Busselton - jetty trains, cold weather, sharks and dolphins

We took the jetty train service out to the underwater
observatory. It was just as wet above ground.

Our arrival in Busselton was heralded by a thunderstorm. Amazingly it was the first rain we had experienced for over 2 months. It also felt bloomin' cold. The temperature probably only dropped to 18c but, after weeks of warm, dry weather at or above 30c, we shivered. We had chosen this day to visit the Busselton Jetty, lauded as the longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere. It's just under 2 kilometers long and at the end there is an 8m deep underwater observatory. The original jetty was used to carry timber to waiting ships in the bay until it was closed in 1972. Subsequently it was nearly completely destroyed by a cyclone in 1978 and today’s jetty is a largely modern rebuild stemming from the 1990s. Its claim to be a wooden jetty is a little spurious as nearly all of the planking is now concrete, though the piles are still wooden.

The jetty complete with an underdressed tourist
just about holding her own against the wind.

We had sensibly brought waterproof jackets but many people had turned up wearing little more than flipflops, shorts and sleeve-less T-shirts. Not a lot of use when you're 2 kilometres off shore in an open-sided narrow gauge train in the midst of a thunderstorm. To make the trip complete a party of noisy Indian tourists let their children run riot throughout the guided tour of the observatory. It was annoying because it was a novel way to observe a natural underwater environment, almost as though we were the aquarium exhibit and marine fauna the visitors. Had I paid the full $30 entrance fee I would have been even more miffed.

View across Port Geographe Marina from rear of
our host's house.

Thankfully our new hosts, David & Varley, had been able to get us heavily discounted tickets. Their home is a great place to stay, overlooking Port Geographe Marina. More importantly they, and their beagle Duke, made us feel very welcome. David is retired and spends his time on his boat or racing vintage motorcars. Varley is a busy grandmother who plays lots of tennis. Apart from opening her home to us, Varley was also able to get us free tickets for the Margaret River Gourmet Village food and wine show. So on our last full day we headed back down to Margaret River.

 

View of Port Geographe Marina from the club bar.

The show took place at the Leeuwin Winery Estate and this year featured many top chefs from the UK including Sat Bains, Rick Stein and Blumen Hestonthal. It was a hot day and as I opened the car door my own personal retinue of persistent and indestructible flies arrived to accompany me for the next 2 hours. They insisted on sampling every bit of food and wine that passed my lips, as well as making frequent inspections of my nasal passages. By lunchtime I had had enough so, bidding my winged friends a fond farewell, I stomped off back to our air-conditioned car to listen to the dismal cricket commentary.

Great beach, shame about the hat.

Fo followed shortly so we headed off to Dunsborough, another small town on Geographe Bay. The bay is north facing and sheltered on its western flanks by Cape Naturiste. This blocks the big Indian Ocean swells and creates a huge, shallow bay. We found a quiet beach, went for a great barefoot walk in the shallows and enjoyed the warm sun and cool breeze.

Happy to be back at the beach.

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Busselton itself before flopping once again, and unerringly, into another gelati emporium. I know, no will power. Once back at base we then took a stroll around Port Geographe Marina before enjoying a cold sundowner at the marina bar. The marina is built around a network of canals and the lucky residents receive frequent visits from dolphins who corral small shoals of fish in the closed end canals. Sadly we didn't spot any but, leaving Busselton the next day, we headed for the Dolphin Discovery Centre at Bunbury instead.

 

A pelican takes flight at Dunsborough Beach.
The picture doesn't do justice to its amazing wingspan.

The centre had a small museum about dolphins and also offered the opportunity to swim with wild dolphins. I had really wanted to do this but discretion prevailed. An experienced surfer had just been killed in yet another shark attack just along the coast. Many of the locals who used to swim in these waters now no longer do so. Shark attacks have definitely increased and the animals themselves are increasingly over 5m in length. At this size any attack will almost certainly be fatal. Nobody really knows why the numbers of big sharks have increased but some theories include warmer sea currents or greater access to food in the form of more whales migrating up and down the coast.



Sadly, this was as close as I could get.

Whatever the reason, we heeded the advice of local Australians and opted instead for a boat-based dolphin watch tour. We first had a beach encounter with a mother and calf who came into the shallows to interact with us. No food is ever given to the dolphins so this was purely curiosity on their part. We had not thought to bring our swimming things so could only just get our feet wet, others waded waist deep, but it was great nonetheless.



 

 



As usual, it's impossible to get the timing right.



Once out in the bay we were lucky to find a group of a dozen or so socialising and feeding adjacent to a huge rock breakwater. We spent a lot of time here, entranced by their antics and trying to capture some of them on camera; dismal results again I'm afraid. At one point the skipper took our open-sided and flat-bottomed boat into a river estuary to try and spot the resident group of dolphins. They were a no show but the ride back out to sea, against the tide and with big waves rolling in from the open sea, was hairy but exciting. 

This one played peek-a-boo with us for ages.
 

After the tour we lunched nearby hoping, greedily, for another beach encounter. Sadly it was not to be so, around mid - afternoon, we headed off to Fremantle for the next leg of our trip.



Forgot our swimming things again!!