Upland 31 October - 02 November

We are now firmly in Upland. Yep, not Finland, not Greenland, not Iceland, but Upland. Every second place, town, road, path and creek south of Perth seems to end in 'up' e.g. Wilyabrup, Nowergup, Joondalup, Neerabup, Cowaramup and Yallingup which is where we headed after Perth (decided to skip Bunbury and Busselton as we had had enough of city life for a while).

Just one of the many "Ups"

 Yellingup is a very nice little seaside spot with not much more than a museum a cafe and a surf shop, oh and a beach :-) All very nice and the campground had the best BBQ set up we have seen so far. Ocean views, tables and chairs and four huge barbies. It seemed like half the camp was there enjoying the sunset while cooking dinner and quaffing the liquid refreshment of their choice. We had a great evening chatting to a couple in their seventies who had just completed a crossing of the Anne Beadell Highway - 1,340km of corrugations from Coober Pedy SA to Laverton in WA! Certainly hope to be as active and determined as they are in 20 years time. From Yallingup it was a short backtrack to Cape Naturaliste where we walked along the cliff tops and actually spotted some humpback whales jumping out of the water. You will need to use a little imagination as the telephoto capabilities of the Samsung Galaxy S4 were not really up to the task but they were terrific to see.

Where's whaley????

That white bit in the middle is the splash after the whale crashed back down.

Not a whale...

Then it was off to Canal Rocks to see the effects of ocean waves on fault lines in the rocks which has carved out virtually dead straight channels in a criss cross pattern in the rocks and you can walk overhead on a boarwalk as the waves surge in and out beneath your feet. Well at least that is what the brochures say - the boardwalk is currently closed due to storm damage, so some rock climbing was in order to see the full picture.

The Boardwalk

The very broken Boardwalk

View from the top

And looking the other way

And finally on to Margaret River. Funnily enough, for the premium wine area in Australia (yes, Margaret River wines internationally outsell and out price everything from the barossa, clare, and every other wine region in Oz every year!), there are bugger all wineries in or next to Margaret River itself. You have to travel whole kilometers to get to them! The effort is worth it though! We now have several new favorite wines :)

Well really, where did you honestly think we'd wind up while in Margaret River?