Bunbury, Australia

What in the world is a bunbury?  It is the third largest city in Western Australia, surrounded on three sides by Koombana Bay on the Indian Ocean.  It has a population of 35,000 and is a working port that exports minerals, aluminum and wood chips. 

The brochure we received was quite extensive, but when you read Michael’s description of the town you will wonder how they can publish so many pages.  The attraction of this area is the outdoor activities like fishing, crabbing and hiking – and – ta da dolphins.  There is a resident population of around 100 bottlenose dolphins that live in and around the harbor, and deliver calves in the Collie River.  The Dolphin Discovery Center is located here and offers tours to see the dolphins in their natural environment.  Major industries for Bunbury are farming and agriculture, wine production, woodchips, alumina and of course, tourism. 

This town is surrounded by a lot of water and really nice swimming beaches with plenty of playgrounds for the kids.  There are a many nice homes surrounding the harbor.  Bunbury is the seventh largest port in Australia and business centre of the southwest and a hub of regional development. The reason for the large port is because this is an area of substantial bauxite deposits. Bauxite, from which comes alumina, is a major export to Asia and elsewhere.  They also export a number of other precious minerals as well as woodchips.  It is about a two hour drive south of Perth, and Bunbury has all the major benefits of city-living commercial opportunities, facilities and attractions mixed into a beautiful, lush seaside setting with a country pace. The fishing, swimming beaches, temperate climate and proximity to the southwests popular towns make Bunbury a popular spot for holidaymakers heading down the coast south of Perth. 

The settlement was founded in 1836 as an agricultural area.  The town grew when whalers began using it as a port until they moved to Geographe Bay, just off Busselton. Bunbury quickly became the centre of shipping, transporting wheat and timber from inland. Bunbury then took on the role of holiday destination to miners families taking a break from the eastern goldfields near Kalgoorlie.  During the 1950s, the areas mineral deposits were mined and in the 1970s, an artificial deep-water harbour was constructed leading to Bunbury gaining official city status in 1979.  

The summer season (October thru February) regularly sees temperatures around 110 degrees.  Today, it was around 90 degrees; in the sun, it feels even hotter.  I escorted a tour that took us past mangroves, which were created when the harbor and river were jettied (mangroves are unusual at this latitude), and then a cruise up the Collie River for a picnic lunch. 

The vessel we were cruising on was very strange.  It was a houseboat that had cushioned seating with three seats on one side, an aisle, and three seats on the other side sort of like airplane seating.  There was a kitchen/bar area inside, and sliding glass doors front and back.  There was also a very small area on the aft deck.  It was kinda junky, but the skipper was a jolly bloke with a good running commentary. The first mate had killer legs and I was so totally jealous of her.  

Being summer, most of the bush was quite dry and brown.  The river was a muddy brown and there wasn’t much to look at.  

We saw some birds (yawn) and an eagle’s nest (double yawn); the eagles they are talking about are not like the American Bald Eagle.  These are rather scrawny looking.  There was not much to see or take pictures of.

About an hour up river, we finally beached the boat for our picnic.  It was a fenced off area with picnic tables scattered about.  The grass had been recently mowed, but the clippings were left on the ground to annoy me.  I was wearing sandals and the damn stuff kept getting wedged between the shoe and my foot.  There was some filtered shade, but not enough to my liking as it was getting pretty hot.  Food was served buffet style on long tables.  Why do people insist on only going down one side of the buffet tables?  This mystifies me.  There is a long line to get food and the other side of the table works just fine.  So being the good escort, I suggested they use the other side, which, thankfully, they did.  I also suggested they get the drinks out pronto instead of taking orders like at a fine restaurant.  It was hot…and I did not get my drink until AFER I finished my meal.  Planning folks, planning.  Not that hard. 

On the way back, we got a treatise on dolphins and their behavior.  Females give birth in the summer months calves in the shallow waters around Bunbury; the males don’t stick around.  The shallow water offers protection for the baby because sharks can’t attack them from underneath.  The calves don’t nurse in the traditional sense because they don’t have lips.  The mom excretes the milk, which is the consistency of yogurt, from under her dorsal fin.  She does this every hour for the first three months.  I swear, I cannot make this stuff up.  The gestation period for dolphins is 12 months.  At age five, the baby leaves the mom.  Dolphins also like fresh water in order to get rid of sea lice.  We got lucky and actually saw one dolphin today that was pretty far upriver. 

MICHAEL

I escorted an excursion today through beautiful Bunbury, Australia.

The excursion was titled city drive and big Swamp wildlife park. It was, without question, the worst tour I have ever been on.  First of all, there isn't very much to do in Bunbury.  If you combine that with an inept tour guide and a bus where the PA system doesn't work, you know things will not work out.  We toured the entire city and saw such amazing sites as the high school, meals on wheels, the senior center, the Catholic Church, the police station, the City Hall, and a government building that was specifically designed to look like a sinking ship.  You got to love a branch of government that would deliberately build a building that looks like a sinking ship.

The High Point of the tour (just kidding) had to be the big swamp wildlife park.  First of all, there was no swamp, so that takes care of that.  The wildlife park was basically a children's petting zoo that had some parrots and a couple of scrawny kangaroos.  I did get to feed the kangaroo so that was something.  The tour operator had programmed  2-1/4 hours for the wildlife park. Everybody finished it in less than 45 minutes.  The bottom line was that we got back to the ship and concluded a four hour tour in 2-1/2 hours. I have never had that happen before.