It is another beautiful day with good weather to kick start the journey from Busselton. Today the journey will cover mostly the coastline along the western side of Western Australia, stretching from Busselton to Margaret River, and also visiting one of the cave - Ngilgi Cave which we have booked online earlier.
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| Morning view at Busselton Jetty |
We did not spend much time at Busselton Jetty but if your time allows, you can take the Busselton jetty train for a 1.7km journey to reach the underwater observatory to give a 360 degree of the Geographe Bay for a small fees. The underwater observatory is located 8 meters below the sea level and we think missed out a great opportunity to pay a visit there.
Instead, we went to the town for some shopping at Coles and Reject shop. Bought some noodles for our dinner tonight at Coles and it was really affordable! Fortunate Cup Chicken Noodle for AUD 0.75 and Suimin Cup Noodle Hot & Spicy for AUD 0.80, a dinner that cost less than AUD 2!
Reject shop in the town also offers some good bargain, such as a men winter hat for AUD 5, women winter hat for AUD 7, and ladies will be delighted to see the Macadamia hair mask and conditioner only cost AUD 3 respectively.
After the shopping, we went to Eagle Bay and Meelup Bay in Meelup Regional Park.
Not many people was patronizing the beach during the winter session but the sunshine was just nice to give a warm sensation to the skin. Took our time slow and enjoy the birds flying around.
Then we went to Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse in Leeuwin-Naturalise National Park to have a glimpse at the lighthouse and take a glance at the beautiful Indian Ocean view as well from the viewing deck.
However, we made a terrible mistake this time.
As the viewing deck at Cape Naturaliste is a distance away from the car park area (at least a few kilometres), we drove our rented Kia Rio to the place instead but we went to the unsealed road with terrible road conditions.
Reaching the bay was no problem but my instinct told me something bad is going to happen but I keep it to myself and hope my instinct was wrong.
And yes, the bad thing happened. The small Kia Rio car was stucked on the unsealed road on the way back to the main road. Feeling devastated, we have no idea how to manage the circumstances. The car was unable to move forward as the sand was blocking the tyre movement. Even there is a red warning light blinking on our car, signalling we were stucked in the unsealed road. I had no idea till I was trying to remove the sands blocking the tyre using my bare hands, and worse still, there were nobody nearby.
Luckily a family driving a Hilux passed through about 10 minutes later. The man was kind enough to come down to have a look at the situation. He was calm and took an observation of the condition. Then he reversed the car to very far behind, stepped on the gas pedal in full speed and went through the sands.
He then shared with us that once we were too slow passing through the soft sand, the tyre will sink and stuck in the sand. We got to be brave and just pass through the sand with a bold heart.
To the unknown man, thank you for your help!
After suffering from the scare at Cape Naturaliste, we went to Ngilgi Cave at 2:30pm for a tour. It is a semi-guided tour that starts every 2:30 minutes. We bought the 4 caves entrance ticket for AUD 67 per pax, and the tickets can be used anytime with a booking in advance for some of the caves. The only cave that is excluded from booking is Mammoth Cave as it is self guided.
For some reasons, we drove back to Busselton after recalling the host of Airbnb in Busselton telling us there is an empty field opposite of Busselton Timber and Hardware that has hundreds of kangaroos doing nothing but idling there. He told us it is a good scene, and somehow we took his advice and went there to observe the wild kangaroos.
Yes, there were a bunches of kangaroos there and they were scare of human. We just got to observe them from a distance.
After that, we stopped by Red Rooster for our early dinner. The set of Tropicana Pack cost us AUD 11.49. Just another mediocre dinner anyway.
Then we continued our journey to Margaret River and somehow we took a longer route by passing through a small town - Vasse. The sunset view was amazing there with the purplish and orangish colour, one of the most wonderful sunset we ever seen!
Ended up we took a "self commercial" shot using the coke from Red Rooster.
Some of our dinner for the night which we enjoyed after reaching the Airbnb at Margaret River. I know it is not healthy but we were on a budget trip, which we regretted slightly later.
And had some fun posing around in the living hall of the Airbnb when the host was sleeping..
Then played with the playful cat in the house - Kendrick. He sneaked into our room and disturbed our sleep for the night!
We got one of the nice Milkyway shot just outside of our Airbnb in Margaret River. It was freezing cold, to the extent that I could not even touch my tripod so we simply took a few snaps and rushed back to our warm bed.
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