Travelling through the Rain

After a very cold, very wet and very windy night, we were up early to pack for the next leg of the journey. We seemed to really have it together in terms of pulling down the annex and even managed to get it away in a dry moment. We were not really impressed with the caravan park as we have had no power on two nights and, whilst the park owners claimed it was a problem with their power company..... it seemed strange that their house and the toilet block had power whilst none of the caravan sites did! We met some travellers later on the road who said they had stayed at that park some months earlier and had the same problem. Not pleasant when it's cold and wet! Have a look at the weather map..... that big mass of cloud is where we were!

We set off and drove through some pretty ordinary weather, strong wind squalls and heavy rain. We drove through some beautiful Karri forests - enormous trees with beautiful yellow and orange bark. We were on the road to Pemberton when a couple of cars coming the other way flashed their lights at us. They were warning us of a tree which had fallen right across the road. There were two campervans travelling together in the opposite direction, one got through and it fell right in front of the other - they were so lucky not to have been under it. We waited for about 25 minutes whilst a bloke cut the tree with an axe and then used the winch on the front of his 4wd to winch it off the road. We saw quite a few fallen trees on the rest of the journey, but none that blocked the whole road.

We continued on to Pemberton, a beautiful little logging town filled with tiny loggers cottages. We stopped here for lunch (gotta love those Mi Goreng noodles). It was still pretty cold and rainy so we didn't stop for long.The scenery changed and soon we were travelling through beautiful lowland scrub forests, filled with very old, very large grass trees. It was good to turn off and begin our journey north again (hopefully to some better weather). We drove into Margaret River, a lovely town in the middle of this very popular winery region. We found that both caravan parks were booked out, but this was to our advantage as we ended up at the Taunton Farm Caravan Park, at Coweramup - a little town 10 minutes north of Margaret River. This is one of the most beautiful parks we have stayed in. The sites are green and shaded with lovely trees. There are farm animals to pat (Uncle John doesn't seem to0 interested.. can't think why) and, best of all - a huge communal barn with a log fire, tables and chairs and cooking facilities. It was filled with families enjoying a meal and a chat and we had a terrific (warm) evening in out of the rain and cold. We will stay here 3 nights to explore the region. This morning we awoke to bright sunshine (at last!). It was lovely to sit outside and have breakfast in the sun. Today we will head off to explore this area, and perhaps stand on the West Coast for the first time. The wineries, chocolate factory and cheese factory all beckon!