Donnybrook
Donnybrook was a great re-set. We'd arranged the house sit through Aussie House Sitters, which we'd registered with before we hit the road. Sandy, our host, needed a sitter to feed her horses and water the garden while she was away and we were lucky enough to get the job. Her home was set on a bush block on the edge of town overlooking her horse paddocks. It was a perfect location and an easy house and garden to care for.
The horses (all seven of them!) were a great novelty. Hugh woke up on day one more excited than on Christmas morning and insisted we feed the horses before we had our brekkie. Filling the feed buckets and putting them out in the horse yard once a day, and keeping an eye on the water troughs was all the horses needed. The rest of the day was ours.
Over our six night stay, we explored the small town of Donnybrook, the heart of WA's apple growing country and home to "Australia's largest free-entry fruit themed playground". We picked up some "new" clothes and shoes for the kids at the op shops, and cleared out a whole bag of our old ones. We explored the bushland at the back of our house, hand-fed the horses, baked brownies, went bike-riding and walking along the Preston River, did a short stretch of the Munda Biddie bike trail, took a trip out to Balingup and the Golden Valley Tree Park and Matthias and I spent our evenings vegging in front of the telly.
A great afternoon was spent exploring the Wellington Forest area with a first stop at Gnomesville, a patch of woodland populated with hundreds, possibly thousands of colourful gnomes. This activity was certainly better received by the kids than going for another hike. We stopped at the King Tree, an ancient (400 year old) Jarrah then checked out the beauty spots on the Collie River including a paddle at "the rapids" and a swim with the marron further along at "long pool". The campsites that we passed were chocker block, confirming our decision to stay away from the coast and other south west hot spots during the school holidays. Our final stop on our scenic tour was the Wellington dam which is decorated with a giant Guido Van Helten mural, the same artist who painted the Coonalpyn silos.
It was with a bit of sadness that we said goodbye to Sandy's house and our 7 charges (Mr Whippy, Dyeri, Frankie, Cracker, Layla, Illy and Superman) and we were unsure what we might find in the way of campgrounds, being peak school holiday period still. But, we were ready to move on and looking forward to what we might uncover in the towering forests of the South West.
