Bridgetown, WA (not Barbados!)

At the end of March I travelled to Bridgetown, Western Australia. A small town in the south west corner of WA, nestled on the banks of the Blackwood River, to attend the WA Natural Resource Management Conference. Bridgetown is about 3 hours south of Perth, 100k inland from Bunbury. Unfortunately it was raining cats and dogs for the whole day that we drove to Bridgetown. We hired a Toyota Prius, which was fine except for the visibility out of the back window. We stopped briefly in Bunbury at a service station, to get some lunch, however as it was 1.20pm they had turned most things off (cappuccino machine, grill, etc). It was good to get back on the road again. About 420 delegates attended the conference in a town of around 3,000 people. Here is the conference brochure. The conference was held in the recreation hall which coped with the numbers well. There were approximately 20 vendors in the hall. Food was fabulous, sourced from many cafes in town and the surrounding towns.

Bridgetown is a beautiful little town and reminds me of the southern highlands and some of the south coast towns. It has three wineries, 2 art galleries and a cidery. The country around Bridgetown grows apples and plums, as well as wine and potato's. The soil is very rich. The rainfall averages 1100 mm per year - which seems heavenly to me.

We stayed at Nelson's at Bridgetown, with a spa in each room.

The rooms were fine, the food for breakfast was ordinary, so on the last morning we went to the Barking Cat Cafe and I had the best cappuccino I have had in a long time.

I went on a field trip to Manjimup, to a chip factory and the Diamond Fire Tree. I thought that the chip factory would be handing out packets of chips, but no it was a fried chip factory.

Here is the delightful head wear we had to have for the chip factory tour

Having completed a tour of the chip factory we moved to the the land where the potatoes are planted and watched a line being put across the land to prevent the rain from washing all the goodness down the hill, then we looked at potatoes in their furrows the ground.

This is the potato man talking to one of the field trip participants. He never stopped talking about the potatoes and the issues with marketing, growing, staffing the factory - potatoes are his life.

On to the diamond fire tree.
The tree is in the Kari forest near Manjimup and is a very steep climb.

No I did not climb

On our last evening at the conference, we were bussed to Boyup Brook, 30k's down the road. Here we visited Harvey Dickson's Country Music Centre, just out of town. He hosts tours 7 days a week. Each year he hosts a rodeo and the "Road to Tamworth" a three day country music show, which then sends the winner to Tamworth. On our arrival we were given a tour in the dark.

Outside there were three 10 foot tall figures in a row, playing guitars

this is where we ate and danced to the country music crooners. The roof was littered with hanging memorabilia - vacuum cleaners, disco balls, golf clubs in a golf caddy, toy horse, plus the usual farm implements. Harvey has built this with his friends over the past 20 years.

rodeo

name of the bar

There were shrines to Elvis, Slim, John Wayne, Johnny Cash and more all around the outside of the main hall

On our last afternoon we visited Ford House, which is a B&B in Bridgetown, and has an amazing breakfast room.

Melanie and I "drinking tea" in the breakfast room, a slab hut lined with preserves.

After Ford House, we ended up at the visitors centre at a local food and wine promotion, tasted local cheese, local reds and cider and bought some plum and port jam - finally found a way to incorporate alcohol into breakfast.

After dropping a colleague off in Bunbury, we returned to Perth for the evening. On Friday we checked out Miss Maud's the Sweedish pastry cook and hotelier. We also walked down London Court: Set amongst modern sky scrapers in the heart of Perth City is Perth's London Court. Built in 1937, this small pedestrian "street" is located between the Hay Street Mall and St Georges Terrace. There are two clocks at London Court, one at each end of the lane. If you pay close attention you will notice the clock at the Hay Street entrance has four knights above it, which circle around when the clocks strikes every 15 minutes. At the St Georges Terrace end you will find St George battling a dragon above the clock, and both clocks are replicas of France's Great Clock of Rouen.