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Busselton MondayRain in the night but fine all day.Very windy tonight so we have battened down the hatches, rolled the awning away and settled for the night.There is an open air cinema in Busselton but we have seen the film they are showing if we hadn't we may have gone tonight.The films seem to show here about 2 months later than Brisbane.The gourmet tour didn't quite work out due to miscalculation with timing so we were never near a winery with a restaurant at mealtimes.We made do with a ham roll and apple strudel on Dunsborough Beach.We got a bit of exercise after by climbing the steps of the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse (that is spelt right a lot of names around here are French after the 2 French ships Napoleon Bonaparte sent here.Funny enough nowhere was named after him or the man who was in charge of the expedition.It seems he was so unpopular they didn't want him remembered) It was interesting and the first time we have been inside of an operational lighthouse.All the lighthouses in Aus. are now unmanned of course but going inside and climbing up to the light itself gave a better understanding of the keeper's lot.The turntable the whole system rests on is a bath of mercury and even today the mercury has to be cleaned and topped up manually.In the old days the authorities thought the isolation was driving the keepers mad but of course the mercury could have been responsible.We then went on to look at a couple of surfing beaches but no surfers today.Tuesday on the roadWe stopped of at Bunbury a nice enough town whose main claim to fame is a dolphin discovery centre on the bay.It is one of the areas where you can stand just in the water and the dolphins come right up to you but the best time is in the morning and of course we went in the afternoon but it was worth $5 each and we could see dolphins playing in the bay.We have booked into a site at Manjurah for 2 nights.Manjurah weds.The site is fine with a nice pool but the mossies are unbearable.As soon as we step out of the van or car they attack in their hundreds.We are told it is a Manjurah problem but extreme at the moment.Shame because it is a very nice, interesting place and it is actually rated as the 6th most expensive place to buy a house in the world.This because of the mining boom in W.A. and obviously people don't know about the mossies.We escaped inland to a place called Dwellingup which is in a Jarrah (mahogany) forest and has a tree top walk.Not the best we have seen but worth a visit.We also called at Pijarra which is on the Murray river and has an interesting old homestead where they serve very nice Devonshire teas and where there is a very friendly possum which is so friendly that the staff came and gave it an orange and a slice of bread or it would have come on the table and taken our scones.It lives in the cellar of the house with it's mother and I asked the waitress if the son brought any lady possums home and she said no but the mother is pregnant again.So we will draw a veil over that.We are on our way to Fremantle tomorrow for 5 nights to take us over Easter.
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