Day 7 of our WA trip... and I had difficulty believing that 7 days had already elapsed. We headed south from Margaret River today, heading through Augusta to Cape Leeuwin, then heading back up stopping along the way at Jewel Cave, then up to the Margaret River Chocolate Company (like you didn't see that one coming).

Here we're at our first stop, the most south-westerly point of the Australian continent. Just beyond the lighthouse the Indian Ocean on the right gives way to the Southern Ocean on the left. The winds that strike this area are something to behold. Although the structure has weathered them for almost 120 years now, it hasn't been without incident; the tour guide mentioned that not so long ago the (very sturdy steel) doors that you see at the base had been blown off by winds reaching... I don't recall the speed that he mentioned, but a not insignificant one.

The lighthouse was constructed in 1895 to help reduce the number of shipwrecks that were occurring in the area. The original light was kerosene based, and the kerosene needed to be brought up from the ground. You hardly had need of bench presses then. We walked to the top of it (a bit under 200 steps) but it wasn't lugging kerosene cans.

Behind me are (most of) the various keeper's cottages, though the lighthouse was fully automated around 1992, I believe. In the early years it would be the 3rd lighthouse keeper's task to obtain firewood for the cottages, and there is very little around here. He would often have to drive the bullock dray up to Augusta, the nearest town. It's 8km away, but remember that we're talking bullock dray here. Firewood or not, you'd certainly need to be hardy to live out there, and capable of amusing yourself in the time before the Internet.

After the lighthouse was built there was only one ship lost; the SS Pericles, a twin screw steamer which, oops, hit an uncharted rock which wouldn't have been hit had the captain not cut the corner. Clearly some things never change. The Pericles was operated by... wait for it... the White Star Line.

If I had the 40D I'd have been inclined to use a circular polarising filter on this shot. But as it turned out the Olympus kinda-sorta gave the same effect, at least in the upper part of the frame. I was quite happy with how this one turned out.