The mouth of the Margaret River

During our drive back to Perth, we detoured a few miles to see the mouth of this river.

Apparently, these can be monster waves at times that scare the best of board riders,

Nice looking steps to the beach.

The mouth.

The river flows quite quickly.

Where river and sea fight each other.

We drove further north to Busselton which has Australia's longest jetty. It's roughly double the length of our jetty at Urangan.

Park near the jetty.

Parts of the jetty were destroyed in 1978.

Some large very dark clouds were approaching, so we scurried back to the car and headed back to Perth.

It was a very enjoyable trip, though the plane journey seems awfully long couped up in your seat.

Augusta

Augusta is the closest town to the most south-southwesterly point of Australia. We left Albany and took the coast road.

But first, check out this table at the cafe we went to just before we left Albany.

The story about the table. The cafe served the best coffee I have tasted in a long time.

We did not have much success taking photos since I use my phone for navigation. I think I will get a cheap compact camera for car use.

The lighthouse at the tip. To the left is the Southern Ocean and the Indian Ocean is to the right. We did not walk out there since it had started to rain along with a ferocious cold wind.

Southern Ocean.

Indian Ocean 

We drove north thru this park towards the Margaret River wine region. This are produced some of Australia's finest Cabernets

Lillies lined the road for approximately a kilometre.

A beach along the way. It's the Indian Ocean.

We picked Walsh and Sons winery at random and it was a great choice.

The grounds of the winery.

Marianne enjoying her excellent Cabernet Sauvignon. Not cheap but one of the nicest wines I have tried in a while. Their Chardonnay was also excellent.

We drove back to the motel for a well deserved nap.

Fish and chips at Albany

After a gloomy and rainy day, we thought a feed of fish and chips would be good.

Along the way, we took a coastal route that shows the magnificence of the harbour.

The fish is Denmark Cobbler which is an eel type fish from the town of Denmark to the west of Albany. The flesh is light and tasty. Curiously, the fish has spikes that contain a serious poison.

The name of the shop is Hooked on Middleton Beach and it won the 2024 award for Best Fish and Chips in Australia.

Albany in the rain

When you travel, you are always at the mercy of the local weather.

Albany has a wonderful location on the Southern coast of West Australia, but it gets plenty of storms brought by the Roaring Forties.

We had brekkie at this trendy cafe. It looks empty right now but it was doing a roaring trade with piles of well to do locals turning up for their regular Sunday morning visit.

Marianne really enjoyed the potato cakes.

I managed to force this down. 

It was starting to rain as we left the cafe.

Trendy shops.

We drove out to the old Whaling Station through the pouring rain.

It would have been wonderful in the sunshine.

Marianne sacrificed herself to get this photo.

As we returned to Albany, the clouds started to clear.

The heavy rain cleared most of the bugs off the car.

Albany is famed as a nice place to live and I can see why.