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

Mandurah - West Australia
Gap Year Travel Journal

(13th - 15th February) Mandurah
About an hour's drive south from Fremantle is the town of Mandurah which has so much inland water - easily 2.5 times as much as the Swan River in Perth or Poole harbour in the UK - in the form of inland waterways, huge lake type area and canals. The canals are where all the multi-million dollar houses are, all with moorings. We drove around them and then did a boat trip to see them from the water too and they are awesome! As you will see from one of the photos above Jo even got to drive the boat although fellow passengers were complaining of sea-sickness as her wake was zigzag shaped - it was so difficult ot keep a straight line! This boat trip took us up the Murray River for lunch at a Scottish themed restuarant (how bizarre!), food was a bit disappointing though. On the way back into the city we were visited by a pod of dophins and got lovely clear views of them as they swam by the boat. That night we drove down to part of the Peel Inlet to have a romantic sunset picnic by the water and saw a most incredible sight - hundreds and hundreds of migrating black swans. Jet black with bright red beaks and then pelicans sat in the middle of them. The hooting sounds from the swans were surreal in that number and we stopped the van here to have our dinner one evening and to watch the sun set. Our campsite in Mandurah was really pretty - lots of shady trees and grass but the main highlight were the bunnies hopping around everywhere. Apparently someone let two loose and they have been breeding like rabbits every since! The photo of Jo laughing her head off was taken at Lake Clifton which is in Yalgorup National Park just south of Mandurah where we saw thrombolites - similar to the stromatolites at Shark Bay and Cervantes but with a more cellular structure rather than a linear structure. They were impressive here though simply due to the extent of them all the way down the eastern side of the lake.