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April 2nd till 5th: Bunbury - Dolphins, beaches and bloody Easter
I'd once before planned on going to Bunbury, in that case just going there and back in the space of a single day, but had arrived at the bus stop only to see the coach pulling away. No such bad luck on this occasion as I was at the stop in Augusta with plenty of time to spare. It was only a couple of hours untill we arrived in Bunbury...well 'in' Bunbury is not completely accurate. We arrived at Bunbury station which, although undenyably in Bunbury, is so far from the centre it may as well declare itself independent. It didn't look too far on the map but in the event it took me well over an hour to cart my stuff and self all the way into the centre, it was hard going at times, especially as most of it was down a single straight road that simply did not seem to have an end.
I arrived at the hostel, Wander Inn, around mid-day, only to discover the reception didn't open till 4PM and as such I couldn't get in for another 4 hours. Wonderful. So far Bunbury hadn't overly impressed me! Surely i'm in for some good luck soon...
It's Good Friday. Apparently this is a massive deal in WA. By which I mean that, other than a few expensive looking restaurants, everything is closed. OK not the end of the world, its not as if I needed food or phone credit or anything...wait a minute...nope, Bunbury hasn't overly impressed me so far! When I eventually got into the hostel later in the day, after spending it trawling the streets in vain for anything open, I was able to ward off starvation by taking probably unfair advantage of the 'free cakes at 6PM' offer. It's hardly a balanced diet but you can't argue with the price.
The negatives first: It was Easter weekend. As well as meaning everywhere was closed Friday and Sunday this also meant that the hostel was awash with 18 year oldish Australians having a holiday weekend away, so drinking 24 hours a day and generally acting like idiots. Now I'm not totally opposed to such behaviour but...I don't know...perhaps I just wasn't in the right frame of mind. Of maybe it was simply because they weren't the nicest of people. Crystalising such an opinion was the moment one of them was moaning about being unemployed , so I mentioned I had the number of some grape picking places that might be looking for staff only for him to explode that 'foreigners shouldn't come over here offering us Australians jobs, its just not right.' As a bizarre inversion of the old 'coming over here, stealing our jobs' b******s it was...well...bizarre. As funny as it is now they really weren't that pleasent, I was clearly in town on the wrong weekend!
Not to be unfair I did meet some really decent people over the weekend. There was the middle aged englishman and his finish wife and friends who were down from Perth for the same 'drinking' purpose but whome were really friendly and good fun to drink the odd bottle of wine with, plus some of the amazing cider I'd found at CapelFest that I was pleasently surprised to discover in the bottelshop. Then there were the volunteers at the nearby dolphin discovery centre, these seemed to be hiding from the invading weekend crowd and they were doing a good job of it as I saw very little of them, especially impressive when you consider one was sleeping not 5 metres away from me. On the rare occasions I cornered one (figure of speech I assure you) they seemed cool enough...all in all I stick with my earlier exclamation that I was clearly in town on the wrong weekend!
Thankfully the idiots couldn't control the world beyond the hostel walls, which oddly enough is where I choose to spend the majority of my time. Bunbury is the second largest place in WA...but lets just say it isn't going to be troubling Perth for its crown anytime soon. Its reasonably large but maintains a small town aura, the centre piece of the skyline, the Bunbury tower (nicknamed the milk carton) is as out of place against the much smaller surrounding buildings as it is ugly. Reassuringly it doesn't set the tone for the rest of the city which has an above fair share of green land, sculptures and statues liberally spinkled about and, like seemingly everywhere in WA, is spotlessly clean and litter free.
And now you know.
The main attraction of the city would have to be the dolphins in Koombana bay, which over a hundred of these mammals call home. They occasionally come right into the bay and up to the beach but although this happens most days I was destined not to be lucky with my timeing and didn't see any in this simple manner. Instead I had to jump onboard a boat for the pleasure. We saw lots of dolphins during the hour and a half circuit. I think there's a tendancy towards overselling anything dolphin related, cheerful phrases such as 'things to do before you die' litter most recollections far too liberally. Was it great? Yes, they're beautiful creatures and it was good to see them in their own enviroment, even if it did feel like we were chasing them despite the tour guides 'they love to play' speel. Did it, like, totally change my life and I'm not going to shut up about it untill somebody punchs me in the face? No bruised yet.
The dolphin discovery centre is little more than a small building where you pay for such tours with a small series of sea creature tanks and a cafe tacked on the side. Oh yes, than they have a stillborn dolphin fetus in a jar. That may just be the oddest thing I've ever seen, not to mention the most unexpected.
Just across from the centre there was a Mangrove colony that I took a wander around. Much like most wildlifey attractions in WA it was deserted (miniscule population, the majoirty of backpackers stick like glue to the east coast) and I only saw two other people the whole time I was there. And they were together. There was a boardwalk that took you right out into the marshland and random sculptures and observation points that gave the whole wander a very relaxed, chilled out vibe. Did I see any Mangroves? Well...not as such. But it was nice all the same.
Heading back city centrewards the people count increased, though not by as much as you might expect. I did more touristy sight-seeing, gawping at yet another jetty (i'm going to become an expert on these things at this rate) and a black and white striped lighthouse amonst other even less memorable things. The highlight would be Marlston Hill Lookout which rewarded your energetic climb and tolerance of fierce wind with spectacular views of both the sea and city. The city is perhaps rare in that it doesn't look utterly ugly from such a high elevation, especially when you black out the milk carton with your hand!
I'd brought a cheap pizza to eat on the Sunday night. Then I discovered the hostel didn't have an oven. Apparently this is not a rare occurance. So i deaded in search of food. It's Easter Sunday and everywhere is closed. Hasn't this whole situation already happened? After an hour of wandering I found a chicken fast food place miraculously open. It tasted not entirely unlike what I imagine reprocessed wood to taste like. I guess it warded off starvation for another day. I'm not massively impressed with this whole 'Easter' concept this year!
You may have spotted the underlying idea that I didn't enjoy my stay in Bunbury as much as I might. Spot on. Call it a mismatch of bad mood and unfortunate timeing, whatever, I wasn't overwhelmingly happy most of the time. It does give me some interesting/funny tales to recount in retrospect and that's something I suppose. Fear not however as change was afoot and things were set to get better...
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