Day 13 | Dunsborough: down at the Indian Ocean again
70 km | zzOz total: 623 km
There’s not many tourist attractions I’ll pay money to see but today I made an exception.
Actually it’s more than exception, I’ve gone some way out of my way to come back to Busselton. Might have just gone cross country direct to Augusta. Would have saved a day or two.
But then I would have missed out on today’s fun ride down from the hills, for once not much up and a whole lot of down.
And then the pier.
You can tell I’m excited. It was closed for renovation when I headed up this way, 13 months ago.
It’s the Southern Hemisphere’s longest projection over ocean, 1800m, or more than a mile. If the northern competitor is longer I suggest you pack lunch.
Construction started in 1865 and it was extended 9 times, the most significant back in 1911. But it hasn’t been used by shipping much for the last 50 years. Seemed to be used most by brave souls out fishing on mid-winters day, hauling in the occasional too small catch.
Along the excursion there’s about 20 little literary markers, ranging from the Splish, Splosh, Splash School of Poetry, one liners about an introduction to the 300 species of fish living under the pier, “Pleased to meet you, pleased to meet you, etc”, “It’s hard work meeting an octopus”, to the more substantial, a reminisce about a bloke having travelled the world with his girlfriend, when he finally brought her to his home town she just couldn’t understand the significance of the pier, or much else it seemed.
A thickly overcast day, no way of telling the time there, no wind, silvery sea, the cliched leadened sky, not many people around, basically highly surreal, a small, unsettling, ocean swell pulsing almost subliminally.
$2.50. I got my money’s worth.