We did not rush off this morning, as had a bit of a sleep in, perhaps that Guinness had something to do with it. We had a Coffee and a biscuit then did a bit of repair work to Dads mirror which broke with being dropped yesterday. Headed off about 9am and after fuelling up, rode south. I had seen the stretch of road in the dark and it looked quite different in the daylight. There was a surprising amount of population out here and obviously a lot of people live out here and commute to the city judging by the rail station that was packed with cars of commuters. The road south took us through Mandurah, which is quite a large city and has a fantastic environment with beach on one side and an inlet on the other side.
Once again the trees got larger and larger the further we travelled south. We passed some very tidy farms and the country was very lush, great cattle and sheep country. Arriving in Bunbury there were a lot of big box shops going into town but just as we arrived at the GPS centre of town I noticed a good looking Café so we stopped there and had a breakfast. The woman serving behind the counter was Maori, and I said to her “are you from New Zealand?” her face lit up and she said “how did you know?” then the penny dropped for her and she said “Oh of course” Pointing to her face. I said “It is the tattoo of New Zealand on your arm that gave it away” She had a map outline of New Zealand on her arm, she laughed, as she had obviously forgotten about it.
We decided to ride through the Margaret river area and headed off to go around the coast. There are a lot of Vineyards and some olive groves going around here. We cut through to the coastal road, Caves Road and continued south. This is a recommended motorcycling road by both the Motorcycle atlas of Australia, plus a bike rider we talked to in Fremantle. It was a good ride with some sweeping corners and good road surface and the environment was very pleasant with the vineyards being scattered amongst the forest and the occasional art gallery. There were several turn offs to caves, but we did not go down any of them, as they were dirt roads. Augusta was at the end of the road and is an old town with 1830 of the sign going into the place. We rode through Augusta and out onto the Cape Leeuwin, which has a lighthouse and represents the south west corner of our ride. There was a charge to look at the lighthouse and surrounds but we were short of time so did not look around it. We took a few photos of the Indian Ocean clashing with the Southern Ocean and I cranked up the gas cooker for a cuppa. It is surprisingly easy to light these new gas cookers and it had none of the excitement of lighting a white spirit cooker, which has the element of the unknown about it.
We aimed for Pemberton after this and thought that we would have plenty of fuel to get there as it was only about 120km. The road went through a mixture of paddocks and forest. There was a rough but colourful camp in the middle of the forest with a smoky fire burning. There were signs for what must be a protest camp, calling themselves guardians of the forest or something like that. Hippies.
This is the “UP” region that Mike Hyde talked about, and it is true a lot of the names end with “up” and the road signs were a constant reminder: Nannup, Yallingup, Manjimup, Mayanup, Noggerup. What the “hellisup” with these names? did the surveyor have the hiccups? Another linguistic puzzle.
We came around one corner and the trees towered above us as true giants. They seemed massively tall, perhaps due to their white bark and the lack of undergrowth, but it almost took your breath away seeing them tower above the road and us.
We pulled onto Pemberton and I was running on vapour again as the speed had crept up coming through the windy forest roads. My bike took 23.4l to fill, once again only a bit over 1 litre prior to it stopping. We stopped at a converted theatre, which has been into apartment accommodation, and it is the most luxurious stop so far, three bedrooms all very nicely renovated. Dad is hobbling around with a swollen leg from a repeat injury from his bike falling over, so was not keen on walking to get food, so I went to the pub and got some take away Pizza. This is a good looking town with old buildings nicely renovated and set amongst the trees. It has gotten very cold and today for the first time we have seen fires being used for warmth. Hard to believe that only a few days ago and a couple of thousand km north we could not keep cool enough, now we are struggling to stay warm. I had my heated grip on all day. We both put the thermal liners in our jackets for tomorrow.
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