Kulin
Since we had a couple of days until the girls had to fly back to Brisbane for Gotte Ange's wedding, we decided to head back to Bindoon - a small town in the Chittering shire, about 100km north of Perth. Our first stop was at Kulin, famous for it's tin-horse highway. Kulin has a famous horse race every year and to promote it, they put up a tin horse about 20 years ago. Now every year there are some new horses added, creating an interesting and funny journey into the town.
Kulin Free Camp and playgroundMost of those inland towns are very friendly and very welcoming to travellers. They have fantastic facilities with playground, pool, library and more often that not - free camping in the middle of the town (thanks to a program called royalties for regions). Kulin even provides free hot showers. All they ask for, is to spend a few $$ in the local shops. This is a very welcome change from the tourist - money grab towns along the major attractions. We payed as much as $55/night for a bit of dirt to park the van, some toilets and a shower. In contrast these little towns make you feel very welcome and the locals are super friendly.
York
Grain fields all the way from Kulin to York -so not much to report there. York was the first inland town established in WA. It has lots of old stone buildings, a suspension bridge and another free camp in the middle of the town.
Beautiful old York
Bindoon
When we first travelled from Geraldton to Perth, we stopped in Bindoon for morning tea. It has a fantastic bakery and an award-winning butcher. It's set close to the Chittering Valley which was very romantic with green rolling hills and little creeks running in the valleys. So we decided to check it out a bit more. We stayed for two nights on the local sports ground. Friday night was very busy with the whole town coming to the fields and playing sports.
Lots of mazes and challenges, a jumping pillow and a game of put-put at the outback splash
To see the surrounds, we travelled to the 'outback splash' - a big maze playground with more recently a big water park added. We weren't interested in the water park - it was too cold for us. Instead we spent most of the day in the different mazes, solving some challenges and watching Sarah jump on the jumping pillow. In the end we even played a round of put put. Luckily for us we didn't fill out the score cards. Sarah would have won otherwise.
On the way back to Bindoon, we stopped at a strawberry farm where we bought the most delicious strawberries I've ever tasted in Australia! Just a shame we couldn't fill our van with it.
After checking out the local markets on Sunday, we travelled back to Perth.
