Sue Zann Toh

Where We Went…

The four of us (all adults) took 9 days and 8 nights for a world wind tour of the South West of Western Australia. I had the pleasure of organising this holiday from what we were going to see, when we were going to see it and most importantly, where we were going to rest after a full day’s excitement.

The Route:

Day 1 - Perth to Bunbury
Day 2 - Bunbury to Busselton to Margaret River
Day 3 - Margaret River to Dunsborough to Margaret River
Day 4 - Margaret River to Augusta to Margaret River
Day 5 - Margaret River to Pemberton
Day 6 - Pemberton
Day 7 - Pemberton to Denmark
Day 8 - Denmark to Albany
Day 9 - Albany to Perth

Have a look at the detailed itinerary and attractions page for ideas of what to do in these areas.

Anyone visiting Perth in Western Australia should definitely schedule about a week of their trip to see WA’s South West.

There’s a holiday for everyone in the south west. The area is well known as a wine region, offering many wineries with free wine tasting and tours. The climate is mild and perfect for sightseeing or relaxing. If you prefer an adventure holiday, there are many places that offer canoeing, kayaking, rock climbing, absailing, surfing lessons, horse riding, bush walks and much much more. For nature lovers, there are many wildlife parks, dolphin and whale cruises to visit. You can pretty much take your pick with the variety of activities on offer in the South West of WA.

During our 2005 South West Holiday, my partner, his sister and her husband took 9 days and 8 nights off for a world-wind tour of the South West. My highlights would have to be swimming at Hamelin Bay, trout fishing in Pemberton and of course the delicious wine and food on offer. Memorable moments were climbing the Gloucester Tree (pronounced Gloss-ter), walking on the Natural Bridge in Albany and visiting Pentland Alpaca Farm.

It was a fantastic trip that I’m sure to remember for many years to come. Since I was the one who organised this holiday, I thought I’d share our itinerary and experience in as much detail as I can.

Start with The Route, which details which towns we visited, including a map of the area. Move onto The Itinerary to see what we did and when. The Attractions gives you more details on the attractions from the itinerary, and The Hotels, Motels and Chalets lists the accommodations we stayed in during our trip.

The Round the World Trip in 2004 took us to Vienna, London, California. It was a business trip where we spent 2 weeks in Vienna, a week in London and a week in California.

In Vienna, Austria, we met with my partner’s sister and her husband where we discussed their future employment in Australia. They were introduced over many meetings to the type of work they would be performing and their roles in the company.

London was a packed full of as many tourist attractions as we could see. The aim of London was to gather information and photos on tourist attractions and create a web site featuring these attractions. This was a possible way to break into the travel market. I had a bit of a love-hate relationship with London, you can find out why in the London page.

If London was packed full of tourist attractions, Calfornia was packed full of meetings. In the internet marketing industry, most of our contacts and partners were in the USA. We scheduled many meetings with ouor contacts and partners throughout California. The meetings took us from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, to Anaheim, to San Francisco and back to Los Angeles. The meetings stregthened our relationships with our American partners and was all in all, a success.

Visiting Bunbury, in the South West of Western Australia, makes a quick and delightful holiday. Bunbury is known as the Gateway to the South West and is one of the larger towns in the area. Being only two and a half to three hours from Perth, it makes an ideal quick get away for the weekend or long weekend. Our 2004 Bunbury holiday was planned for 3 days and 2 nights.

The decision to make a trip to Bunbury in 2004 was a on-the-spot decision. We happened to choose a long weekend, which meant that accommodation was not so readily available. After a few frantic phone calls, I decided to enlist in the help of a travel agent to book a room for two nights at The Admiral Motel.

This holiday was a glutinous one. We spent a lot of our time eating at fabulous restaurants in Bunbury. Our favourite being the VAT-2 restaurant on Jetty Road. VAT-2 offered fabulous views and fabulous food, the sticky date pudding was possibly the best I ever tasted. We also went to Barbados on Bonnefoi Avenue and the Ex-Tension on Ocean Drive. Barbados overlooked the bay and Ex-Tension offered a fantastic breakfast with views of the beach.

We didn’t spend all our time eating. We went to the Big Swamp Wildlife Park and took a boat tour to visit the dolphins in Koombana Bay.

The Wildlife Park was fantastic, the admission fees were very reasonable and you could buy food for the animals. We spent most of the time sitting on the grass feeding the kangaroos around us. I managed to come home with a free souvenir, a peacock feather. We like to joke around and say that my partner tackled the peacock while I plucked the feather, but reality was, the feather fell off the peacock and I picked it up.

