Western Australia (Part 1)
Thursday–Sunday November 3 to 6, 2011
We arrived in Perth in the afternoon and walked around the center of the city. We’ve been told (by non–residents) that the sidewalks are rolled up early in Perth. This turns out to be a fable. Perth is a large and pleasant city with a thriving cafe and bar scene.
The next day, Friday, we got up and walked around in the Botanic Garden. It was a cloudy day, and the pictures didn’t come out well. It is a beautiful spot, and well maintained.
We also drove the car out to Fremantle, the nearby port, to see the old markets area, and up north a bit to the well done Aquarium of Western Australia.
On Saturday morning, we left Perth for the Southern Ocean. Once out of Perth, there were few cars on the road. We spotted some bright green parrots and a rabbit or two not long after getting away from the suburbs.
Our lunch was in Kojonup. Note the last two letters, the u and the p. A lot of towns in Western Australia have names ending in those two letters. From what we can tell, those letters are Aboriginal in origin. After lunch, we toured the nearby rose maze. It was somewhat the worse for wear due to a recent storm, but it is a pleasant garden.
After about four hours of driving through forests and farms that resembled those of California, we rolled into Denmark, a somewhat sleepy town, at least on a Saturday afternoon. Then we motored on over to the Greens Pool and Elephant Rock.
The day was sunny and fine. The sea, as can been seen in the photos, was quite calm.
It could be we were early in the season, but there weren’t many people out looking at the sights.
The map comes in early here, to make following along a bit easier. Denmark is to the west of Albany, the city at the bottom right of the map. On the way to our BnB we spotted a family of western grey kangaroos.
On Sunday, we continued the drive west along the coast. Our first stop was the Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk. The nice woman who sold us our tickets said there are over 700 species of gum trees in Australia!
The person with the camera does not enjoy these walks on not perfectly stable bridges up in the forest canopy. It isn’t easy to use a camera that requires two hands while holding on to the bridge for dear life.
The elevation of the bridge is about 130 feet above the ground. The trees are taller.
After the elevated walk, it was good to get back to the ground and on a trail. The forest was very calming, and the trees are big, some as big as an old redwood. I had thought of Australia as a dry place, but isn’t true here. The large tree below is a Tingle.
Next we drove back to the coast, and hiked in a small way to “Conspicuous Cliffs” beach. No one else was there. The water was not as calm as yesterday.
Also in Walpole–Nornalup National Park is a walk up Mt Clare. The sun was out and it was another beautiful walk through a forest. This is the top of the mount.
After this, we moved on to Mandalay Beach. The wind was howling, and it was difficult to stand straight. No people. There’s a rip tide, so swimming is not permitted.
Approaching the town of Pemberton, we turned into Warren National Park to have a look at the tall Karri trees, some of which are nearly 300 feet tall. This photo shows the Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree. Here you can see three German–speaking tourists climbing the tree by hand, one steel rod at a time. The tree is 240 fee tall, and there are 130 rods. Not sure how they got back down.
There are about 700 species of “gum” trees (otherwise known as eucalyptus) in Australia, most of which are more attractive than the gum trees brought over to California.
We will cover the second half of the Western Australia car tour in the next entry.
Lighthouses, wildlife, more beaches and the wine country of Margaret River are ahead.
We flew to Perth and picked up a rental car for a week of driving in the south eastern part of the state.
Next—Margaret River and environs on the way back to Perth.
