WA - The Great South (Quinninup)

We left Denmark rather sadly as it is just about the perfect place to be. At least until it gets too cold anyway! Seriously though, we loved the feel of the place and it ticks all the boxes for any future life of ours with the exception of its distance from family and friends.

Worth thinking about though! 

We trundled on down the road and ended up in Quinninup. This place is just south of Manjimup and east of Pemberton but is a township distinctly its own place. It has a poorly run caravan park and a pub and just a few houses, but it is in spectacularly beautiful country - the southern forests of WA.

Easter Thursday (Maundy Thursday) - We arrived, camped up and went into Manjimup to get a few groceries and check out the town. Nice country town really. Unlike many country towns, this seems to be doing OK as almost none of the shops or buildings were empty and there were lots of people in town and looking prosperous. 

We called into the pub (naturally) and were impressed with the place. No spit'n'sawdust here, but a fine building with decent furniture and decor. 

The number of farm gate fruit and veggie sales as we drove in and out impressed us too and we bought some fine fresh veggies and avocadoes to take back with us at very reasonable prices. Yum!

Good Friday - Today we spent following the tourist drives and checking out the attractions. Chief among these were the Diamond and Gloucester trees. These trees have a staircase built around them from steel bars that have been driven into the trees (see the pics) and at the top is a lookout platform that was used for forest fire spotting. Scary stuff really. 

Easter Saturday - The farmers market was on in Manjimup so off we trotted and picked up some more nice food as well as some intersting lins in cider and BBQ sauces etc. The trees along the road are all turning autumn colours and together with the bright blue sky it made a spectacular day out.

We decided to take a bit of a walk in the woods and headed out to a nat park with a section called One Tree Bridge which is where the (old and now replaced) bridge was constrcted of one tree laid across the river with a flat platform tacked on top.

I suppose it was an engineering feat at the time - damned big tree too!

From there we took a walk through the karri forest and were amazed by the trees there. They are huge, majestic and stunningly beautiful. Loved it!

We returned home with more food and then repaired to the Quinninup pub for a beer. 

Easter Sunday - Well if there is a group of people from a 4WD club (the Foothills 4WD Club) camped out near you what else do you do but tag along with them on one of their drives.

Di we have fun? You bet we did.  We headed out and into the Nat Park and drove some of the trackes there (including Moons Crossing) before we ended up on the Summertime Track. This has this name as it is only navigable in summer, but it proved little obstacle but of great interest as it wove from the forest through the heath and into the dune country behind the beach.

This pic of of Moons Crossing

Yep - we ended up on the beach where everyone lowered their tyre pressures. I dropped mine to 23psi as I have some relatively low profile tyres on the Pajero and off we went.

(Note - anyone not involved in 4WDing might want to skip the following)

Hmmm - I seemed to be fightng the 'jero all the way to get anywhere, but as everyone else was whistling along I stuck with it. At one point I stopped to turn off all the electronic aids, but while I could kill the VSC I couldn't kil the traction control unless I dropped the rear diff lock in. This was a mixed blessing as while I didn't need to worry about the TC or VSC cutting in and causing me to dig into the sand, it did try to force me to drive straight on any time I wanted to steer off to one side or the other. 

I think I will have to do some more experimentation to get a better understanding of how to drive this vehicle in these conditions.

This is what the beach looked like:

However, fighting the steering the whole way we ended up driving around to set up a photo opportunity next to a fresh water lagoon which required me to cross the lagoon and then trurn left in order to park up with the other guys. 

This was where I bogged the Pajero in the sand. The pic below shows me feverishly dropping tyre pressures to get out of the bog. Embarrassing as I was the only one to bog there.

 I dropped my tyre pressures to 18 psi and just drove out of the bog, but it was a lesson learned.

I then joined the others for the obligatory group shot.

The lower pressures helped me as we drove further down the beach and we soon enough reached the exit point which was basically the bottom of Callcup Hill near the Yeagerup dunes. Anyone from WA will aparently know this place, but it was new to me and, with a soft and silky sand track leading up to a peak maybe three times as high as Big Red in the Simpson Desert it was imposing. Our trip leader (a really gentlemanly guy called Doug) drove up it in his 200 Series without a problem, but the next guy (Jake in a well used and modified TD Rocky) needed a couple of goes and a big run up on the second go.

The third vehicle was a totally unmodified Triton ute which needed about twenty attempts and finally a change of driver to get up to the top. 

Then it was our turn. We gave it two attempts, but bogged down on both of them so i dropped our tyre pressures down to 10 psi and had a third attempt which was successful. it is amazing the difference it makes! 

The above pic is me starting the climb up - it is much steeper than it looks you know!

This pic is from very near to the top.

The view from the top was all worth it though and we then drove down the inland side and worked our way through the maze of tracks back to the home camp site where a beer was a welcome end to the day.

I can't thank Doug and the Foothills 4WD guys enough for the day out - just brilliant.

Easter Monday - The camp site emptied out as people went home and I watched Geelong get thrashed by Hawtorn on the TV in the pub. NOT a good day, but we'll survive.

Off to Bunbury tomorrow!