Epic Round The World Trip Adventures! Stunning Photos & Articles - A fascinating gap year travel journal covering every stop of their journey.

Bussleton - West Australia
Round The World Trip Journal

(17th March) Bussleton
Busselton is famous for its 2km long jetty that was originally built to load ships. As the sands shifted and the bay became shallower they had to keep extending the jetty out to reach the deeper water! It is the second longest wooden structure jetty in the world after the UK's Southend-on-Sea. Now the jetty is a tourist attraction. There is a train that runs the entire length but as our luck would have it, it wasn't running the day that we visited! So we walked the entire length. The water is so shallow and so clear that you can see everything really clearly. Right out on the end they have built an underwater observatory where you go down three levels to a depth of 8 metres and can look very closely at the wildlife growing on the jetty timbers. This includes sea squirts, coral, sponges, puffer fish and other sea-life. It is so vibrantly multi-coloured and unlike other coral we have seen is soft and floaty. It was a breathtaking view and as usual we were the last ones in there and they had to shoo us out! The photos above don't really do it justice but we saw huge shoals of fish. One of the photos shows the giant black and white striped batfish that are currently on a migration route via Busselton so this was a rare treat to see them up close. The big shoals were herring and yellow-tail. We were also thrilled to be entertained by a couple of male wrasse who always seemed to appear in front of Mike's camera when he held it up! Apparently if the dominant male wrasse leaves a group then the dominant female can change colour and sex to become the dominant male! From our vantage point we also saw a brown heron type bird dive down and circle the timbers in search of a catch. Back on the beach Mike went snorkelling around the jetty and saw the coral up close, a lot more delicate that further North. He also saw lots of brightly coloured fish, boxfish, a large shoal up close and a 2ft long ray sat on the bottom. We stayed at a campsite 2 minutes walk from the jetty. On a visit to the toilets late at night, Jo spotted a couple taking photos and upon closer investigation found it to be a possum. This is the first one we have seen since they are nocturnal animals. Not sure if you can make him out in the photo here - he was very dark brown in colour with a white tail and was feeding on pieces of apple being handed to him. Oh and he was very obviously male! Thought you might like this photo Mum to remind you of the one that bit you! The photo with the overhanging trees is the inlet up behind the marina. It was a beautifully still morning and the reflections of all the birds were beautiful.