Busselton and area (wine country)

 Here we are on December 24th the day before Christmas, oh and by the way Merry Christmas to everyone and hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year.   I'll back up a bit today and go back to the 20th when we drove down from Perth to Busselton in our new rental car!!  Yup same as the last one hopefully we won't have to leave it behind or Hertz will run out of cars for the holiday season.  So far so good.

 We got down to Busso around 1:30 PM and had no problems finding Glen and Nat's place.  The scenery south of Perth is dramatically different from the northern side.  Beautiful farmland and more rolling hills that stretch on and on.  The town of Busselton is right on the coast with beautiful beaches that boast white sand and summer fun all year long.  The town itself is about 15000 people and like most coastal tourist spots is becoming more and more popular as time goes on.  In fact as we discovered over the week the entire south west corner is filled with sun seekers and the area is truly a picture.  It's easy to see why people flock to the area in the summer.  Today it is 36c and a bit humid so the rain we have encountered earlier in our trip is becoming a distant memory.  Although for the Canucks from the north it is odd to be walking around in shorts and a T shirt doing Christmas shopping.  Christmas day it is suppose to be 38c!!  We are going to Nat's sisters where they have a pool so the day will be spent burning steaks swimming and drinking beer and wine.  Doesn't that just suck!!  Don't fret we will be thinking of everyone.......NOT.
 On Tuesday Nat was kind enough to take us on a tour of the area and we visited Cape Naturaliste  light house and went to a giant maze where Riley and Zali (Glen and Nat's) kids and us spent an hour testing our skills.  Great fun.  Kaelyn and Zali won the day beating the rest of us to our objectives 3 out of 4 times.
On Wednesday we struck out on our own and visited Smith beach where world class waves attract surfers from around the globe.  On this day though the waves weren't terribly large but the beach was pristine, and beaches like this are everywhere!
  We then went to Ngilgi (pronounced Nil Ge) caves along the coast and the four of us toured the cave for over an hour.  Anyone that comes to this area an absolute must see.  One of the most interesting caves I have ever seen and huge.  The pics don't do it justice.
 Thursday we drove inland a little bit and popped out along the southern coast to a town called Warpole where we went to the valley of the giants.  This is an area of old growth forest of Jarra and Tingle a type of Eucalyptus trees.  There we did a walk in the canopy about 130' off the ground  on a steel suspended walkway.  Very cool.  The area in some ways reminded me of driving in BC in the Provincial parks with the winding roads and huge trees.  Again the drive was filled with amazing scenery and rolling forests and farmland intermixed. 
That brings us to today where it is hot and the beer is cold.  This morning Kyle and Betty went back to the Ngilgi caves and did a 4 hour cave crawl to an ancient river bed, the crystal crawl.  Absolutely awesome!!  Kaelyn and I went shopping in Margaret River a small town south of Busselton which is Australia's version of Nelson instead here the hippies carry surf boards instead of back packs.  Very cool little town.  Oh and I should mention this area has more wineries then you can count.  Sue you would love it.  Enjoy the pics and Merry Christmas.  We will continue after the holidays.

Lots of Kangaroos here in Busso.  Like deer in BC they are considered a nuisance so they are dead on the side of the road all the time from being hit.  Kyle and I are still looking for our first Roo steak!  Yeah that's right I'm going to eat Kangaroo!!

This is the Jetty on the beach in Busselton.  2 KM long out into the water.  Currently it is under restoration so we can't walk out to the end.  Very cool gift shop in the blue buildings.

Cape Naturaliste light house the second most westerly point of Australia. 

The maze where we were schooled by Kaelyn and Zali.  Very cool.

Part of Ngilgi cave during the trail walk.  Too many pictures to put on the blog and to be honest the photos don't do the cave justice.  You can tell by the look on Kaelyn's face she is spell bound!









The cool kids just hangin in the trees in the valley of the giants.  Hot humid and flies,  always the flies............

Kyle in the cave crawl this morning.  Tight fit eh Harry!











So far an awesome trip with much to see and much to do and not enough time.  We are headed to the beach to swim eat fish and chips and basically get fat!!  More to come in the new year.