The South West

In the morning we explored Betty’s Beach, however impending rain led us to pack up quickly and head into Albany.

Albany is a town drenched in history.  Within the calm waters of King Georges Sound thousands of soldiers touched Australian soil for the last time almost a hundred years ago as they left for World War One. We paid our respects at ANZAC Memorial, where the first dawn service in Australia was held. The memorial overlooked the town and surrounding waters and our time there was peaceful yet oddly chilling.

Although there is a vast array of activities to do in Albany most are in the great outdoors, Michael and I were ambitious about what we wanted to achieve, but in the end the torrential rain prevailed and we gave up. We camped nearby at Cosy Corner and returned to Albany in the morning. We ventured through the local markets and could not resist the temptation of cheap macadamias; however we later discovered that a regular nut cracker will not work on their wilful shells and have since perfected the art of nut cracking with a hammer. Rather proud. We stocked up the camper with all the necessities and left town.

We drove through Denmark (turns out it’s actually in Australia!) and popped into the Information Centre. Whilst browsing through the brochures one word caught our eye – Meadery. And with that our afternoon plans were made, next stop Bartholomews Meadery.

We tasted all sorts of honey, checked out a working beehive, complete with a rather large queen bee and sampled “the drink of the gods” - Mead.  Time and money well spent. Eventually we left and started down the road until we saw a sign entitled “toffee and cider store, tastings.” After this slight detour we wound up at Parry’s Beach for the night. A shady campsite just off the beach with potentially warm showers (solar showers, enter at your own risk!). Turns out they were borderline warm so we cleaned up and were soon tucked in for the night.

View from the tree tops.

The next morning we were up, on the road and marvelling at the surrounding scenery. The woodland is primarily karri, marri and jarrah forest, with small patches of tingle trees. An attraction taking advantage of the massive size of these trees (up to 90m), is the Valley of the Giants treetop adventure walk (similar to the tree top walk in the Otway’s, Victoria minus the flying foxes). We walked upon a bridge 40 metres high in the canopy of the giant trees, the bridge was designed to sway slightly so you feel as if you are in the trees. Michael decided to test the structural integrity of the bridge, his duty as an engineer apparently, and we were rocking (and potentially some other tourists too…). We gradually descended and then walked through a forest of Giant Tingle Trees. The trees are massive and are extremely wide at the bottom, once upon a time (50’s-80’s) people used to park their cars in the hollow of the giant tingle trees but because of their small root system too many trees had fallen over and thus the walkways have been provided. We did have the opportunity to walk through some of the hollows and even see the Giant Tingle tree (300 years old) with a girth of 24 metres!

Were in the hollow of a Tingle Tree!

 That afternoon we drove through picturesque forest and eventually through Nornalup and Warpole (great names to say aloud). Eventually it was time to retire for the evening, so we headed to Banksia Campsite via a sandy 4x4 track. The campsite had an awesome “lodge” with undercover benches and very open air bedrooms. We pulled up next to the lodge and spent the next couple of days in camping style. Whilst at Banksia campground we also met a lovely fellow by the name of Jason, who had come to fish and get away from the wife and kids for a few days. We ended up sharing a couple of camp fires with Jason and getting to know a lot about him – if you ever want to learn about someone sit around a fire for a few hours with them. We exchanged stories and ideas of places to go. We explained to Jason that one of the issues that we’d had in the past was when talking to travellers was that people often recommended places based on the fishing available, however we had no clue how to fish so would generally nod, smile and move on. Jason decided he had a solution to our conundrum, to teach us how to fish. So one slightly cold afternoon with the rain threatening we went down to the beach and finally got clued in about this whole fishing thing. Michael even caught a couple of fish! We left Banksia rested, rejuvenated and eager to get a rod and go fishing!

Banksia Lodge.

                                    

On the way north we decided to check out a secluded and recommended campsite, Centre Road Crossing. When we arrived we spotted a lovely river and an alluring 4x4 track awaiting on the other side. The “cross at own risk – severe damage to vehicles” sign was slightly off putting, but we decided to give it a go anyway.  In hindsight with some good placement a falcon could probably cross this (stupid anxiety provoking sign).  A fork in the road offered two options to our destination and like Les Murray’s poem we took the road less travelled by. Unfortunately our road was so less travelled by that eventually the trees encroached on the track to a point where the hulk was feeling uncomfortable. After some serious reversing and a gazillion point turn we were on our way to the road more travelled. Huzzah!

We eventually arrived at Fernhook Falls and Circular Pool, explored the area and wished that we had a canoe or summer with us. Continuing with the foresty feel of the region we drove on the Great Forest Trees Drive, complete with interpretive signs and its very own radio station. Fast fact – in the days of yore, before bulldozers and water bombers, firemen would rake a fire break by hand 300m wide along the fire front . Shannon campground proved to be a great campsite for the night with donkey showers and firewood provided (for cooking only…). One of the biggest campfires of our trip produced a splendid camp-oven casserole – yum!

The next day found us staring 70 metres into the sky to a platform built upon a majestic Karri tree towering over the surrounding woodland. Turns out again in the days of yore, fire fighting was epic. Firemen were required to climb steal rungs implanted into tall trees to look upon the surrounding forest and spot smoke/fires. There are a few of these tree towers still standing today, now as tourist attractions, including The Bicentennial Tree. I should mention that there are no safety ropes, no nets and absolutely no sane reason why you would think climbing the tree would be a great idea, but we thought we’d give it a go anyway.  The rungs were fairly spaced apart and the continual need to look down as you climbed up was slightly off putting. In the end I made it as far as the 25 metre platform midway up the tree and Michael made it to the top, 70 metres above the ground! 

After our climbing escapades we explored Pemberton and its surrounds and then somehow stumbled upon Beedelup Falls National Park. The falls were quite stunning but the main attraction for us was the Swing Bridge!!  Again Michael’s duty as an engineer was to test the structural integrity of the bridge. This involved us jumping individually, together, running up and down the bridge and side to side. We gave the bridge our seal of approval then moved on when some tourists spotted us making wallies of ourselves.

That night we picked the campsite with the funniest name to sleep at – thus we camped at Snottygobble Loop. In the morning we decided it was time for some more 4x4 action and headed into D’Entrecasteaux National Park and to Lake Jasper.  The lake was a picturesque mirror in the early morning sun. Turns out there was also a stunning campsite here not mentioned in our bible – the Camps Book. So with places to go and things to see we continued out of the park and headed onto the Margaret River Region.

Lesson of the week: One must realise that when dating an engineer boy structural integrity tests are common place.