Garn daan sarf again !

Hey there Bloggers,

we're back from another great weekend with the tent. We thought Ben was working this weekend but found out on Friday that he wasn’t needed, so we asked our great landlady if we could borrow her awesome tent again and quickly got our hire car and off we went. We woke early Saturday morning and packed the car and head off out onto the Freeway. We weren’t sure where we were going to stay and just decided to head to the furthest point Augusta. It wasn’t much driving this time and the furthest we had to drive was 340kms. We decided half way that we would pitch the tent at Margaret River and then just do our visiting from there. We got there just after 11ish, just as the rain was starting !! Awesome, our first rain in Australia !

The site was right in the middle of Margaret River. We pitched it no bother and then decided to head out. We drove onto the Caves Road and headed south. Margaret River is the Western Australian Wine Making Region and were we wine drinkers we would probably have been excited. Didn’t matter not being wine drinkers though, the scenery was so lovely. The views from the road were amazing. The vineyards are so beautiful and with the rain aswell everywhere looked so green !

We passed a sign for the Lake Cave and decided to pull over and have a look. We paid our money and timed it right to have a guided tour. We had to descend 350 steps down into the doline, where we met our tour guide. We were surrounded by Karri trees, some towering more than 20 stories high which means they are very old !

The Lake Cave was discovered by a guy called Tim Connelly around 1897. He just ventured underground and was waist deep in water and discovered what was underground. He was so impressed with it, he invested everything to make it into a Tourist Cave. He built all the walkways and it was ready for the public tours by lantern in 1901 ! Amazing. We were told that we had some more steps to climb and to watch out heads on the way down. There was 2 rocks we had to watch out for, Headache Rock the first and Splitting Headache Rock the second. It was already feeling damp and cold, we were glad we’d donned our hoodies ! It was amazing underground, we weren’t ready for what we saw. It was like something out of Disney, crystals hanging from the ceiling and coming up from the ground. There was a small lake running through the middle and drips were echoing around the whole cave. There was a little walkway which runs through the middle.

We were lead by torchlight not lantern but it was equally eerie! As we walked through the view just got better, the reflections in the clear water made the cave seem so much bigger. In the middle was the “Suspended Table”. The “table” a massive column of calcite weighing more than five tonnes that just hangs from the ceiling, just hanging above the lake. We got to the end of the cave and sat whilst we got to hold a piece of the calcite crystal, it was so heavy and it’s amazing to think how long it has taken all these crystals to be formed. Can you imagine finding something like this ???? !!! Wow !

We sat whilst they had a little lightshow and sometimes all the lights went off together and it was so dark and so quiet. We had 10 mins to have a look around and take photos ourselves before heading back up the stairs. Some Scientists wanted to know how quickly the crystals were forming and decided to burn one of the tips off and see how fast it grows back. You could see the tip of black where they had burnt it and it was about 1 1/2cm’s growth, that little growth had taken 60 years !! Incredible aye ?!

It was such an effort to climb the stairs back up but we managed it. We climbed in the car and carried on the Caves road towards Augusta. When we got there we stopped off at Hamelin Bay, it was funny because there was only 2 roads when got there. One going to the Boat Ramp and the other to a Campsite. We headed to the Boat Ramp and parked up the car. We had a short walk to the beach and had it been a nice day we would have stayed longer. Surprisingly the water was still turquoise even thought the sky was grey.

I had a paddle and the water was freezing ! We didn’t stay long and drove to the most South Westerly Point in Australia to Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse.

The weather had changed again and it was so windy, felt like we were going to get blown off the edge ! We quickly took some photos and then ran back to the car. We weren’t allowed in the lighthouse as there was some maintenance work going on.

We drove back to Augusta. It was such a small place, just one street of shops. We got some beers for the evening and headed back to the tent so we could chill for a while. We played a few games of cards and then we were ready for our BBQ tea.

Ben was incharge of the barbie and took the relevant tools of the trade over and got started ....... a beer and snags !

It was raining by the time we’d finished cooking so we took the stuff over and sat in the tent, listening to the rain. That was pretty much our evening ..... eating, drinking and listening to the rain. We loved it. It pretty much rained all night and packing away the tent wet in the morning wasn’t much fun.

We had our breakfast Bagels with cream cheese ...... we were really ruffing it this weekend ! Ha ha. We set off just after 9ish heading up north again.

We were heading up the Caves Road when I mentioned to Ben about the Margaret River Chocolate Company, that was it. The car had to be turned around and there we were heading back down the Caves Road. It wasn’t much of a detour and we found it.

It was amazing, the place was filled with chocolate .... Ben thought he was in heaven ! And there was FREE samples ! We were still tasting our breakfast but that didn’t stop us filling our pockets, bags any holes with the free delicious chocolate. Ben would even say that it’s the best Milk Chocolate he’s ever tasted ! Now that is a statement ! Needless to say we left there feeling a wee bit under the weather and 11 bucks lighter as we bought some homemade cake aswell. Ben says it would even be worth paying the airfare from the UK to Perth and then hiring a car and driving the 300 kms to buy some of the milk chocolate .... I’d say he can make do with Dairy Milk like the rest of us !

We drove back along the Caves Road, such stunning views and stopped off at Dunsborough. We parked the car and had a walk around the town. It was lovely, little boutique shops and it was really busy. There were so many motorbikes that had overtaken us on the windy roads and this is where they had all arrived at. We walked right down to the beach and it was so quiet and still. The water didn’t look too deep, like you could walk for miles knee depth. There were loads of people sitting and chilling, it was really lovely. We walked back and decided to get a brew and take our cake back down by the beach. We called in at a Christian Fletcher Gallery on the way to the car, amazing photographer ! We chilled eating our cake and managed to hold it down before setting off back home.

We arrived home to our welcoming party of an excited Digger and quickly emptied the car. Ben was incharge of making the picnic and I was incharge of washing and emptying the bags. We were in and back out again heading towards South Perth to have a picnic and watch the sunset over the skyline.

Ben wanted a photo of the Narrows and the Perth Skyline so we took the opportunity whilst we still had the hire car. It was well worth it, the view was amazing and such a good sky. Perth didn’t have the rain that we did in the south so the sky was really nice for it.

We even managed to drive round by the Perth Wheel and take a few photos. What a way to end a weekend, we had such a lovely time and we can cross another thing off our To-Do list !

No other gossip really, apart from we came 8th out of 12 teams at the quiz the other night. Luckily we had a friend of Emma’s with us cos me and Ben were useless this time. So many Aussie questions, we put it down to “Mark”, our usual team host not being there ! Booooo !! Meeting our new friends from Adelaide tonight, Dave and Cathy. They fly out of Perth on Thursday Morning so we thought we’d meet them and see what they’ve been up too, no doubt share a few pints with them again.

It’s a regular evening thing now with me and Emma watching the Biggest Loser and Ben playing his Pokie online. Ben’s loving it and so are we ! Great TV ! Well no other goss at the moment, we’re both fine. Hope everyone’s fine back home, sending our love to everyone.

That’s it for now, take care and speak soon.

Love the H’s xxx