Busselton, Cape Naturaliste & Margaret River

Dear all,

Well having arrived in Perth from Adelaide by air yesterday afternoon, as I write this morning (Monday the 12th of February 2008), I am enjoying a comfortable ride on the ‘Australind’ train service from Perth to Bunbury, WA. I say ‘comfortable’ but as a veteran air-traveller, I am somewhat un-nerved by the absence of a life jacket under my seat, lack of seat belts, and sad paucity of cabin emergency evacuation procedures or demonstration. The quiet ride without high-speed air noise, turbulence or turbine jet engine whoosh is also taking some getting used to.

But never mind – I love trains; I always have. Like Lance, I never got the Hornby train set that I wanted as a kid, so I tend to make up for it in my later years by riding the track at every opportunity I can. It gives me a bit of a cheap thrill, and it probably doesn’t hurt to be kept on the straight and narrow every now and then.

Without overstating the point, I was in Melbourne last week for three days. While my off-sider commuted by taxi most days to the seminar we were attending, I got my thrills by riding Melbourne trains and trams.

I was pleased to find there are at least three separate tram routes and one suburban rail serving the Glenferrie area from Melbourne CBD with a service on at least one of these around every 5 minutes. Round trip $6.80. Taxi fair approx $50 and it nearly takes as long as the public transport.

But I digress because it has been a bit of a hectic time lately I suppose, and I'm in relaxation mode now.

I didn’t get back from Melbourne until late on Friday evening (the 8th of Feb). I only had Saturday to draw breath and then it was off again on Sunday to Perth. I stayed overnight at the Saville Park Suites on Hay Street in an apartment big enough to sleep a boat load of refugees.

Hay Street – is that why I was sneezing this morning?

My 30 minutes of exercise yesterday evening turned into a marathon walk around East Perth. I was a bit lost without a map. Of course being a techno geek, I did have my GPS logger on and running, but a fat lot of use that thing is without a display. I’m going to get a PDA on Wednesday so I can plug in the logger. I’ve decided its nice to know where I’ve been, but its even nicer to know where I am.

So why am I going down to Bunbury by train today?

Well, that’s because Bunbury is where the train stops. I’m going to connect with the bus from Perth at Bunbury and go on to Busselton. How else would you get to Busselton? I wonder if there is a lot of them – busses that is. (I wonder if it had a train service it would have been called Trainton? Sounds like the name of an early design TV tube.

I digress. Back to the buses, as if the name isn’t weird enough, the bus to Busselton left Perth an hour before the train. So why would you catch the bus I ask? That extra hour in the scratcher was a bit of alright.

But more to the point, I’m going to Busselton because that is where Busselton Airport is, and I’m booked to catch a plane from there to Perth. Eh??

Well, National Jet has recently started an air service out of Busselton for one of the mining companies flying employees to the Pilbara. An increasing number of people now live out of Perth because of the housing shortage in that fair city. Rather than a big commute to Perth airport to get to the Pilbara each week, the mining companies are flying folks out of Busselton. That also means the mining companies can offer much more attractive packages for skilled people to live in Busselton and commute to the Pilbara. Such is the acute shortage of labour.

And where do I fit into the equation? Well, because this is a new air service for NJS and this aerodrome, periodically after starting up I need to go down to Busselton and have a look at the air safety aspects of the operation. I need time there to review the aerodrome facilities and serviceability, services, ramp ground handling, passenger check-in, load control, weight and balance, freight acceptance, storage and handling, security, and so forth. Now that is at least two days work, which tragically leaves me with some gaps that can only be filled by a tour of the nearby Margaret River wineries and photographic opportunities at Geographe Bay.



More about that tomorrow night perhaps and then later in the week I’ll tell you some of the unfolding saga of my coming trip to Cocos and Christmas Islands.

Well, the country-side south of Perth is fairly wide, brown, and undulating a little as the train line follows the southern reaches of the Darling Ranges as they drop away into the surrounding sheep grazing country. Ummm, I just spotted some dairy cattle, so delete reference to any exclusivity for the sheep.

Hello, the train has just pulled up. I think we are at Dwellingup. Somethings up, and as it turned out I was in someone else’s seat. They turned up, with their nose turned up, and now I’m in the right seat. Bugger – I’m cramped now.

OK, enough of this.

NJS provided the accommodation at the Baudin Lodge and the Geographe Bay Tourist Association provided the Hyundai Elantra. If you ever get over this way, please make sure you stay here.

Just to finish off, I thought I would mention to Faith that while I’m out and about I use my lap top to stay in touch. There are several ways that I do this.

For example, at motels and hotels, I find mostly they have a broadband connections available and I can log in without too much fuss. When I open Internet Explorer, the service provider web page jumps up. It’s just a simple log in from there, and I pay the usage costs with the motel/hotel bill. Alternatively, you can plug in via the telephone line and use a dial up service but I find it so tediously slow, I never bother. There is however usually a good saving on broadband costs.

If you have a wireless modem, you can also connect via wireless and there are quite a few free wireless connection points around places like airport terminals, hotels, motels and city centres. Some may have some limitations on what you can access, but that is a small concession if the service is free. The limitations shouldn’t be enough to prevent you getting your email. Motels and hotels generally charge about $12 per hour for a broadband unlimited wireless connection. One hour is about all you need if you prepare you material for sending while off line.

You should be able to connect to your email account at any of the zillion internet shops around the traps too. You use the internet shop PC so you don’t have to cart your lap top around. I actually haven’t tried using my own lap top at an internet shop. You may be able to do that so just go and ask.

Now, in my case I am interested in the email on both my work and home accounts. In both cases while I am away I can connect to the mail server via Internet Explorer. For example, with my Bigpond account, I simply go to www.bigpond.com.au then log in with my account name and password and bingo, I can send and receive my email.

Although I could use MS Outlook on my lap top to get my home email, I don’t bother.

At home I use MS Outlook on my desk top PC to get my email. Because my work email account can’t be directly accessed from the outside world, while I am away I log in via Internet Explorer to a remote portal that work has provided. The portal enables me to access quite a bit of data and tools that I use at work, as well as my work email. Therefore, as long as I can get access to the World Wide Web, I’m not really out of contact with the office.

I can’t give you much advice regarding account types and dollar amounts Faith. I think the sort of accounts offered by the likes of Telstra Bigpond are generally fairly competitive and pretty reliable. I have unlimited broadband at the highest speed at home so my monthly rate is around $69 or thereabouts if my memory serves me correctly. There are two issues you need to think about – one is how you normally connect at home, the amount of data your are likely to send and receive each month and the speed you would like to do that. The other is the sort of storage capacity you want with your email server, (most folks don’t need to have much storage because they download and delete their email in the one go). You might want extra email addresses, and perhaps you might want to run a web page. No matter what your email set up is, you should be able to access it via a web interface, or MS Outlook.

Well, the train has just pulled into and now is moving out of Waroona and I think there might be a seat with a bit more space just down the carriage, so I’m going for a mooch.

See you soon.

Neville the Devil.