[WA] Corrigin,Lake Grace,Hyden, Quairading,York,Perth,Fremantle

With our freshly serviced van, we headed off on Wednesday 18 August into the wheatbelt region of country WA for a few days to avoid the rainy weather about to hit Perth. We drove 240km to a town called Corrigin (via Brookton), stopping to see the famous Dog Cemetery on the way in. Established in 1974, the Dog Cemetery is a tribute to "Man's Best Friend" with over 80 dogs now buried there. We read many of the headstones - some were sad and others were quite comical. The headstones are all made and maintained by a local resident. Corrigin also holds the world record for "The Dog in a Ute Queue" - a convoy of 1,527 utes each with a dog in the back. We stayed the night in the caravan park in town, it was freezing cold but it was nice and quiet with only a few vans around us. Travelling through the wheatbelt we loved seeing all the green paddocks and especially the green and gold of the canola crops along the roadside.

Next day we drove onto Kondinin, then on to the small farming town of Kulin which is famous for their annual bush races event. They have decorated about 20kms of the highway between Kulin and the race course with lots of tin horses - called the Tin Horse Highway! Coxy's favourite was the one of "Rocky"!

My favourite was "Fillypoosis". That night we stayed in the township of Lake Grace at a lovely caravan park, our site had a nice grassy area with a peculiar miniature Hills Hoist clothesline! Again another very cold night.

Coxy bodysurfing Wave Rock

Our next stop was Hyden (via Newdegate, Lake King, Varley, Holt Rock). Hyden is home to the famous Wave Rock which is a granite cliff 15 metres high and 110 metres long. Its rounded shape has been caused by weathering and water erosion which has undercut the base and left a rounded overhang. Crystals from the rock are dated as being 2700 million years old. We did the walk up and over the Wave Rock and also did the walk to Hippos Yawn - a granite rock resembling a yawning hippo - Paulie got inside and tried to tickle the hippo's tonsils.

Hippos Yawn

Saturday 21 August we drove about 16kms north of Hyden and did a morning walk over another giant granite outcrop called The Humps as well as Mulka's Cave. The cave holds one of the most significant Aboriginal rock art sites in WA with over 450 separate hand prints and images. We then drove on through Narembeen and Bruce Rock (getting a little lost somehow) and then arrived in the town of Quairading, a very small quiet town and stayed one night there.

Our next stop was a short drive to the town of York on the Avon River - WOW, much more than we expected. As we drove into the main street Sunday morning it was quite the bustling little town, people milling about everywhere, lots of shops open and sidewalk dining in full swing, plus quite a few motorbike riders gathered outside the Triumph Cafe. The town is filled with beautifully restored heritage Victorian and Federation buildings including the Post Office and the Court House. We checked into the caravan park and then had a very nice lunch at a trendy spot in town.

After a freezing cold night, we slept in a bit because we didn't want to leave our warm doona! We eventually dragged ourselves outside, drove into town for a good look around, visiting the various heritage sites and beautiful old homes, Mt Brown lookout, strolled along the Avon River, across Swing Bridge, and the York Mill Gallery. Next morning was a bit frosty but we did a run/walk twice around the beautiful grassy York Turf Club race course (Australia's oldest provincial race course established in 1843) which backed onto the caravan park. We left York and drove back towards Perth, staying again in Ascot - as it is close to Perth city. We drove into town just to have a look at beautiful Kings Park and then next morning we caught the bus into the city for a look around the shops (similar to Brisbane but nowhere near as busy) and other sites. We strolled down to the Swan River and had lunch at Lucky Shags restaurant whilst enjoying the lovely winter sun by the water ... aaaaaaah!

One of many beautiful beaches on Rottnest Island

Next port of call was Fremantle, staying at Fremantle Village Caravan Park - great setup and lovely new amenities. We had four nights in Fremantle all up, spending the days exploring on our bikes and doing the touristy stuff in town, great markets, beautiful heritage buildings everywhere, awesome day trip over to Rottnest Island on the Rottnest Express boat, and we hired bikes over there and rode around (lots of hills), soaking up the beautiful scenery and sunshine.