Busselton and Dunsborough
Trip Start
Sep 22, 2008
1
25
50
Trip End
Feb 01, 2009
Busselton,
Western Australia,
Australia
Sunday, November 23, 2008
We set up at Busselton in a van park that has an indoor/outdoor swimming pool - perfect for the kids! The beach is literally across the road, but unfortunately the weather was far from suitable.
Probably the most notable attraction is the jetty, the longest in the southern hemisphere at nearly 2km long. It was built over a 95 year period and was principally used for the export of timber.
In 2003 an underwater observatory was opened at the far end of the jetty, where visitors can see corals, sponges and fish.
We took a drive through Tuart Forest National Park. The Tuart tree only grows on coastal limestone 200km either side of Perth. Some of the trees were 30m high.
On the south-western tip of Geographe Bay, Dunsborough is popular with "Leavers" or "Schoolies" as we know them in the east. The students are easily identified as they wear tracksuit type jackets with their name or nick name and "08" on their backs. The police, in co-operation with the local community, organise events for the kids to attend so that the town remains as peaceful as possible.
We visited Ngilgi Cave, one of the many limestone caves in the region. This cave has special significance for local indigenous people as Ngilgi is a good spirit who got together with some others to remove a bad spirit who was misbehaving. They called the ocean to become so rough that it filled the cave with water, forcing the bad spirit to flee from the cave, creating a hole where visitors today can now enter.
Our attempt to see the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse was unsuccessful, as visitors have to pay for the privilege of getting within 300m of it! We thought you had to pay to climb the lighthouse, not merely admire it...
