Bridgetown

BRIDGETOWN 18^TH – 21^ST MARCH

What a beautiful and proud town this is. The main street was very pretty with its big Hotels and more upmarket types of shops. The garden beds in the street and playground were well maintained with bright flowers, even the trees were in flower, such a contrast to the forest area we had come from.

This is the bridge into Bridgetown, there is also the remnants of a once used train bridge which you may be able to make it, it is a green bridge you can see if you look through the gaps, sorry a bit hard to see!

Another view of the bridge from under the old train bridge.

It is the mighty Blackwood River that you cross to get into Bridgetown. I say mighty for it is the longest river in the South West. The C.P. we stayed in was right next to it and the day we arrived was 36 degrees and after setting up and looking at that cool water we just had to indulge ourselves!



This is from our tent looking down to the river, the ducks
would make their way up every morning and afternoon
to see what they could scavenge to eat!





The view from the other side of the river looking back up to our camp,
this is where we had our swims.



If you go Bridgetown you must go to the tourist information centre and allow yourselves a bit of time here. Inside, apart from the usual, it has a great small museum with some wonderful antiques to do with apple farming and general household items but its claim to fame is Jigsaw Puzzles. Out the back is a room full of made up and mounted jigsaws. In this collection is the smallest wooden jigsaw puzzle in the world, a picture of a Swedish Ferry about 9cm x 10cm and has 99 pieces in it. There is also a huge puzzle of 9000 pieces, it's a picture of Pieter van den Keere World map back in 1571 – 1646. Quite an amazing piece of art in itself! Today people from all around the world send in completed and mounted puzzles to put on display. The lady said they have to rotate them around from the stash out back.

The reason you need a bit of time is to complete the 200 piece world map puzzle they have on this lovely long old table. We got hooked and started doing this world map one day but we had to leave because it was Saturday and they close at 1pm. The boys were upset and the very kind man told them that the centre opens at 9am the next day so if they came back then they could finish it. So we did! We walked back into town in the morning along the lovely river track and completed our task. Good effort!

Our completed puzzle, and yes we dismantled it for the next person!

We did the very popular triangle drive from Bridgetown to Nannup to Balingup then back to Bridgetown. (Sorry you would have to look at a map) It apparently has been voted one of the best drives in W.A. It was a nice drive through the hills but it would have been better in spring, when everything would be green and lush. We had to stop in Balingup to use a bathroom and that ended up costing us. Not to use the toilet but we ended up doing a walk through the town which only had about 6 shops in it but one of those shops had fruit port and liqueur to taste, yummy!!!

We also did a quick call into another arboretum where they had sections of Australian trees and another of trees of the world. It was a large property  and some of the trees were huge. This land is now protected property and what is so ironic is the land all around it and just across the road has been totally cleared from logging!! Again this place would be beautiful after rain, they had pictures of it all green and the transformation was stunning.

GREENBUSHES

On this triangle drive you go past the turn off into Greenbushes which is a town rich in history. It was first established due to Tin being mined; now it mines mainly lithium and another mineral with Tin as its last resort.

This hole is 300 metres deep and was started in the 1980’s and finished in 2003 when they hit water, they then went underground till about 4 years ago. Now they do open cut mining for the lithium.



This just gives you an idea about the size of the pit you when compare

it to something, like Charlie!




This is the local swimming pool. It was built back in the hay day of the town to increase the town’s water supply and was also used as the town’s swimming pool back then.






Some of the lovely wild flowers still out in Greenbushes around the pool.

BOYUP BROOK

We went to this town because I saw in a brochure this picture of a big guitar man made out of wood and thought it would be interesting to see since we were only 30km’s away and had time to spare. There was this big write up about this Harvey Dickson’s country music centre. We had no idea who Harvey Dickson was; we thought he was a country and western singer! So off we set to have a look. We went through Boyup Brook out in search of this place and found it 10km’s down the road. We were looking in through the fenced up property at this huge rodeo with the guitar men in the background explaining to the boys what a rodeo is when a man came out on a tractor and said we could go in through the gate and have a look around, cool! 



The Guitar men and stage platform in the back ground.




The large Rodeo Arena.



Since we have been here I have goggled and spoken to people and found out who Mr. Dickson is. He was a farmer and back in the 60’s he and a mate decided to have hill billy concert in his farm barn. He invited a few country and western singers to perform along with anyone else who wanted to play their own music and the audience was open to anyone who wanted to come along and listen to them, he apparently had 300 people turn up. From this little shin ding he now has a dedicated week in March where many famous/local country singers come to perform on stage while others come to strut their stuff in the rodeo arena. People flock from all over to stay on his property which is purely camping in a paddock with minimal amenities. As you can see he has built a huge rodeo arena, a bar, a stage, toilet blocks and his very well photographed guitar men, with seating all around  all out of tree trunks and metal. He also has a shed next to his home over the road  totally dedicated to many country singers. We didn’t go into the shed but from the outside it looked like he hasn’t moved a thing from day one!

The other things of interest in Boyup Brook are these statues which are Holograms done by a local artist. They are done in a way that as you walk past in front of them the eyes follow you, creepy! You need to look close at them to see they are actually cut "into" the rock.





This close up shows you a bit easier how it is made, but your eyes

still want you to believe that the statue is sticking out not cut in, you need to look close.

DONNYBROOK

We passed through this little town on purpose on the way to Busselton for the one thing it advertisers to the tourists; a huge playground!

Donnybrook originated because of gold but when it ran out it became orchard country and holds the title as The Apple Capital of the South West. The other fruits grown here are apples, pears, cherries and stone fruits like nectarines. It is quite a nice drive passing all these huge orchard's everywhere.

 This playground was purely funded and built by the community. They wanted to create something that would bring tourism to Donnybrook. It is a great playground and a real testament of what a community can do when they all work together. We recently camped next to some people that live in Donnybrook and they said one man donated one million dollars to the project and the shire gave them the land. It has security cameras throughout and the hope is to one day replace the sand with the soft rubber.