We take the scenic road today south through the winery region and a beautiful stretch of National Park to Augusta. The long sweep of the West Coast ends here where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet at Australia’s most South West point.
A lot of Kanga spotting goes on along the way. Not by me I hasten to add. I see only a dead one at the roadside. Alice spots loads. I see deer, sheep, cows, a horse or two, even an alpacca but no Kangas!
Augusta is a small town, low level as they all are, disguising the size of the place by not revealing the boundaries of the settlement. But there are cafes and banks and a supermarket and a tourist office. Closed for lunch. Once we are all lunched tickets for the whale spotting trip are negotiated in the tourist office. Alice warns that it will be very rough. Owen and I look out at the calm serene waters of the river. It’s quite calm we say.
It’ll be very rough says Alice. Her experience in Sydney was of calm harbour waters and 3m swell which made her fellow spotters quite unwell and those that were not seasick nauseous at the result!
We ignore her. I take an anti dizzy pill just incase. The tourist officer is an Australian version of …… in the … ladies detective agency. Hair scraped back. Effecient but not quite pulling it off. Things crashing around her. Computer not playing ball.
Alice decides she will explore instead but when we get to the harbour she changes her mind and decides to come. We chat to the guys running the boat. An Aussie (bare brown feet – no shoes throughout) and a Kiwi ( who is fond of shouting “there she blows” when she isn’t).
It is alarmingly bumpy. One can’t quite do ‘a titanic’ since even holding on with one hand isn’t an option. We have glimpses of dolphins and hump back whales but they are not up for long. After 2 hours we are chilly and glad to get back to dry land. A quick visit to Augusta lighthouse is frustrating as they have closed earlier than advertised and we can’t get in.
A long and tiring day but a couple of bucket list items ticked off! Hurrah for Owen for driving and to Al for keeping us on track. Love them so!
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