Busselton - Jetty Interpretive Centre

Busselton is a small coastal town just a short 52km drive from Bunbury and 220km south west of Perth. It is one of Australia's fastest growing retirement and holiday towns. I can see the attraction of this place, a country lifestyle with the convenience of a modern town, cafes, restaurants, a wide range of boutique shops, and speciality stores.

Probably its most iconic attraction is the Busselton Jetty, a 1.841 kilometre long jetty (pier) into the calm turquoise waters of the Geographe Bay. It is the longest wooden pier in the southern hemisphere.

But the real attraction of the jetty is the Underwater Observatory right at the very end of the jetty. If you do not fancy the walk to the observatory, there is always the train!

Yes, I did say a train.

Unfortunately for us first time visitors, the observatory and jetty was undergoing a $27 million refurbishment. We did not get to see the observatory that descend eight metres below sea level or look through the observation chamber to see one of the country's best artificial reefs.

The Busselton Jetty reopened on the 6th February 2011. We will be planning another trip back to Perth, so we will be visiting this iconic jetty and underwater observatory.

However, for this trip, we had to be content with the interpretive centre at the start of the jetty, a good place to be for the souvenir hunters; giftware, t-shirts, post cards, framed photos of the jetty and lots more.

There is even a beachfront fun park should you fancy doing waterslides, flying fox, carousel or racing cars.

The yellow flower in the photo on the left, is one of the Banksia variety, with the St Mary's Anglican Church in the backdrop.

Click here for more Banksia photos/images.

Bottom photos are more flowers in their full bloom. These were all taken at the car park and around the Busselton Tourist Information Centre building.

The red Bottlebrush shrub (bottom right photo) is one of the best known and widely grown shrubs of Australia. I haven't seen the pink bottlebrush variety (bottom bottom right photo) before till I took these photos. The bottlebrush is known in the world of botany as Callistemon.

The bottom bottom left red flower is commonly known as the Kangaroo Paw. It is one of Western Australia better known flowers.

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