Christmas in WA

This year we choose to have our Christmas holiday closer to home in Pemberton, Myalup and Perth. Corine is too pregnant to travel far.

In Pemberton (still somewhat far at 4hrs drive) we stayed in a lovely house on the shore of Donnely lake. Our house was well-equiped with a kayak for the lake, a spa on the veranda and a BBQ.

Live is good

The idea was to catch trout in the lake with our rented fishing gear and put that on the BBQ. We tried a couple of times, but we were happy that we always had a back-up meal in case they would not bite. They must have bitten sometimes as we lost bait from our hook, but these trout were very skilled in eating bait without getting hooked! So we ate sausages and kangaroo instead, which fitted nicely with the good local Pinot Noir.

Jurriaan trying to catch trout on Donnely Lake

The area around the house had lots of bird life, nice walking tracks and in the evening lots of kangaroos.

Kangaroos at sunset

We visited some of our favourite local wineries in the area. One winery let us taste straight from the barrel how they Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Shiraz were developing. When these are released in bottle in a year or so we should be back. On our way back to our cottage we explored an easy offroad track to Lake Jasper, a natural lake filled by groundwater. The track continued to Black Point, one of only 2 places in West Australia where basalt rock comes to the surface. But the track became sandier and we were not prepared with offroad recovery gear, so we decided to head back. On the way back some of the easy track was now uphill. Uphill sand appears a lot softer than downhill, so we were forced to lower our tyre pressure to be able to drive back.

Corine driving Jansz over a river on the Lake Jasper track

The next day we were in for more serious offroad driving. Corine organised a tag-along tour in D'Entrecasteaux National park. A guide lead the way through the sand and we followed in our own car. The first serious dune and beach driving in Australia for us.

Pregnant Corine with our car Jansz on top of a white sand dune

We had a lot of fun, and the sand driving skills we picked up in Egypt came back quickly. For one dune ascent we needed to lower our tyre pressure a bit more than normal to make it. But our car, Jansz, performed very well.

Jansz on the beach of D'Entrecasteaux National Park

In Myalup, a beach town 1.5 hrs south of Perth, we spent the second part of our holiday. We stayed at a beach shack overlooking the Indian Ocean. A great location to watch the sunset. Christmas on the beach.

Pregnant Corine enjoying a mocktail on the veranda overlooking the ocean

It was also a good place for several water sports and national park exploration. Jurriaan recently bought a body board and practiced in the waves of Myalup beach. In Binningup, 10 km south, a small reef protects the beach from the surf, making it a good place to snorkel. We saw some nice angelfish.

Pregnant Corine in wetsuit after our snorkel

In Bunbury, a large town 40 km South, we had signed up for a dolphin snorkel tour. Unfortunately it was boxing day with many people out in their powerboats chasing the dolphins away. We saw a lot from a distance, but no snorkeling together this time.

Dolphins in front of our boat

The next morning we visited the Dolphin Discovery Centre again. We were lucky that a mother and calf visited the shore several times, swimming a metre or 2 away from us standing in the water!

Bunbury is also the second location (after Black point) where basalt come to the surface.

Pregnant Corine on the black basalt rock in Bunbury

The last days of our holiday including New Year's eve we spend at home in Perth, writing christmas cards and getting the babyroom ready. And we finally ate very nice rainbow trout from the fishmonger.