Go West Young Man

   Days 41 42 & 43 Saturday Sunday & Monday 29 30 & 31 August 2026 and Day 44 Tuesday 01 September 2026 A bit of a hiatus with old blog over the last few days, mainly big driving days so not a lot to report.   They have done it to me again.  Let me explain, a long time ago I did a number of road trips to the US with my friends Jon & Clair.  Being on a bit of a budget we often stayed in tourist class motels, generally pretty good but often interesting.  Well, seeing how we liked a drink with our dinner we always got a bit excited when then motel advertised bar & dining room on site.  That meant that neither Jon or I had to drive to dinner which meant we had to careful with our drinking.  As an aside Clair never drove on any of these trips she used to sit in the back seat of the car in a nest of paper maps, guide books, macca wrappers, empty Pepsi cans and peach smelling hand cream.  Anyway back to the story, imagine ou...

  Day 40 Friday 28 August 2026 This could be a short blog today.  It is being prepared in the bar at the Balladonia Roadhouse where I am spending the night, not in the bar but in their motel style accommodation.  I am paying $230 for the night in what they class as a 'luxury room'.  I kid you not, I suppose it passes for luxury in this neck of the woods. Balladonia is a roadhouse, fuel stop, motel units, caravan park and bar with a restaurant, stuck right in the middle of nowhere.  To get here I have driven 400km from Esperance.  The first part of the journey was 200km north from Esperance and then take the first right hand turn and then drive another 200km east to Balladonia.  All on dead straight roads. There is no wifi in the luxury room and exremely dodgy wifi in the bar.  There is almost no mobile coverage and what coverage there is is only available with Telstra.   Balladonia's main claim to fame is that the American manned space l...

Day 39 Thursday 27 August 2026  I told you this would happen, shorts yesterday, and cold, wet blustery today!   A couple of other peculiarities from this corner of the Commonwealth.  If you go into a bar and ask for a  Sauvignon Blanc Semillon the bar tender will look at you with some bewilderment, but if you ask for a SBS he or she will happily provide you with a glass of the aforementioned Sauvignon Blanc Semillon.  Is it called SBS anywhere apart from WA?  It is even listed on wine lists as SBS, go figure. The second thing also to do with wine is nine times out of ten if you ask for a glass of white wine you will be asked if you want ice in the drink.  Understandable in the middle of summer sitting out on deck somewhere but this is in the middle of winter and although not quite as cold as Melbourne still not summery. Overcast with a maximum of 16, very strong winds and rain squalls and heavy seas.  But I did persist with the shorts!  ...

Day 38, Wednesday 26 August 2026 First full day in Esperance, 25 degrees, clear blue skies.  So warm today I have had to wear shorts and display my lily white legs for the first time on my trip.  As I have only brought one short sleeved shirt with me I have visited the local gentlemans outfitter and purchased two new short sleeved shirts.  Having purchased these shirts I can guarantee this will be the first and last warm day I get on this trip. Esperance is a nice town with a population of about 13,000.  It is a major port and handles huge amounts of grain bound I daresay overseas.  The town has a nice little shopping centre with a couple of pubs.  Of course being winter the place is very quiet but like some of the other towns I have been through it depends a lot on the summer holiday trade.  It is also the centre of a large rural area and the centre of local government and government departments.   A grain ship waiting to be loaded. A bit li...

  Days 36 & 37, Monday & Tuesday, 24 & 25 August 2026 A couple of travelling days Monday & Tuesday. Monday was a 350km drive from Albany to Hopetoun and then 200km from Hopetoun to Esperance.  Hopetoun was just an overnight stop to break up the drive to Esperance but turned out to be a nice little seaside town with a nice pub.  With a nice young German girl from Dresden working behind the bar. View from near my cabin at the caravan park As accommodation options were rather limited I stayed in a cabin in the caravan park, which a bit old and worn was perfectly adequate and walking distance to the pub for dinner. Being winter the town and caravan park were very quiet but the locals assured me the place is "jumping" through the summer. As an observation I have noticed that West Australians are a lot like the ancient Romans, not that they hold gladiatorial contests at Optus Oval or have conquered most of the known world, no, they are like the Romans in that th...

