On our way to Pumphrey’s Bridge we had coffee and a snack at the Manjimup Heritgage Park Cafe as a part of our policy of making journeying more than just a drive. Weve been there before. I explored the gift shop and bought Matt yet another keyring attachment for his duffle bag.

At Pumphrey’s Bridge we set up on the edge of the oval in the shade. There were some people camped next to the pavilion with children playing on the oval. As well, there were a couple of caravans parked down near the river.

We enjoyed a little walk in the evening as the temperature cooled. When we stepped out to see the stars after dark it was as wonderful and clear as we had hoped, with a really good view of the stars. When we were at Boyup Brook we had seen the International Space Station going over, it was especially bright and Stephen had checked out the time it would be visible. But, Pumphrey’s Bridge is definitely a better location for star gazing. We both stayed out there for quite a while. We regretted not bringing our Seestar to get some images of deep sky objects.

The moon rose later and in the photo it looks quite orange. All the photos are from my iphone, so not that good, though the computational power of the phone makes night photos possible. I used my red torch to take some photos as well.

Stephen had gone online to book our stay for one night, it costs $11 per vehicle, very cheap, and there are proper flushing toilets, so quite good value. We decided to stay for another night on Sunday, but that turned out to be a mistake. It was a hot day and we ran the air conditioning for as long as possible before we were in shade from the nearby trees, sometimes sitting outside, and wetting our hair, and in my case, my clothes. But, by the end of the day we felt quite exhausted and didn’t actually do any stargazing. Lesson learnt: we won’t do that again.

It didn’t cool down until around 5.00 a.m. We had left the Starlink running, as well as a fan, and the 12v system stopped working at about 5.30 a.m. I thought the batteries had shut down, but as the sun came up everything came back. I ran the engine for about half an hour to ensure that all of our 12v systems would keep working. We got up by 6.00 a.m. and were on the road by about 8.30.

BTW, we had little to no phone signal and were worried about possibly having to evacuate the area due to a bushfire. That is why we ran the Starlink all night, normally we switch off at bed time.

On the way home we diverted slightly to take in the Bakery/roadhouse at Bannister. It was early for morning tea, but we felt that after the scare with the 12v we needed a boost. As well as cakes and pies they bake fresh bread and we bought a soughdough spelt loaf that was delicious. It only lasted a day once we arrived home.

I haven’t plugged the Sherwood into power since we’ve been home and the solar is keeping the batteries full. We had a shower of rain which got rid of some of the dust on the panels.

I took this snippet when we were on one of our walks at Pemberton. I’m using my old video campera which has avery zoomy lens, ideal for capturing birdlife.

We spent three nights in this campground, two pre booked, the third night was booked whilst we were there as we wanted to spend more time in the area. We couldn’t get the same site, so had to move from No. 5 to No. 4 yesterday morning.

On the first day we walked to the Big Brook Dam and found an attractive bird hide where we stayed for a while and had snacks. The return walk seemed shorter, perhaps because everything was familiar and we weren’t pausing to explore and take photos.

After lunch and a rest we walked to the Arboretum, which is close to the campground. Although there are signs for the different types of trees the area does not appear to be well maintained. There is no map showing where to look for the different species of trees, it’s a matter of just finding out what is there as you walk around.

Yesterday, after moving to the new site, we went into town for shopping and drinking water before going out to the Beedlelup Falls. There is a lovely lakeside (dam really) restaurant that is part of the RAC Resort and Caravan Park. We had lunch first, then walked around the lake, visiting the falls on the way. There is some water falling, but it would obviously be better after rain.

It was a harder walk than the first day’s walk, with quite a lot of climbing. So it was a very good feeling to arrive back at our van. We used the restaurant toilets, banking on the fact that if challenged, we had been eating there a couple of hours before.

The nights were cold and the days quite cool, very good for walking, especially as there is so much shade. There were quite a few vans at the campground, changing each day, of course. Apparently, you can stay for at least a couple of weeks. There is a drop toilet which was quite OK until this morning when there was an invasion of blow flies, perhaps someone had left the toilet seat up.

Moving north, and inland today meant that we have had quite a hot afternoon here at Boyup Brook. The air conditioning is very welcome. As our plan is to go further north and inland, we will have to be prepared for hot days, though it should be cool at night.

We took two walks on Saturday. The first was along the Cape to Cape to the south, which took us away from the coast. It was cloudy and we wore our jackets as it was fairly cool.

We’ve been having good weather so far, with nights cool enough to use our warm doona and mostly sunny days. It’s been very windy, which appears to be partly why it hasn’t been hot. It’s now Monday, and quite warm here at Hamelin Bay, thank goodness for air conditioning. We expect it to cool down again in the late afternoon.

In the late afternoon we packed up and went down to the beach near Contos Campground. We stayed in the carpark until about 6.00 p.m. We had views of the ocean, but the sun was pretty glary and we had to have the blind up, so no view that way. The walk down to the beach might be about 500m, not far, and we sat on some rocks to wait for the sunset. The waves were pretty rough and I wouldn’t have gone in for a swim, but there were young people surfing and it appeared to be safe, no obvious rips.

We arrived back at our campsite before dark and found that having left our chairs out had been a good idea in that no one had taken our spot. Although the booking is for a specific section of the campground, we were in Quenda, you don’t book a specific site, so we felt it wasn’t guaranteed. We had to use the ramps to makes us level and it was good to have some light to adjust the ramps.

On Sunday morning we drove down to Hamelin Bay, having made a small stop at the Lake Cave (no cafe) and then at the 100 year forest. We had booked the caravan park in the morning before leaving Contos and we have quite a good site, though, as with Contos, we are under trees and our Starlink signal can be intermittent, there are just no clear areas for it to work well. Still, it does seem to work better with obstructions than in the past, the whole system has constant updates.

Last night we rang Matt and had a catchup, then walked down to the beach to the lookouts. With no cloud it wasn’t going to be a spectacular sunset, so we came back and cooked sausages for tea. I cooked outside, something I don’t do very often, but there are no midges and only a few insects, so it was quite comfortable and meant we didn’t steam up the inside.

We had a good night’s sleep, using the fan next to our bed for the first time. It was the warmest night we’ve had and the first time we’ve slept without the doona.

On our second evening at Hamlin Bay we walked down to the beach and I went down to the shore where people were interacting with stingrays. There are notices that say they should not, especially as they can be dangerous, but not everyone takes it seriously. I didn’t feel tempted to pat one myself!