Fish!

Here we are on the south coast of WA, and what a great piece of coastline it is. After our time inland at Margaret River and then Alexander Bridge, we moved to Denmark. Not the European version – way too cold there at the moment for camping.

There’s not much too special about Denmark township – it’s on a river that we couldn’t really explore much because the parks next to it aren’t dog friendly. But it’s a nice enough little town and has all the things you need for a few days (a supermarket). It is in a nice location though, sitting on both a river and an inlet which eventually leads out to the Southern Ocean.

We stayed at the Big 4 on Ocean Beach. Luckily the place is massive, so we were near the beach, but we weren’t on the beach – because the back of the caravan park was probably about 700 metres from the front. That worked out well for us later in the week when the wind got up and we were nicely sheltered down the far end of the park.

After our internet woes of the previous spot (too many trees for Elon’s Starlink and no phone range) we were back to full connectivity too, which was great for smashing through a bit of work.

Always on the lookout for a good deal, the first thing we spotted was a sign for free kids dinners on Thursdays at the local brewery/winery – The Boston Brewery. So being Thursday, we set up then headed out there for a delicious dinner (mushroom pie for me, burger for Jim). They were also on the ball in terms of being dog-friendly, and kid-friendly with a playground that kept the kids out of our hair for a bit.

I was keen to get a bit of fishing in while we were on the coast, no matter the weather! So on a very windy day where conditions were expected to grow to gale force, we mounted an expedition to get to the ocean side of Ocean Beach. That involved the paddleboard, life jackets (just in case) and a short trip across a narrow inlet to get to the main part of the beach. The dog had to swim (and the kids ended up swimming too), while Jim walked, and I paddled the board over with all the stuff. Once there, we had to hike it into the wind up the soft sand to the spot where we thought there might be fish. Unfortunately you had to cast into the wind which meant the kids were out (can’t cast too far on their little rods). Jim had slightly more weight on his line so he could hit the sweet spot. I struggled a bit with my lighter sinker but I still managed one precision cast in the two seconds that the wind stopped to catch one fish, then another using Jim’s rod for a second.

Jim caught six fish, bringing our haul to eight, which we then had to transport back over the little inlet (thankfully with the wind at our backs this time).

It was good to catch a few to bring the filleting skills back up to scratch and we had a tasty feed that night of fish and chips.

We had a couple more goes at the fishing. One was at Lights Beach, which is on the edge of the national park (dog-friendly). I caught a couple off the rocks including a whopper bream, so we actually managed to freeze some fish too – almost unheard of!

On our third fishing go we went in the national park and again I caught a couple off the rocks. This time we were using squid for bait (we used prawns the other times). The prawns were more successful but they’re harder to deal with than the squid. We like using squid because it stays on the hook, but clearly the fish like the prawns, and I guess their opinion is the one that matters most.

It wasn’t all fishing though. We also visited a chocolate shop where the kids had a hot chocolate and we tried some liqueur/chocolate pairings, and a cheesery where we picked up some nice fetta. We also took a spin up to Mt Barker and walked around the town a bit. They have an excellent pie shop there which we had to test out – wagyu beef pie – yum! 

We put the dog into doggie daycare for a day (with a very strange lady – can’t say I was a fan of her, and Jett actually was keen to get out of there when we picked him up too). That was so we could go to the Valley of the Giants and do the treetop walk in the Tingle trees. These trees are only found in a very small area of Australia (this valley in fact) and they are enormous. We’ve seen some big trees in this area – tingles, karri and marri, plus the jarrahs. Some of them are hundreds of years old too. After that we explored the national park a bit – always want to squeeze that in if we have any dog-free time.

We spent a week in Denmark, and easily could have stayed longer as it was quite a relaxing time. The caravan park had a massive playground for the kids and they made some friends which was good for them after a bit of a drought in recent times. But we have to keep moving – a whole 50 minutes or so up the road to Albany.

We’re in Albany now and I’ve been sick for most of the time here. We’ve still managed to do a bit, but it’s been mostly “life admin” type-tasks as we prepare for Christmas, and our drive across the Nullarbor. Albany is our last big town of note (except Kalgoorlie, which is a bit smaller), so our aim here has been to knock off all the Christmas shopping and get the car sorted.

As a result, the Christmas shopping is mostly done, which is quite nice, given it is only early December. The car also has a new windscreen after a decent crack started appearing the other day. The dog has had his annual vaccinations, and today, the car is in for its fourth service of the trip. (Melbourne, Adelaide, Broome and now Albany). This should see us home, when it will probably promptly need another one. But it has been going very well (touch wood) to date, given that there is some significant mileage on the clock now.

We did try to see the local sights though. Again we put the dog into the kennels for an overnight stay this time so we could go and do some Christmas shopping, and go to the Albany Christmas parade. We also went to the whaling station which was both gruesome and educational at the same time. We gave the kids a heads up as to what it was about, but they took it all in their stride and learned a lot I think. I was over the gruesomeness of it all by the end, but it was interesting. We also explored the local national park which is quite spectacular with a lot of beaches and bays. With more time and less sickness I probably would have done a few of the walks there too, but all we really had time for was a quick look around before we collected the dog again.

We only have four more stops left in WA before we hit the Nullarbor – Bremer Bay (3 nights), Esperance (5 nights) and Kalgoorlie (3 nights). After that we have four one-night stops over the Nullarbor before we reach our Christmas stop in SA. We haven’t done many one-night stops on this trip as they require a fair bit of organisation so as not to unpack everything but I think we’re pretty well-versed in the whole pack up/set up thing having done it nearly 100 times now. We have invested in a couple of air mattresses for the kids so we don’t have to set up their bunk beds, which should speed things up a bit for those few days. Fingers crossed we can get all the Christmas presents and food into the back of the car for the trip from here to SA, otherwise we could have a squished ride across the Nullarbor.