Day 35 Sunday 23 July 2026   Big decision to make this evening, I have two pubs that I like I am trying to decide which one I will have dinner at.  To get to one I have to walk uphill, to get to the other it is a downhill walk.  I will think about it and let you know the outcome. The outcome to the question asked above is that I ended up attending both.  The uphill pub was busy and noisy with the worse guitarist/entertainer that I have seen in many a year.  So down to the downhill pub, much quiter and more civilised. Today I caught up with my tourist activities with a visit to the Albany Whaling Station Experience which is really another name for a museum. The whaling station at Cheynes Beach near Albany was a a land based whaling operation.   The whale catchers like he one pictured above went out to sea each day and searched for whales using modern devices like radar and sonar and less modern methods such as some poor bugger up in the crows nest....

  Day 34 Saturday 22 August 2026 Out and about today in magnificent weather, 21c and blue skies.   I thought that today I would fit in a visit to the National Anzac Centre and to the Albany whale museum.  Well things didn't quite work out that way.  Firstly I wasted a significant amount of time in the morning trying to insert photos into yesterday's blog which meant I was behind the 8 ball to start with. After a quick visit to the visitor information centre to collect some local maps I headed to the National Anzac Centre (NAC), little did I know that the NAC is located on an old army base known as the Princess Royal Fortress, probably named after the Princess Royal but I am only guessing.  The fortress and it's garrison was created to man the guns defending Albany from whichever beligerent had its eyes on Australia's riches at the time. Two 6 inch guns were installed and various updates were made over the years.  The installation become very important ...

  Day 33 Friday 21 August 2026 First things first, once again I have been stymied by technology.  The motel, although it appears to have a strong wifi signal is not allowing me to post photos.  I will publish the this blog without pics and will continue to try and put in some pics until I am successful.  At great sacrifice and in roads into my drinking time I have managed to download one photo, which took me over twenty minutes! This is being prepared in a nice little pub called the The Earl of Spencer.  This could be my local for the time of my stay as it is not far from my digs but is up a steep hill, which does count against it. Margaret River to Albany (Al as in you can call me Al, not Al as in all), 400k or thereabouts with a detour the Valley of the Giants to see some big trees.  Unlike my previous detours this one worked perfectly, followed the signs, no bridges or boardwalks under construction and no round abouty detours. Walking around these big tr...

  Days 31 & 32, Wednesday & Thursday 19 & 20 August 2026 Early start on Wednesday, being picked up for my winery tour at 9.15am. I have booked a full day tour that includes four or five wineries, lunch at one of the wineries and cheese at another and finishing up at a chocolate factory, including tasting and sampling. To start with I was the only passenger on the little bus and we picked up an older couple (older than me anyway) before we headed towards the first winery.  There was only the three of us, plus Craig the driver for the morning component and two middle aged ladies joined us for the afternoon session.  The older couple were from near Perth and the two ladies were from Boronia in Victoria. We visited the following wineries as listed below in the order of our visitation; - Leeuwin Estate - Xanadu - Walsh & Sons - McHenry Hohnen - Brown Hill Estate - Temper Temper (chocolate factory) The first two are large commercial operations with large tasting...

Days 29 & 30, Monday & Tuesday 17 & 18 August 2026  Operating under technical difficulties again today, but fear not gentle reader, I will soldier on. On Monday I drove from Busselton to Margaret River via the Cape Naturale lighthouse and the small seaside hamlet of Gracetown.  (Given my current technical issues I may not be able to post pics, but we will see how we go). The lighthouse visit was interesting with stories about the lives of the lighthouse keepers and their families.  I always thought that I would make a good lighthouse keeper but now I am not so sure. Caution, caution, educational fact coming up.  At the lighthouse I noticed that the light prism was still rotating, in broad daylight.  I made some enquiries as to why this was happening and would anybody like to guess the reason?  Well, to end the suspense, the reason the prism is kept rotating is to prevent it acting as a giant magnifying glass and starting a bushfire in the surrou...