Quinninup, Pemberton, Windy Harbour and Manjimup, WA

12th November to 16th November

Our next destination was a place called Quinninup, about 30km south of Manjimup and 30km east of Pemberton. Nik had found this little gem of a caravan park on Wikicamps, they had a lot of great reviews and were a hell of a lot cheaper than all the other parks in the main towns. The caretaker decided to only charge us $40 per night, awesome so we ended up staying for 4 nights, it was a great base to explore the surrounding area. The girls loved the friendly kangaroos and emus that without fail turned up mid afternoon and hung around eating till dark.

After we arrived and set up we decided to go for a drive up to Manjimup, we ended up getting  few extra supplies and Bec needed to print out a maths test so off we all went to the library. Lucky for us they were having a $1 book sale, so we all spent at least 45 minutes going through their old books and were each able to find a few books each to buy. After our purchases we realised we had lost Jess and Abby, thankfully we found them in the kids section colouring in, so what did we all do……sat down with them and coloured in for then next 30 minutes. We also got some colour competition pictures that we could do and return in time for the cherry festival at the end of the month, they even had an adult competition!!!!

Whilst here we also took a drive into Pemberton, grabbing a coffee and heading straight to the Gloucester Tree, another place that OH&S would have a ball with!!! Considering the height of the tree and the largely spaced out ‘pins’ that acted as a ladder for you to climb up we didn’t allow the younger 2 girls to climb it, even though they were the only ones who wanted to. Bec ummed and ahhed and finally decided no, Zoe was a definite NO from the start and I had doubts as to my climbing ability and fitness so passed as well, Nik was the only one who went up, much to Abby’s disgust!!!! Can I also add that his quads have been nicely burning and getting back at him for a few days now as a result.

On the way out to the Gloucester Tree we noticed a ‘pub front’ and some cool old cars, after some asking around we found out that they re filming ‘Jasper Jones’, Australia’s version of To Kill a Mockingbird. It stars Hugo Weaving apparently, but we didn’t spy him around and couldn’t be bothered sneaking in and having a look so we took some photos and continued on.

After our climb we decided to go for a scenic drive to the north of Pemberton, driving past the Big Brook Dam along the Karri Explorer Drive. We decided to stop at the dam for lunch then Abby and Jessica decided to go for a swim even though they didn’t have their bathers. After a while we continued on our drive through some beautiful forests and past some avocado farms, where we picked up 8 avocados for $2, winning!!!

We also went for a drive through the Warren National Park, just south of Pemberton, which took us past some huge karri trees and lovely, but not caravan appropriate, camping spots along the Warren River. We finished off the day by calling in to the Lavender and Berry Farm just out of town for ice cream and coffee arriving back to the van in time to greet all the kangaroos who had taken quite a liking to the grass right beside our van.

The next day with the weather looking in the high 30’s we decided to take a drive down to the coast to a little fishing settlement called Windy Harbour. Windy Harbour is the only 2wd access to the WA coast between Walpole and Augusta consisting of about 220 cottages which are leased for about 20 years each. WOW, what a place, we went to Salmon beach first for a swim in the shallows (lots of rips and rough beach) and then to the ‘township’ which had no shops, where we stumbled upon a great grassy area with picnic tables and an awesome playground where we had some lunch. Afterwards we went to the beach just over the dune, it was fantastic, a sheltered little bay where all the boats were launched and a great swimming area protected by rocks. The girls had a ball playing in the water and jumping off all the rocks, I think they were playing a mermaid game of some sort. In the end we had to drag them out, they were desperate to come back again tomorrow as they loved it that much, unfortunately we had to say no as we had other stuff to do and we were moving on the day after.

After another trip to Manjimup and more importantly Woolworths we then packed up and got ready to head off to our next adventure and destination on our OZLAP……….