The dolphin boat tour was amazing. It was my first encounter with dolphins and they just amazed me. They were so curious that they would swim right up to the boat, take a look at us, then swim away. We got some amazing photos and I got a little sunburn.

Although this Bunbury holiday was a quick one, it was relaxing and the perfect get away. We were so impressed with our time in Bunbury that we visited again in February 2005. Read about it in our South West Holiday for 2005.

Added: Page of the best photos taken during the Bunbury trip, 2004.

On the way back to Perth, we stopped in Busselton to take a break from driving. Probably the biggest tourist attractiong in Busselton is the Busselton Jetty, a 2 km long wooden jetty.

Strange as it may sound, there’s a train that runs the length of the jetty. It’s quite a quaint train, small and cramped, but worth a trip. We took the train out to the end of the jetty then walked the 2 km back to land. It was one of those things where you wanted to do it once, and possibly never do it again!

The Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse is near Dunsborough, about 30 minutes north of Margaret River. We took a guided tour up to the lighthouse where we got some fantastic views of the ocean and its surroundings. The tour guide was quite passionate about his lighthouse, which made the tour very pleasant. The lighthouse itself is not very tall as Cape Naturaliste is already at an elevated position. The advantage of the short lighthouse was that you didn’t have climb too many steps to get to the top!

The Jewel Cave near Margaret River is a spectacular cavern filled with some beautiful cave formations. The most notable is the “table” floating above the water.

The only way to see the inside of the cave is a guided tour. To get to the start point of the guided tour, you’d better be prepared for some stairs, lots of stairs. The stairs weren’t so bad going down into the cave, but just think about when the tour is over and you have to climb all those steps to get back up to civilisation.

Anyway, the tour will take you into the cave where the tour guide gives you a history on caves in the area. They even turn off the lights for a moment to show you how dark it gets. That was pretty spooky, you can wave your hand madly in front of your face and wouldn’t get a glimpse of anything.

At the deepest point of the cave, and near the end of your tour, there’s a bench where we could sit while the tour guides turn off the lights and put on a beautiful light show. That was really spectacular, very magical.

We couldn’t get very good photos in the cave, as you would expect. There’s not much light and flashes, in general, ruins the photos, unless you have a professional flash. The photo below was taken from tourist site with information about the Jewel Cave.

The Boranup Maze is right near the Boranup Forest, pretty much opposite it. It’s a small circular labyrinth made of climbing vines, bushes and small trees.

It’s not much to look at and it’s definitely not meant to be a commercial venture. It looks more like a labour of love from the people who have built and maintained it. They’ve been kind enough to open the maze up to the public and it doesn’t cost much to see and run through the maze. Monies are paid through a honour system, which goes to show that making money is not the maze’s primary objective.

Even though the maze doesn’t seem like very much, it was surprisingly very fun and sometimes frustrating. It’s a circular maze, so the aim is to find your way to the center. Beware though, at certain times of the year, you may have company in the maze in the form of spiders and other creepy crawlies.

The Boranup Forest is a rather vast area of protected forest full of karri trees. It has a unsealed road running through it that is perfect for four wheel drive vehicles, and suitable for family sedans. However, anything with a lower clearance between the car and ground may find it more challenging as tree roots stick up from the ground.

The drive through the Boranup Forest was pleasant for the most part, if you could call feeling every little bump on the road pleasant. Nevertheless, even with the bumpy ride, it was still a tranquil and peaceful drive.

We did have a bit of excitement as a wild emu and its baby ran out in front of us on the road. We didn’t hit the flightless birds, but we did chase them for a few minutes! They were obviously trying to find a path off the road and would veer off several times trying to escape from us, but the forest undergrowth must have been too dense for them. Eventually they found their escape and we continued on the bumpy ride out of the forest.

There’s really not much to do in quiant little Pemberton. About one of the only attractions in the area is the Warren Tram ride.

The Warren Tram ride takes you through the karri forests of Pemberton. It was a sweet and romantic one and a half hour journey to the Warren River and back. The tram driver was a lovely man who gave us an amazing commentary for the entire journey. He would tell us stories about the history of Pemberton, the history of the the tram lines, details on the native flora and fauna and about the tram itself.

The tram stopped at several places to let you out to stretch your legs. One of the stops was at a stream of some sort, where you could walk out onto the stream using rocks as a stepping stone. The other stop at half way at the Warren River allowed you to walk a circular path through the karri trees where there were some trees with a hollow trunk that you could walk through. Great photo opportunites.