Day 4 of the Western Australian adventure: Dongara-Denison

We woke up at our hostel in Freo at about 7.30am, had our muesli for breakfast and prepared our lunch for the drive. Today was going to be one of our biggest drives- trying to cover 400km+ north up the coast to Dongara. Unfortunately we didn't get off to a great start getting stuck in traffic for about an hour in Perth, but we soon made a sizable dent in the journey and stopped for lunch to celebrate.

After lunch, which Lucia and I shared with the local swarm of flies, we set off again to drive the next hour or so into Dongara. We'd booked to stay one night at the Priory Hotel; an old colonial building- one of the largest in Dongara. The building was massive with huge rooms, very high ceilings and polished dark wood floorboards throughout. It was lovely, or if you're Lucia, creepy- we did have a whole block of about 10 rooms to ourselves. The Priory itself started life as a public house, then it became a nunnery and boarding school and more recently has become a pub and hotel in one.

At dinner time we went to hunt around the 5 eateries Dongara has to offer. Dongara is famed for its Moreton Bay Figs and locally sourced Crayfish, so we were determined to try at least one of these. After a short while we discovered that of the five restarants, one of them looked pretty poor (and served neither crayfish or figs), two of them were closed for the day, one of them was closed permanently and the other one was, in fact, the Priory Hotel, where we were staying!

Feeling somewhat deflated and betrayed by our trusted Lonely Planet, which had promised such good things, we went to IGA and stocked up on picnic stuff- anti-pasti, bread, cured meats, dippy things and some fruit. And, of course, some cider.

To finish off the night we sat on the massive verandah by ourselves nibbling, sipping and reading before going to bed and watching some Australia's Got Talent. I can now tell you, on the basis of the programme alone, if Australia does have talent, it hides it well.