Sunny Dunny & Bung Bunbury

We awoke the next morning to the placid, aquamarine waters of Geographe Bay and I anxiously checked the wind forecast in the hope the tranquil glass belied some howling gale that would arrive later on that afternoon. Despite my prayers, it didn’t.

Dan and I began our attempt to work out what we were going to do to keep ourselves occupied and out of trouble over the next couple of days. What to do in WA was a topic of conversation we seemed of often find ourselves discussing – in no small part due to the fact that unless you’re kiting or surfing, there’s really not a hell of a lot to do on the west coast of Australia. This was something more emphasized by Dan’s mobility issues - likely helped by his sudden inability to do anything more active than climb four or five stairs, attempt playing his newly acquired ukulele, and occasionally casting a fishing rod.

I’m not trying to take the piss at Dan’s expense here. I’ve got nothing but sympathy for my brother’s plight. How impossible I’d find it to be on an eight-week kitesurfing trip, only to spend the remaining six weeks (and bulk of the trip) watching from the sidelines doesn’t even bear thinking about. Fair play to him and his decision to tough out the rest of the trip. As I asked him a couple of times, “Would you rather be sitting in Texas with a broken leg, or traveling around Australia with a broken leg?” No prizes for guessing what his immediate answer was…

As we were in wine country, Dan and I decided to start our first day up at the Wise Vineyard, a large-scale operation that had a fantastic vantage on a hilltop, overlooking all of the bay and everything that lay between the vineyard and the Indian Ocean.


Dan and I had a couple of cups of coffee, James arrived (still brandishing the facepaint from the previous night’s revelry) and we headed down to the beach with a slab of Coronas, armed with a couple of fishing rods, and proceded to while away the rest of the day by boozing in the sunshine.

James had a real knack for catching blowfish and Dan came to the realisation that he didn’t really like touching fish, and didn’t really fancy fishing all that much, for that matter. James and I decided to go out for a paddle on the surfboards in an effort to reach some slightly deeper water. I somehow managed to hook a Blue Swimmer crab and James caught a herring, which we took back with grand plan of cooking up for dinner…we ended up getting Thai instead.

 The next few days were spent pretty much like this. We’d wake up, check the forecast, see there was no wind and no surf, get some beer, and go fishing. In the process, we managed to hook up with a couple of English girls and a token Belgian girl (Belgium’s got over 600 beers, you know…) and arranged for a day of wine tasting around Margaret River. 

Dan was stoked! Finally something he was really good at and could participate in. Somehow, and I’ve still got no idea how, I ended up drawing the short straw and was the designated driver for the day. In Australia they call it being the Skipper. No two ways about it, it wasn’t the most hetero title I’d ever received and it was definitely one I took reluctantly.  We had a great time knocking around Dunsborough, but the time came to head north to Bunbury so Dan could get his plaster cast swapped for a fiberglass one. 

On arrival in Bunbury, we went to have a quick look at the hostel we’d booked into. A quick crutch-through revealed it wasn’t somewhere we were all that likely to hang around for five minutes, let alone a night. It was like some sort of half-way house. A word of warning, if you find yourself in Bunbury, looking for budget accommodation, don’t book in to the Dolphins Backerpackers. Get the other one. You won’t be sorry.

We spent the rest of the day at a park north of the Bunbury city centre, as the city of Bunbury is pretty much a collection of strip-malls and discount automotive part stores. We lolled around in the sun and spent most of the day intimidating the 5 year-olds from sharing the playground while we were on it (they’ve got to learn sometime) and butchering songs on James’ guitar. After a few hours of waiting for the wind to come up, James made the decision to head back to Scarborough and we headed back to the new hostel to reheat the curry from a couple of nights before, do some laundry and get an early night before heading to the third hospital of the trip…the rock and roll lifestyle rages on…