Walpole the Second Time

We ended up spending just over two weeks in Bremer Bay and really enjoying it. Like I said it’s small and quite isolated, but it has a nice feel to it and plenty of fish!

Now we are back in Walpole where we’ve booked for a week. We feet like we’ve gone far enough east and don’t need to go back to Esperance as we’ve been there twice before. Walpole is a lovely little town; quiet, but slightly better off than Bremer Bay for groceries, price of fuel and a few cafes.

The day before leaving Bremer Bay, we caught a big blue swimmer crab in a fishing line (we had no idea there was crabs in the estuary) and after a chat with our neighbour John, found out they are just starting to run. That and the fact they are catching prawns by the mouth of the river made me want to stay another week. That night, we had a very loud and spectacular thunder storm with 40mls of rain. It’s always louder in the van, but it was pretty amazing. We reckon we have seen about 8 days of rain since we left home (not including Bangkok in the rainy season). 15 months ago, so we always enjoy it.

It was really windy travelling here on Monday-mostly a head wind, so we used heaps of fuel. It’s just on 300ks, but it took us 6 hours including a stop to shop and lunch in Albany. I was so excited to shop in a big supermarket after Bremer Bay and the prices seemed so cheap after the little supermarket we’ve been forced to shop at. We met some locals on our last night. They moved to Bremer from Barwon Heads for 2 years work at the Abalone farm and have now been there 7. They shop once a month in Albany and if a friend is shopping in the mean time, phone through an order and someone else collects it for them. It was nice to see that the rain we had over Easter has started to green things up. It was so dry when we drove into Bremer Bay two weeks before and although it is only painted on, the new grass made it look so much better on the way out. There are a lot of wattles and some gums and hakeas in flower too so it all looked good.

Yesterday we had a day out fishing in the estuary here. I keep trying to remember to take my camera as it’s one of the prettiest places we have ever been fishing on. The water is really shallow (mostly under two metres) and bright blue and green, it’s crystal clear and full of fish and stingrays (some as big as table tops).
Finally Took the Camera