We set up and ventured into town after lunch. We did a bit of shopping at the local IGA and visited the Visitor Centre. Denmark is where Al Pierson from Viatek lived for 18 months during his trip around Australia. It is a beautiful town and can easily see how you could make it home for a while. We did a bit of a drive around the town before returning to the caravan park. John & Stephen went down to the surf club at Ocean Beach for a quick swim. Lots of surfers but not much surfing going on as swell was pretty inconsistent. Water was beautiful and clear. Had happy hour at Di's caravan. All in all a very easygoing day.
Thursday morning saw our daughter, Justine arrive back in Australia from her 3 month trip to Canada. We got a steady flow of messages from our other daughter, Stephanie, who was picking Justine up at the airport. Wish we were there to see her arrive too! Missing the girls and not being there for big days like today is definitely the down side of our adventure.
We are soon all off touring less Terry; who is going to investigate our fishing options. The five of us do a tour of the beachs South and East of Denmark. Our first stop is Lights Beach. It is beautiful and as we are to find out today, like many of the beachs in the area actually can have more than one beach area. There are numerous little coves so if you walk around a rock point you are likely to find another beautiful secluded beach. The water is so clear in this area of Australia and the colours are spectacular. The girls take a walk down to the rocks while the boys enjoy the view from the lookout.
Our next stop is Waterfall Beach which is located in William Bay National Park. It is surprise, surprise; beautiful! We take a walk and the girls discover a small waterfall that gives it the name and the boys venture around the rock point. More beautiful colours and photos.
Next stop is only a few hundred meters away and called Madfish Bay. It seems like each stop only gets better and better. Here we discover a few secluded beaches and some great rock areas for fishing. There is a channel of water between a rock island and the mainland where the water is flowing in from both directions. A few fisherman here having some success fishing for Whiting.
Our last stop on our morning beach extravaganza is Greens Pool/Elephant Rocks. As we are all anxious to actually have a swim in this beautiful water we decide on Greens Pool first. As you come over the hill you know immediately this is going to be a really special place. It definitely is! Beautiful, sheltered beach with the beautiful greens and blues of the water. We all go in the water with Stephen, Carol, and myself going for a snorkel. The water was beautiful and lots of rocks to explore although not a huge amount of fish. Quite a few people there as is perfect place for families.
Walked back up the hill to explore Elephant Rocks. Totally different but equally impressive. Large rock formations which amazingly do in fact look like the backs of elephants. We took several photos and really had a hard time culling them later as is a spectacular location. Beautiful coloured water in the bay and beach at the bottom of the rocks. Sandra decided we really need to get our girls to travel with us some day to enjoy all the beautiful sites that Australia offers.
We returned to Demark where we had a picnic lunch down at the river park. Beautiful park areas on both sides of the highway. After lunch we travelled towards Albany before turning South West on Eden Road. This brought us out on the opposite side of the Wilson Inlet facing Denmark. Our first stop was Anvil Beach named after a distinctive rock along the beach. Beautiful with quite a strong swell when we were there. Our second stop was on the inlet side where we observed the shallow calm waters facing towards Denmark. We could see the surf club near our caravan park from the first stop and Denmark township from the second.
Returned home after a long day. We had a brief phone call with Justine but she had hit the wall and was ready for bed, after being up for almost two days.
Friday morning the boys decided to have a crack at fishing. The six of us packed up and headed back to Madfish Bay. Beautiful and sunny when we left Denmark but hazy and thick with smoke from bush fires near Northcliffe by the time we arrived there. We decided on the nearby Waterfall Beach as more sheltered from wind and smoke. No success with the fishing which I'm sure will surprise all our keen followers. We caught a number of small whiting that weren't much bigger than bait fish. The girls enjoyed a bit of sun as the skies cleared somewhat as the wind dropped off. Late in the morning the clouds returned and a light rain started. We packed up and headed back to the caravan park.
Enjoyed an easy afternoon around our caravan before the 3 boys again tried their luck at fishing between 4-6PM; this time at Lights Beach. You can all probably guess what our results were. That's right; nothing!
Saturday the five of us less Terry toured some local attractions all featuring local produce. Our first stop was a local Meadery (Honey producer). We sampled some of the honey before purchasing a jar and an honey derived ice cream. Next stop was the Denmark Cheese Factory. Again we enjoyed some tastings before purchasing a number of diferent locally produced cheeses. Our last local producer was the Denmark Berry Farm. We all hit the berry bushes and picked a container full of raspberries and blackberries. They had a variety of berries but the raspberries appeared to be the best ones at this point. Girls bought a couple of jams as well. Our drive took us up through the hills behind Denmark and we were all once again very impressed with the area. You could see some beautiful ocean views from the rolling agricultural land we drove through.
From here we ventured back into Denmark. The girls explored some of the local shops which are a bit like Berry or Morpeth in NSW. Stephen and I headed for the local pub, where we saw Black Caviar win its 19th straight race. Rans picked the Exacta but because he boxed them he actually lost a few cents on his wager. Pretty hard to make a buck when Black Caviar goes off at $1.00-$1.02.
We returned to the caravan park for the afternoon before the boys attempted fishing once again off the rocks just past Ocean Beach. Results were as per usual; nothing! I had quite a bit of success catching small crabs in the rocks for use as bait. Unfortunately the fish had no interest in them either so ended up releasing most of them. Sea gulls ended up being the only creatures to benefit from our efforts as they cleaned up on our discarded baits.
Sunday was cleaning day. We washed both the inside and outside of the car and caravan. Who knows how long that will last. Probably until our first section of road construction. Lots of laundry was cleaned as well. The six of us enjoyed a nice happy hour sampling our many cheese purchases. We also did a bit of planning for the next sections of of our journey. We decided on a caravan park for Albany which we leave for tomorrow. The Ransleys and Bewells also did some planning about our schedule if we decide to head North for family gathering in Karumba, Queensland at end of April. We decided we need to begin our trek North from Port Augusta by first week of April. That should be possible given our current pace. We will of course need to return to Victoria and South Australia at some future date to complete our adventure. Talk to you again soon.
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