Mandurah and surrounds, plus a side trip to Rotto!

We chose to drive down the coast via the inland route, mainly because we had a lunchtime appointment at the pub with Jim’s mate Shano (who is actually Shaun, having acquired a UQFC nickname in the usual round-about fashion – even though he’s not a soccer player…). It turns out that Shano actually owns the concrete mixer we’ve “borrowed” for the last 16 years or so, and is now currently being “borrowed” by Otter, back in Brisbane. I’ve spent many hours on the end of a shovel using that mixer so it was good to see its owner (although I think he has given up all hope of getting it back).

Anyway, I’d never met Shano before so we settled in for a chat over one of the nicest pub meals I’ve had in ages (a delicious Nasi Goreng) in the little town of Pinjara.  The kids had the usual kiddie fare but massive meals (Chicken parmi for Hamish and pizza for Heidi). They were so big that we all just had a piece of toast for dinner later on.

After lunch we continued on to our new spot on the coast at a place called Herron Point. There’s nothing at Herron Point except a little shire-run campground that seems to attract grey nomads like flies to a BBQ.

We rolled in, automatically bringing the average age down by a few decades, and found our carefully chosen spot. Back when I booked here, there were loads of spots available so I was quite surprised when we turned up and it was packed. Luckily I’d carefully chosen the biggest, most private spot I could find. It was still close to the oldies (close enough to hear one of them snore later in the week), but much more spread out than the rest of them were. It is right on the water, but no good for fishing due to the large amount of weed around (and I did give it a go, just in case).

Our time here coincides with a very busy time for Jim as he attempts to finish off not one, but two uni subjects and do the never-ending job applications. So we had no real plans here except to potter around a bit and see the nearby towns. Our first day here was HOT, around 37 degrees, so we didn’t really do a lot besides chasing the shade around, but the rest of the days were perfect – 25ish degrees and sunny.

I took the kids into Mandurah. I remember this being one of my favourite places on previous trips to WA. It has a really nice waterfront area and just seems like a town with a bit going on. It’s grown a bit since I was last there, and as we were out without the dog we went to the huge shopping centre to do a few things and then went “giant hunting”. Mandurah (and the area) has these fantastic wooden giants that are hidden around the place. Each has a walk to get to (around 1-3km), but it was worth it to see them. We found three on the first day, then a fourth on another day when we had Jim and the dog with us.

The next day we went to Rockingham which is a bit further up the road. Rockingham is a weird place – the waterfront is really nice, but go one step back and it looks completely dilapidated. We had a picnic lunch on the foreshore then drove out to Peron Point to do some walks around there which were all quite nice.

With the two days of work/school and the two days of exploring, that brought our time at Herron Point to an end and we packed up to leave. We’d arranged a little surprise for the kids and I had been wondering how I was going to keep it secret, but as I turned out they didn’t even bother asking where we were going until we got in the car and started to leave. When I said “Mandurah” Hamish did comment that it was only half an hour away but didn’t seem to twig that anything was up.

We had to go via the dog kennels however, to drop the dog off. We told the kids that this was because we were going to Rottnest Island the next day (which was true), but we didn’t tell them that it was also because we’d booked two nights with a solid roof over our heads as well. It’s been a while – Jim hasn’t slept anywhere but the tent since our stay in the cave in Coober Pedy back in early June. I had a couple of nights in a cabin in Katherine when I was sick of being sick and needed some rest, and the kids had a whole week in a cabin with Grandma in Darwin in mid-July.

We couldn’t check in until 2pm so we went back to the big shopping centre in Mandurah (everything is so much easier without the dog!), and had lunch there, then did a bit of shopping including some things for Hamish’s upcoming birthday, and new running shoes for both of us.

We checked in to what was our basic (but solid) little beach shack and enjoyed the very quick unpack. In anticipation of having access to an oven we’d bought both a cake mix and a chook to roast so we enjoyed those little treats too. The kids settled into watch TV but didn’t last long – I think they just find it a bit boring now. They found some kid’s books in the cupboard and got into those instead.

The next day we were up at sparrows to drive the 1hr or so to Fremantle to catch the ferry to Rottnest. It’s only a half hour trip but my sea sickness nearly got the better of me. I just made it though, and after I’d recovered we started to explore the island. We’d debated how to do this day – hire bikes, take our bikes, do the bus…in the end we decided on the hop on hop off bus as the bike riding would have been a bit far for the kids and we wouldn’t have seen it all in the amount of time we had. I think it was a good choice, although being a Saturday, the buses were packed, and for some reason they all had air conditioning, but they weren’t using it.

We jumped on the bus to go to the first spot marked on the map that had snorkelling which was Little Salmon beach. The water was very cold, but we all braved it and got in there to have a look around. The snorkelling was great – not a huge area and no coral, but lots of big fish to look at and the water was crystal clear. We then got back on the bus and went out to the end of the island to visit the seals. There’s a colony of around 30 or so (or at least that’s about how many we saw) and we enjoyed our picnic lunch there while watching the seals in close and the whales out at sea.

Back on the bus again we went to another little beach where we could snorkel. We also had our best encounter with quokkas there including some babies. They aren’t afraid of anyone (I assume they don’t really have any predators on the island) so we could get very close to them and watch what they were up to.

Last leg on the bus to get us back to the main part of the island where we had a quick visit to the gift shop to drop $50 on two soft toy quokkas (they don’t miss you in there), then back on the boat for the trip back, which thankfully, was a bit calmer than the one over.

I think we were very lucky in that the weather we had was fantastic, bit crowded, and plenty of idiots who aren’t used to riding bikes, but it was a really good day out there.

We then just had the one-hour drive back, but luckily it was back to our solid little house where we could easily turn on lights and taps and not have to worry about anything too hard.

The owner of the accommodation messaged to say that we could have a late check-out of 1pm so we had a very lazy morning the next day packing up, visiting the shops (again…this time to repair Jim’s bike), then driving the one hour east to our next spot (we’re really not moving very far at the moment).

We’re now in a place called Lane Poole Reserve, near Dwellingup. There are lots of trails for walking and biking, plus a lovely river, and there’s hardly anyone here – sounds like our kind of place.