Bunbury - Start of a WA Holiday

WA, is short for Western Australia, in case your are wondering. WA is the largest state of all the states and territories of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. For a Wikipedia view of Western Australia, click here.

It was October last year when we went to WA. This trip is not the first time for Margaret, but it was my first ever to this part of Australia. It is also the first time I will meet with Margaret's childhood friend SL and her husband LL. Their son is getting married later in the week. Being October, it is spring here at Down Under, that time of the year when the wild flowers for which WA is known for, is at its best, in full bloom.

We touch down at Perth, the capital city and met up with SL and LL who then whilst us off to a place call Bunbury, an easy two hours of driving south from Perth.

Bunbury is the third largest city in WA after Perth and Mandurah. It is a port city and is situated 175 kilometres south of Perth, in the heart of the Geographe Region of Western Australia.

We arrived at Bunbury just in time for lunch but it took us awhile to get our bearing right before we found our hotel; Mantra Bunbury Hotel. The interesting thing about the hotel is that part of the hotel is made up of four grain silos built in 1937 that have now been transformed into residential apartments.

The pictures above are the view from the balcony of our apartment that overlook the Koombana Bay. It always feels good to see the many sails of boats sailing in the bay.

One of the many attractions of Bunbury are the bottlenose dolphins which have set-up home in Koombana Bay. They are about 100 of these dolphins and they come almost everyday to the shores where the Dolphin Discover Centre is located.

The centre includes a discovery room and theatre, souvenir shop, café and a shallow water interaction zone. Unfortunely for us, we were either too early or they were late (or the other way around) for us to interact. As these are wild animals the centre cannot guarantee visits on any particular day or at any particular time. However, most frequent visitations tend to occur in the mornings. So be prepared to stay for the day should you really like to meet with them.

Of course nothing beats a golden sun set view at the beach. There are many swimming locations in Bunbury, like at Koombana Bay, The Jetty Baths and Back Beach, all with sandy beaches and clear blue water.

There is even the Bunbury Lighthouse, which you can see from the beach, along Ocean Drive. The checkered lighthouse, from a distances looks very much like a rocket about to take off, to the Moon.

There is even a piece of sculpture along the Ocean Drive, which to me seems to be a strange place to put one, but I think it is suppose to imitate the lighthouse.

Western Australian wildflowers are renowned as being one of the most spectacular wildflower displays in the world.

I don't know if the flowers along the slopes from the road to the beach, count as wildflowers but they are many and vary in their colours and sizes, not that you can really tell its size from the photos. Some of the shots are zoomed to macro size.

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