Matt set off from the hostel bright and early to go and fetch our hire car from Europcar, while I finished packing our bags. The office was actually much further away than Matt had anticipated so it took him over 30 minutes to walk there and then there was a lot of people in there waiting so it took quite a while! Once he did have the keys, he then had the dramas of trying to find his way back to the hostel through the maze of one way roads that make up Perth's CBD! Eventually he made it back and by about 11am the car was packed and we were on our way! Considering we were suppose to be on the road by 9:30/10ish, 11 wasn't so bad. 
 
While I had been waiting for Matt I had watched the news and they were reporting a bush fire which had been deliberately started in Esperance, it was still out of control at the time although fire fighters were at the scene and working hard to battle it! This, added to the fact we were now much later setting off, made us decide to do our trip in reverse and head towards Walpole for our first overnight stop as that was 4 hours away rather than Esperance which was 8 hours away!

Leaving Perth proved to be quite a challenge though as the motorways are very confusing and the Sat Nav was struggling to keep up with where we were! So after lots of last minute instructions, lane changing, sharp exits and wrong turns it was a miracle we made it onto the right track without any incidents!!
 
The first stop on our now backwards itinerary was Bunbury, which is about 180km south of Perth . This is actually the second largest city in Western Australia with about 50,000 residents. The two main tourist attractions are the Dolphin Discovery Centre and King Cottage Museum. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the Dolphin Discovery Centre, the dolphins had already made their daily visit so we didn't go in but apparently if you time it right, you can stand in the shallow water and the dolphins will come right up and interact with you! Matt then found it amusing to pose for a picture pretending to have a wee in the bush whilst pointing out the dolphins so he could send it to our friends in Adelaide. You'll realise this is an old joke of theirs if you've read the New Year's Eve in Sydney blog. 
 
From Bunbury, we headed inland towards Bridgetown. This town originally contained just a single one roomed homestead in the 1850s but is now home to about 4000 residents. The main reason I wanted to stop here was because I had read about the Brierly Jigsaw Museum in the Visitor's Centre which displays hundreds of jigsaw puzzles! I was in my element walking around looking at all of them and was particularly excited to spot one I have made: 4D London!
 
Following this quick pit stop, we drove through Manjimup which is known as 'the gateway to the great Karri forests' . It certainly was impressive driving through extremely tall trees all swaying in the breeze and we couldn't help but think back to the storms over on the East Coast and how we wouldn't fancy driving along this road in those!
 
The final part of our drive took us through the Shannon National Park which again offered spectacular scenery before arriving at Tingle All Over, the YHA in Walpole. This is called this because the huge trees are called tingle trees, not because of anything seedy! he he! Once we had checked in and put our bags in the room, we went for a walk around the town only to discover everything was closed! It was only 6pm but all shops, restaurants and even the petrol stations had locked their doors for the day! When we returned to the motel, we got chatting to a couple from Dunsborough who had driven down for the day and then with nothing else to do, we headed to bed for an early night as our room was just a small container like box with a double bed in but it was very comfy and just what we needed.