SouthWest Day 1-2: Busselton

Pre-trip information

In my usual impulsive fashion I did a bit of looking up on the net, a bit of phoning and now have a week-long holiday booked. The weird bit is the baseline costs on it are just A$185! Doesn't include keeping myself alive, but includes the transport and shelter. Oh, and the sanity of being away from home again. Somehow, the road seems to do a lot for my poor brain.

So plans are:

Fri 15 Apr 05 - Perth-Busselton
Tue 19 Apr 05 - Busselton-Pemberton
Sat 23 Apr 05 - Pemberton-Home!

Day 1-2 - Arrival; Busselton

Left Perth at 17:00 from the rather impressive East Perth terminal aboard TransWA's SW1 coach. Sun set spectacularly somewhere around Kwinana-Rockingham - unfortunately no photos - and we got to Busselton at 21:00.

A rant about "road movies"

We got subjected to De-Lovely, a musical documentary on the life of Cole Porter starring Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd, on the way there. Considering the average age on the bus was probably younger than me, it's hardly surprising people weren't straining to hear it. There was some quite risque gay scenes in it as well. I didn't get the plot at all until after I watched it - not helped by the relatively low volume - and often wonder where they get road movies from. Last time I came back from Busselton in 1998, we got Race the Sun starring Ben Affleck's younger brother Corey, about the Adelaide-Darwin solar-powered car race. The plot sucked, and the acting (aside from Corey's) just bombed. I don't know what his manager was thinking! On the Calgary-Edmonton bus trip in early August 2004, we got some highly violent movie involving 1930s characters - entirely appropriate for the many kids on the bus, I guess. They're always current, but B-grade movies! At least Singapore Airlines gave me Spiderman 2, even if interspersed with that Jackie Chan version of Around The World in 80 Days, which was so terrible that I had to watch it to the end out of morbid curiosity. Grrr.

Back to the road log...

Busselton Backpackers was just a few hundred metres from the stop. It's a very informal establishment (the common areas remind me a little of Aboriginal Hostel in Hungary, but with a sort of open area out the back with loud music!), but the guy seemed to be pushing it a bit by asking what I considered to be too many questions, and rather too enthusiastically recommending the winery tours. It may have been alright, but after my experiences in Turkey, I guess I'm a bit wary. As at 24 hours later, though, he hasn't asked me again, so I think he was just trying to be helpful.

(For some reason I didn't write about it in my blog, but the staff at Grand Yavuz in Istanbul, circa 2 October, were putting considerable pressure on me to buy expensive tours of the Bosphorus, and were taking advantage of the fact I had to walk past them to get in or out of the hotel. I wouldn't budge, though. Also, different staff in the hotel quoted different rates for the same airport shuttle.)

Anyway, I got settled and then went for a walk, checking out the centre of Busselton - very quiet at 9:30pm on a Friday night! - avoiding the occasional drunk motorist who occasionally sped along and yelled out the windows, and decided to walk out of town and take some night pictures of the road leading into Busselton. I got as far as the Vasse Highway intersection, and got to listen to, although never actually found, some interesting wildlife.

Today, I've been to the library and gotten maps of Busselton and Pemberton, been to the tourist centre, and checked out Queen Street. This place is so weird though - it FEELS like a small country town, but has a population very close to Bunbury's or Albany's and has all the facilities you'd expect for a metropolis of this size (Coles, Woolworths, 2 Action supermarkets, 12km of beach...). Most of the population are either very young or very old, and alcohol consumption and bad driving seems to be universal. Weather turned crap though and I happened upon an internet cafe, so here I am!