Cycling Down Under: Busselton to Yallingup

Wednesday 2 March 2016

We slept well.  The day started sunny with a light breeze from the sea. There was a lovely bike track which followed the sand dunes all the way to Dunsborough.  However, we decided to turn off before the town and take a cross-country route to our destination.  It was a pleasant ride with a stiff hill on Biddle Road.  We then joined Caves Road and had a fast run to Yallingup.

All the towns and villages around here have names that end with "-up", which in the aboriginal language up means 'Place of'.  Yallingup means place of love.

We found a camp site and set up tent before cycling down to the beach.  There were some big rollers and many surfers.

In the evening, we went to Caves Hotel nearby where the weekly twilight market was being held.  We saw a pair of kookaburras up close.  A light supper of couscous at the campsite before bed as we had planned an early start to avoid the traffic on the main road.

On the bike path out of Busselton

Is someone trying to tell me something?

Commonly called grass trees, Xanthorrhoea plants are also known as balga grass to the Australian aborigines, which is their word for black boy. Xanthorrhoea is important to the Noongar people who live where it grows. The flowering spike makes the perfect fishing spear. It is also soaked in water and the nectar from the flowers gives a rich honey drink. The gum which seeps from the trunk, forms a superglue when mixed with charcoal and roo poo and is an invaluable adhesive for Aboriginal people, often used to patch up leaky coolamons (water containers) and even yidaki (didgeridoos).

Surfers at Yallingup Bay

Lorikeet at the campsite

Kookaburra on an old gum tree