-west between 1937 - 1952. 

Unfortunately the Gloucester Tree was closed to climbing due to a scheduled maintenance burn in the surrounding forest. Having already climbed this tree on several occasions, I was secretly relieved to not have to again climb the 153 spikes that slowly spiral around the tree to the canopy! Everyone else was gutted!

  

Lunch was over quickly due to the large number of annoying march flies. Back in Polly, we still had 1.5hrs to Augusta. We pulled up in Augusta mid afternoon and made our way to Ellis St Jetty in search of canoes or SUP's. Still no luck - the canoes were there but no one to hire from! Next option was a swim at Granny's Beach, a sheltered spot on Flinders Bay. With a few jetties and a pontoon we were finally happy! It was lovely to have a refreshing dip.

Post swim Andy wanted to drive to Leeuwin Lighthouse. Thinking that we were going to walk up to the lighthouse, wander around and take a few photos we were surprised to see an entry fees was required to access the lighthouse and point. After overhearing a visitor say 'I'm so glad to have gone on the tour. It was really interesting.' and reading the options of access v's tour, we decided to sign up for a tour.

Unfortunately arriving late in the afternoon, the last tour was already fully booked. We signed up for a mid morning tour the next day. With nothing left to do, we made our way to Hamelin Bay. 

Andy headed out for a short run while we set up Polly before walking down to the beach to cool off once again. The water was turquoise and refreshing. As we were standing in waist deep water a large stingray glided by. The girls were memorised!

We walked up to the jetty and found more stingrays in the shallows, floating in and out with the waves.

 

With a west facing beach, we decided to wander back to the beach after dinner for sunset. A rather large crowd had gathered - it was perhaps the thing to do. We spent most of the this time interacting with the big majestic stingrays. There were also fleeting sights of the fin of a grey nurse shark encouraged to visit by the local fishermen feeding it. 

It was a magical end to a very unpredictable day!