Flinders Bay

Flinders Bay 5^th – 11^th April



Looking back at Flinders Bay. Where you can see the white sand
the C.P. is behind that.



Flinders Bay is a small suburb of Augusta and the place we had booked into to stay for the busy time of W.A’s Easter holidays.  Flinders Bay itself is only a C.P. and a few houses on a lovely small bay.  Augusta is the last town on the Blackwood River and is also where the river meets the ocean. The C.P. is right on the beach and it is a lovely spot to swim, fish, and snorkel and relax.



Looking back towards the pier from the C.P.



This is called Granny's Pool, it is only a short walk from the C.P.
We had a swim, snorkel and fish in here. 



There is a lovely bike ride from Finders Bay back along the Blackwood River into Augusta; we did this a few times. It’s a very scenic ride watching all the bird life, people fishing or canoeing and checking out the houses of those fortunate enough to own a property right on the water’s edge. The only catch with this mainly flat ride is the small sharp hill right at the end to get into town!

We were very lucky to get great neighbours, Troy, Jodie, Kenny, Lisa, 3 teenage girls and Kayle who was Tom’s age. Troy and Jodie are from Donnybrook and Kenny and Lisa from Collie and Burekup. Both families were a wealth of local knowledge about their own and surrounding towns. They were keen fishermen and very giving with their time and information about how to fish and what to use and they showed Pete how to fillet his fish. Late one afternoon Pete, Tom, Kenny, Troy and Kayle all went fishing just off the beach near the C.P., they fished for 2 hours and although they didn’t catch a lot it did Tom good to see how long it can take to get a fish sometimes!!

We all got to pat a sting ray because they hang around near the fish cleaning table at the beach.  We stood in water knee deep and really still and the rays come around your feet and you can touch them, someone told us they were Eagle Rays.

One morning we woke up and saw the day was looking good so we decided that we would go over to Hamelin Bay and check it out one last time, now we understand why people rave about it. It was calm and inviting and we got to see the huge sting rays that stay around the old pier. We didn’t really swim with them because they just do laps up and down the shore line checking things out. We stayed the whole day and we were surprised at the lack of people that seemed to be around even though the C.P. was full there as well.

Hamelin Bay on a good day, the colour of the water is now blue!

The not so busy beach, we had a great day here relaxing.

Easter Bunny found Tom and Charlie and even did a small treasure hunt around the camper.
 Troy next door  invited Tom and Charlie to do a treasure hunt with them as well, that was very kind of him.  We went for a drive to a camp ground called Alexandra Bridge which would be an absolute beautiful spot if it wasn’t full of campers. It is bushy and right on the Blackwood River with a boat ramp and swimming all at your front door. We then went around to East Augusta which is a small area of houses, a fire station, tennis courts and a pier. To live here you would need to own a boat and this would be your main source of transport because it is right across the river from Augusta and the shops.



This is from East Augusta on the Blackwood River, looking across to the jetty at Augusta.




From the same spot as before just  looking up the Blackwood River



At East Augusta we found a small track which led us to a lovely spot nearer the mouth of the river. From here you get a good view of Turners Point in Augusta, which is where we rode our bikes. A very pretty and busy spot. ( Sara they even have a Turners C.P.!)



The mouth of the river is down to the left.




This is looking to the right and back at Turner's Point.



We had to stay at Flinders Bay a bit longer than planned because we were waiting for our parcel; air bags for the rear suspension. So we had two days of not doing too much; Pete washed the car and I got the washing up to date. The bags arrived on a Wednesday, thanks Jay.  Pete had them in that day and we left the next.



Pete fitting the airbags, I actually think
he really like having something to do!




They are in!



It was a very nice spot to be stuck for Easter and the weather was very good to us. The small peaceful town would be a fisherman’s retirement dream.