On Saturday 10 March I checked out of the Fremantle YHA and picked up a hire car. Having put a notice in the message book at the hostel, with the intention of offsetting the cost of the car hire and having some company, I have gained a travelling companion at least for the next few days. This is Kai, a 36 year old German school teacher.
We travelled down to Bunbury, a small coastal town approx 185 kms south of Fremantle. I've booked into the YHA while Kai camps in his tent in a site nearby. The big attraction in Bunbury is he dolphins and early sunday morning I went down to the Koombana beach to the dolphin centre where the dolphins routienly swim into the shore to inspect the paddlers. Its well organised to respect the dolphins. When the dolphins appear the people line up in the shallow water on the beach (knee - thigh deep), marshalled by Dolphin centre volunteers and the dolphins glide up and down to inspect us for 15-30mins . Even if it sounds a bit weird it is fantasic to see the wild dolphins so close up.
After the close encounter with the dolphins I went for something completely different; a farm machinery (mainly tractors and bulldozers) museum. These 100's of machines have been lovingly restoed by enthusiasts. The special event of this day was the starting of the Tangyne engines. I'd never heard of these before , but they are huge diesel engines built in Birmingham U.K. about 1895 and used for powering mills and generating electricity. The larger of the two has two massive pistons linked by an enormous crankshaft (apprx 20feet long). When they discovered the rottin engines the disovered a spare crankshaft still n its decaying box, never used. One of the two brothers who restore them (and many other machines in the museum) was there on his zimmer frame tasking charge of the starting, and when the were moving it was poetry in motion.
After this I went for drive around the Ferguson Valley, a farming area with amixture of wineries, forest and some livestock faring, and saw my first wild kangaroo bouncing along the road.
We travelled down to Bunbury, a small coastal town approx 185 kms south of Fremantle. I've booked into the YHA while Kai camps in his tent in a site nearby. The big attraction in Bunbury is he dolphins and early sunday morning I went down to the Koombana beach to the dolphin centre where the dolphins routienly swim into the shore to inspect the paddlers. Its well organised to respect the dolphins. When the dolphins appear the people line up in the shallow water on the beach (knee - thigh deep), marshalled by Dolphin centre volunteers and the dolphins glide up and down to inspect us for 15-30mins . Even if it sounds a bit weird it is fantasic to see the wild dolphins so close up.
After the close encounter with the dolphins I went for something completely different; a farm machinery (mainly tractors and bulldozers) museum. These 100's of machines have been lovingly restoed by enthusiasts. The special event of this day was the starting of the Tangyne engines. I'd never heard of these before , but they are huge diesel engines built in Birmingham U.K. about 1895 and used for powering mills and generating electricity. The larger of the two has two massive pistons linked by an enormous crankshaft (apprx 20feet long). When they discovered the rottin engines the disovered a spare crankshaft still n its decaying box, never used. One of the two brothers who restore them (and many other machines in the museum) was there on his zimmer frame tasking charge of the starting, and when the were moving it was poetry in motion.
After this I went for drive around the Ferguson Valley, a farming area with amixture of wineries, forest and some livestock faring, and saw my first wild kangaroo bouncing along the road.
1 comment:
Dolphins Schmolphins, stick with the tractors. You didn't go all the way to australia to look at the wildlife, so grab a tinny, throw another shrimp on the barbie and enjoy the engines
matt :-)
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