Canebreak Pool & the Margaret River Region
It was time to head further down towards the Margaret River region & we were hoping to stay in a national park or equivalent campground to save a bit of money as no doubt it would be expensive. We left Bunbury on Sunday morning the 9th of November. We have found that it is not wise to move camp on a Saturday but Sunday's seem okay. On the way south we called into the Capel farmers markets & picked up a few fresh veggies & some eggs & saw this awesome kids train ride.
The campsite we were aiming for was in the Rapids Conservation Park & was called Canebreak Pool. Luckily it was marked on the HEMA or it would of been interesting finding it. We pulled into a gorgeous campground amongst the trees overlooking a creek. It had been busy that night & there were still a couple of people packing up, but we chose campsite 1 as it had direct water views & was a lovely large site. This campsite is easily one of the nicest we have had on the whole trip. Solar was going to be a problem again, as even though we picked a pretty open campsite, it was forecast to be overcast & rainy for the next few days. Oh well, we planned to use the camp as a base anyway & explore the Margaret river area from it.
We were set up again before lunch time, & instead of going for a drive that afternoon we decided to have a lazy Sunday & enjoy the peace & quiet as no one else was in the campground by this stage. We explored the creek, took photos & Mat went for a fish, but with no bites. We were allowed a campfire here, which was great & they even supplied wood & just our luck the wood pile was right near our site, Mat couldn't believe his luck. So we sat around the fire enjoying the night, only 1 other campsite was taken that night right down the other end.
Wood pile
The next day it was time to start exploring the area. We went for a quick look in Busselton to see what it was like, as we had Ruby booked in for her 70 000km service on Friday & wanted to see how long it would take to get to town, if we decided to stay at Canebreak for the whole week. The weather forecast was correct & the wind & rain started. It was freezing in Busselton, we really wanted to go for a walk on the huge jetty, but it was just to cold.
We headed south again & during the morning visited the Margaret River chocolate factory (OMG just delicious, we had an amazing hot chocolate & warm brownie & ice cream, my excuse was that it was freezing cold, so I deserved one!) the providore, a nougat place, a olive oil place where we had lunch. We then went into the little town of Cowaramup to the candy place for fudge & the home via the Colonial Brewery for a beer. By the time we got back to camp we were stuffed! No dinner that night, we just stoked up the fire for warmth until it started raining, then we escaped into the tent to read. It drizzled most of the night.
Chocolate anyone?
The next day we headed further inland towards Nannup. On the way we stopped at another campground called Barrabup Pool for a look. The camping wasn't as good as Canebreak but it did have a fantastic day use area overlooking the pool itself with great access into the water. Just as we got there the heavens opened up again & we had to hide under the shelter until it stopped.
Barrabup pool
Next up we went into Nannup itself, not much there, we heard it had a great gallery/shop of lots of locals artists arts & crafts, but it was pretty average. It was still freezing so we grabbed a pie from the bakery & that was also disappointing, so we left Nannup behind. We ventured up to Balingup & did manage to find an awesome gallery that was huge! We ended up purchasing a Jarrah bowl that had been turned out of a burl & it was almost perfectly spherical. We were glad we had finally found a nice souvenir from our trip to WA. The rest of the drive back was through a couple of other little towns called Mullayup & Kirup. A lot of the road ran along the Blackwood river & it was just beautiful. There were lots of chalet style farm stays right on the water. By the time we made it back to camp it had been another good day. Again we stoked the fire to get warm, not sure what is up with the weather!
Blackwood River above & below
The next day we headed into Margaret River town to post our wooden bowl. $107 later we weren't to impressed with Australia post, especially as the bowl was only 6.5kg, rip off b@stards. The weather also hadn't improved, so walking the streets to have a look was a nightmare with misty freezing rain. We decided to go for a drive out towards the coastal town on Prevelly for a look while hopefully the weather improved. What a lovely little spot, beautiful views. By this time it had stopped raining & we grabbed some lunch & headed back towards camp.
Prevelly, lovely weather.....
On the way home we called into a Berry farm for a look & sampled their jams & liquors. We then headed back to camp for a quiet afternoon, again we needed the fire blazing to keep warm. It was also actually pretty busy in camp that night with about 6-7 other campers. This would be our 4th & final night. We decided to move up to Yallingup to the caravan park for a few days to see the rest of the Margaret River. The weather was still crappy & we both needed a hot shower! It was also closer to Busselton to get the car serviced on Friday.
During the night it rained pretty heavy all night, so we awoke to a sodden camp to pack up. We were in no rush, but were still up early, so we let the tent dry out as much as we could, but the weather wasn't clearing so we decided to just pack up, we are glad we did, as when we just got the trailer hooked up, it started to pouring rain again. So we hit the road & headed up towards Yallingup, more on that in our next post.
Canebreak Pool despite the weather was one of the best campsites we have had on our trip. Just a lovely spot. The cost was $7.50 per adult per night, the camping was in numbered bays & there were about 8-10 spots & an overflow area, pit toilets, firewood supplied & great access to the creek, must make this place very popular on weekends. We didn't see a parks & wildlife ranger at all during our time. It gets a definite thumbs up from us.
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