Day 71. Margaret River

A beer for the boys

It had been raining on and off for most of the night, and we were facing a pretty glum day. We had heaps planned, and were desperately hoping for good weather. The kids made good use of the early morning before we left to finish work their lean-to. This thing is a masterpiece ‘Bear Grylls’ would even be proud.

The kids all working hard on their Lean-to

We packed some lunches, and decided to give the ‘Bellview Shell collection’ a look in Whitchcliffe. The boys stayed outside while the girls took the kids in to check it out. The collection is over 200 square metres of colourful and unique display area, with shells and corals collected from all around the world. There are over 30,000 rare and beautiful shells on display, and the girls loved it.

There was another good gap in the weather coming over so we moved onto the Eagle Heritage Centre. They have the largest collection of birds or Prey in Australia (apparently). There was a free flight show on at 11:00 and we were praying the weather would hold out. We were in luck again; the rain stopped just as we arrived and held out for the two whole hours we were there.

Black Kite

We watched the most amazing free flight show, with 5 x black kites swooping and diving all around the sky and putting on a great display. Everyone was able to go out doing the ‘Hawke Walk’ (A very slow walk out so as not to scare the bird), put on a glove and hold these fantastic birds of prey for a photo. After the show we walked around the bushgrounds and checked out the many aviaries with injured and rehabilitated birds in them. This park’s inhabitants have all been handed in injured and have disabilities, which won’t allow them to be released back into the wild. It was a bird zoo for little aussie battlers!

We then went to ‘Cave Works Eco Centre’ an interpretative centre where the kids learnt about the formation and history of caves within Australia. There were interactive model caves, and a ‘cave crawl’ (a tunnel like those found in real caves they could crawl through). We moved outside to a great viewing platform overlooking the entrance into ‘Lake Cave’. It was really beautiful, there is however no water in the lake at the moment, so we gave going down inside a miss.



Entrance to Lake Cave


The girls then decided the men had been driving us around all day and deserved a drink, so it was off to the ‘Colonial Brewing Company’ where they all started off with a five beer tasting ‘Paddle’. There was a massive playground so the kids were in heaven. We sat here for a couple of hours, and could easily have a couple more only for the fact we needed to do a quick shop and get the kids back and cook dinner.

Paul, Shane and Jace with their tasting paddles

After a quick stop at Coles, we were back at the campground and the kids were straight back into the production of their ‘lean-to’. We decided to cook together at the huge camp kitchen tonight; they have huge BBQ’s and big wooden tables; enough room to seat everybody and then some. After dinner Shane brought up our T.V. and plugged it in, and we set the kids up to watch the ‘Legend of the Guardians’ an owl movie in honour of the many great owls they saw today.

Jace made a great fire, and the guys all sat around it with some beers talking ‘man talk’, while I gave Jo some tips on how to manage all her trips photos on her laptop. We had another great evening together and are all excited about what tomorrow might bring.