Pinjarra

From Fremantle, we visited the seaside town of Rockingham and then turned away from the coast and went Inland to see Armidale, visited the Botanic Gardens in the Perth Hills and then continued down the Highway stopping at a small town called Pinjarra.    It is nestled on the banks of the MURRAY RIVER.  This was a great little place, 20kms from the seaside town of Mandurah.   72hr. free camp outside the visitors centre saw us park up and travel out from there.   This is horse stud country, both a racecourse and harness racing track here.   The weather was atrocious for 2 out of our 3 days here, torrential rain, thunder etc. but we just got out and saw what we could.  Of course, the only exciting things for Rick were the hot rods on the foreshore of Mandurah.   Did not like Mandurah at all, its a seaside town that has exploded into marinas, high rise apartments and million $$$$ mansions all on canal style waterfronts. Did two markets and saw what we wanted but was glad to get back to Pinjarra.  Tried to do a 2hr walk thru the bush to the site of a World War 2 Prison Camp that held both Italian & Germans but the weather forced us to give up.   Then we did a river/forest drive along the Murray that saw us get hopelessly lost on bush tracks in torrential rain, (so little signage and what there was we couldnt work it out) was so glad to get back to the bus and sit out the storms.