We said goodbye to Andi and Tom, who packed up their unfeasibly small tent and their “luxury” stools before revving off down the street in search of dirt tracks through the various state forests that extend inland and to the east.
We packed our dry bag and were picked up by Chris in his Bushtucker Tours’ van, who then collected two English backpackers (nine months into their twelve month round the world trip) before we made our way to the mouth of the Margaret River where we met the other four people booked on the tour.
Life vested and paddled, we divided up into three four man canoes and set off into the calm waters, sheltered from the easterly wind that was producing great surf off the coast (where what seemed like half the local population were out trying to catch a wave).
Our first stop was an island where aboriginal tradition has it that by hugging the trees you can expel any evil spirits which might be lurking in you; the evil is then washed away during the next high river flow. Just to be on the safe side we all had a quick hug and cleansed our boat.
Back on the river we paddled about 4km upstream, relishing the tranquillity and the view from the canoes
before coming to jump rock, where Chris asked if anybody was up for bombing. Little did he realise the madness of English folk and we took him by surprise by saying yes (apparently we’re the first group to do it in May). After a quick change into swimming stuff, six of us took the plunge. It was only about a 3m jump, but it looked higher when you were up there and the water was somewhat chilly.
After a quick paddle back downstream we stopped at our lunch spot where we were shown the plant to use as a soap and the one that has antiseptic qualities, as well as two that are good to eat (hopefully we’ll remember which is which).
A spread of native foods was laid out for us, including emu and kangaroo meat, wild turkey, rosella chutney, bush tomatoes, wild nut pesto, and the famous witchetty grub. Most were delicious and we all braved a taste of the witchetty grub, although nobody dared to eat a whole one (they were creamy in texture and woody in taste in case you were wondering).
Next we walked up to a small cave where shipwrecked families lived for several months in the late 1800s. A crawl through a dark passage left us dirty, but nothing a quick wash off in the river couldn’t deal with before we raced back to the mouth of the river for the prize of a bottle of wine. Unfortunately my steering let our canoe down, although I’m sure the team in front deliberately cut us up! We were awarded a stubby holder for our valiant effort though, so it was all worth it.
We found out that Rose (our canoe-mate) was also on the wine tour we’d booked for tomorrow so we were going to see her again, but we had to say goodbye to the others before being dropped off in town to have a look around. Margaret River is a nice looking town, quiet this time of year, and we wandered about for an hour or so before heading back to the caravan park to do mundane tasks like washing and fitting our UHF radio (Australians don’t use CBs anymore, so we invested in a UHF set for vehicle to vehicle communication - useful when overtaking road trains and in the outback).
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