Is This Pier the Longest in the World? How Tall Is That Lighthouse?

 

 

Looking for Adventure 

Adventure:  an unusual, exciting, daring, or possibly dangerous activity, such as a trip or experience; or the excitement produced by such an activity, with the occasional element of risk.

Example:  "She had some exciting adventures in Africa"  or  "They travelled the world in search of adventure, excitement, new experience, thrills, stimulation, and discovering new things."

That's our goal on these trips - adventure, new things, seeing new places for the first time.  I would never claim that we are breaking new ground, but maybe it could be said that we have an adventurous spirit?  


We make some ambitious plans to go a lot of places off the beaten path, and we often run into some adventure.   In fact, we are looking for it (a little adventure, within reason), going somewhere far away and hard to get to.  

At the current chapter of our Round the World Southern Cross Trip we are in the far southwest of Australia.   This is a very remote part of a rather remote country.   Upon our arrival here, we landed in Perth, which turned out to be a large modern city.  

As much as we enjoy visiting interesting cities, we generally prefer to get out in the countryside (the outback?) and see what's out there.   We're  following that pattern during our travel here in the state of Western Australia.  

We try to do as much research as possible regarding the spots on our journey.   We knew there was an active and thriving wine district based in Margaret River, so that's where we went.  

The far southwest region is also home to to a couple man made landmarks.  One is the Busselton Jetty, and the other is the Leeuwin Lighthouse on the isolated cape at lands end in Australia.   

After a long bus ride of a couple hundred miles, we made it to Margaret River (pronounced in Aussie: MAH-grit Ri-Vah).  It's a quaint little town in the wooded hills not far from the Indian Ocean.  

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At first glance, it doesn't look like wine country.  It's kinda dry, and the woods hide the vineyards.  But they grow many varietals like Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Sauvignon Blanc.  They have to irrigate all the vines, it's rather dry here; and since the seasons "down under" are opposite, it's harvest right now. 

They put nets over all the vines, so it's not the most attractive bucolic scenery.  It's to keep the birds away.  They don't eat the grapes so much as just peck a hole in them so they dry out and rot, or get diseased.  It's a real problem.  I did photo a vineyard without the nets.

We visited several wineries (did I mention I'm in the wine business?) and enjoyed the informal attitude toward tastings.  In fact, they call tasting rooms "cellar doors", and the typical Aussie casual approach is refreshing; they don't take things too seriously. 

I didn't get a lot of pictures, I was too caught up in the experience, all our colleagues on this wine tour were young and impressionable.  I was sort of the crusty old wine expert.  Frankly I don't consider myself crusty or old, but compared to them ... well, let's just say I was a more seasoned wine veteran. 

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The Busselton Jetty 

We set out yesterday to visit the historical Busselton Jetty, which is actually a pier - the longest pier in the world ... or something like that.  The claims are very dramatic - it's the biggest this, or the longest that, or the maximum length of ...  

But I don't want to downplay the impact of this structure.  It was something they started building 150 years ago because the shoreline is very shallow and they needed to be able to unload ships and people (settlers?) into this part of the world. 

We walked the entire way out to the end; it is 1.84 kilometers long, which equates to almost a mile and a quarter.  It was so far that you could hardly see land once you got out to the end.  They even have a train that runs out there!



The weather here is sunny and warm, it was a great day, not to mention the sunny beaches nearby with an elaborate pirate ship playground for kids.

 

The Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse 

Then we made our way to Cape Leeuwin, the ultimate southwest point of the Australian continent.  It is a significant and striking location, where two major oceans meet; the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean.  

It has been a very dangerous cape for early explorers and sailing ships.  After several catastrophic shipwrecks, they decided to build this very impressive lighthouse, which still functions and protects ships from the rugged coastline.  


We climbed to the top, which made me nervous.  I'm not real good around heights, and this thing was almost two hundred feet high, the tallest lighthouse in the ... something ...
It was super windy up there!

It was named after the Dutch ship Leeuwin (Lion, in English) which was the first European vessel to sight this place, in 1622.  The story of the lighthouse is inspiring, and the scenery is breathtaking, especially when you climb to the top of the lighthouse.  

It's on a peninsula, and when you look at it from above (like the top of the lighthouse) you can see the two oceans.  The waters are two different colors. 

The view of the two oceans meeting makes an impression on a person.  It's remote and exciting and dare I say, adventurous?