A Visitor from Home

We've had Wendy's Mum visiting us in Albany for the last 5 days. Our van really only caters for 2 people, so she stayed in a cabin in the same caravan park, very close to our site. We'd been saving up some of Albany's attractions so we could do them with her. After recovering from the long journey (5 hours Melbourne to Perth, then a 2.5 hour wait at the airport for the one hour shuttle flight down here to Albany) we spent her first full day in the forests around Walpole, 100km or so west. On the way we stopped at the visitor centre in Denmark, which holds the world's largest barometer. This was amazingly interesting, we watched through several of the instrument's 6 minute cycles, as it pumped the air out of a 12 metre high glass tube, causing water to be sucked up from the 'well' below, until it actually boils at room temperature. Once you've read the air pressure by the level of the water, the vacuum is released and the cycle starts all over again. The creator of the barometer has a web-site which tells all about it, see http://www.bertbolle.com/. The visitor centre has other interesting weather related displays, and we ended up spending quite a bit of time looking around. We noticed in the visitor centre that Denmark boasts a number of food related businesses, so we allowed ourselves to be distracted from our intended course to visit a cheese and fudge maker and a Belgian chocolate outlet, both of which were attached to winery cellar doors. Unfortunately we were too early for the berry farm.



Finally back on our intended course, we made our way to the Valley of the Giants treetop walk near Walpole. The 'Giants' referred to are tingle trees, which are not only very tall, but also very wide. They have a strange habit of forming 'buttresses' around their base, which makes them appear to be hollow for the first 10 metres or so, you wonder how such large trees can balance on what appears to be such a flimsy base. There is a 40 metre high walkway built through the treetops, giving a very different perspective on these giants, as well as a more traditional boardwalk at ground level through the forest. Elsewhere in the forest we did a scenic drive which included lookouts providing sweeping views down to the coastline, plus some more walking amongst the trees and rivers.



To get a rest from all the walking, the following day we did a half day boat cruise. Apart from providing some VERY close up encounters with the local wildlife, our captain proved to be very interesting and informative on the history and development of the region, and was a font of knowledge on the origin of various place names. A stop at a winery for some tasting of the local product gave us an opportunity to stretch our legs, then it was back on the boat for some very tasty damper for morning tea. Out of the dozen or so boat cruises we've had so far on this trip, it was one of the most enjoyable, and certainly the one which has gotten us the most up close and personal with the locals!



On Sunday John played golf while Wendy and her mum did a reasonably strenuous 2 hour walk. For an 80 year old who had a bout of cancer last year, Wendy's mum is remarkably fit, and powered up the hills and along a sandy beach at a pace that would put most people half her age to shame. Mind you, she did snatch a quiet nap afterwards..... Albany is a great place for walks, with many national parks within easy reach, and numerous marked walking trails. The cool climate also means that, at this time of year anyway, it is generally good walking weather. Most days we've been here have been in the low 20s, with only one or two getting to 30 or beyond, even when places just up the road are sweltering in tops of up to 40. The ever present sea breeze gets a bit wearing though.



Albany at one stage was a whaling port, and on her last full day with us, we took Wendy's mum to Whaleworld, the old whale processing station. This was surprisingly well laid out and interesting, with memorabilia, photos and videos giving the history of whales and whaling in general and of this whaling station in particular. It was a very bloody business, with the whales being chopped up and boiled down for their oil and to provide fertiliser and animal feed, and the displays didn't gloss over the realities. The whaling station shut down in 1978, and was the last in Australia to do so. Given how emotional whaling is as an issue in Australia, it is amazing to think that not much more than 30 years ago we had our own industry, and that it closed down not due to public pressure but to the age-old economic pressures of increasing costs and decreasing returns. The town was devastated when the whaling station closed, and many of the men who worked there left with their families and never returned.



We had a great time with Wendy's mum, especially with it being so close to Christmas. WA is a long way away from both our families, so it was really nice to have a bit of Christmas family cheer.



Couldn't resist a photo of dog rock, right in the middle of town. They didn't need to paint a collar on it for you to understand how it got its name!

TV Deja Vu

Regular readers may recall the saga we had with out TV a few months ago, which was eventually resolved by replacing the set with a new one. Well as we turned on the TV on Sunday morning to watch the golf, guess what, no reception! We tried to auto tune again, but the set refused to find any of the channels. Worried that it may be our aerial we took it off to a TV repair place to check it out, but still no reception there either.

So now the TV is at the manufacturer approved service centre here in Albany awaiting a new mother board to be sent from Melbourne. Hopefully it will arrive in a few days and resolve the issue. Why does this always seem to happen when the cricket is about to start!

Settled in Albany

We're now in Albany, on the south coast of WA. We're planning to stay here a month, as there is a lot to see and do in the area, plus they have a very nice golf course. Although the golf club doesn't have a temporary membership, because we said we would be coming regularly for a while they have welcomed us into their competitions, and given us a note to say we can have reduced green fees. We've already played several games each, and for the first time since Darwin have actually managed to win something, albeit only a couple of NTPs for Wendy and a ball down the line for John. Still, we're hopeful for better by the time we leave.

Albany was the first town settled in WA, and is the port from which the ANZACs departed on their way to the battlefields of WWI. We did an interesting heritage walk around some of the early buildings, although the brig shown above with John at the wheel is a replica of the one that brought the first group of settlers. Albany is also quite hilly, so there are several spectacular lookout points over the large sheltered harbour. It is quite a large town, providing good shopping and a weekend farmers market, where we have stocked up on beautiful fresh vegies, fruit (in particular some gorgeous cherries) and fish.

In between games of golf we spent a day at the Porongorup National Park, about 30km north of Albany, doing a fairly strenuous walk up the massive granite outcrops (and down and up again). The tree in the photo on the left with Wendy at the base has grown straight up through a rock, it must have taken a lot of force to push its way through. The views from the top of the outcrops were spectacular, north to the Stirling Ranges NP (site of another walk we intend to do before we leave) and south to the distant coastline. Like many of the parks in WA they have a problem with a fungus called 'dieback', which attacks the roots of plants and causes them to, well, die back. We dutifully cleaned our shoes at each of the control points, using the very manky toilet brush supplied - it seemed to transfer more dirt to our shoes than it got off, but at least we tried. For a change of pace, on the way home from Porongorup NP we stopped in at a couple of the wineries in the area and picked up some excellent riesling, we'll have to make a return visit before we leave Albany if the supplies start to get a bit low.

Manjimup

We've very much enjoyed our time here at Manjimup, and this isn't just because we've had 5 games of golf while here. The lush farmland and spreading forests provide a very pretty backdrop, although the overly friendly flies are a bit of a drawback.

As well as several games of golf, we've also had a couple of tourist days out since our previous post. The relatively high rainfall in this region, as well as enabling the aforementioned farmland and forests, also means there are quite a few rivers. Where there are rivers, there are, of course, river cruises, and we do like a good river cruise. This one was down the Donnelly River, through the D'Entrecasteaux National Park to the Southern Ocean. The boat ramp where we boarded the cruise is the last road access to the river, the boat then cruises downstream through mostly wilderness forest to a wide, deserted sandy beach (shown in the photo at left). Unfortunately the Southern Ocean is way too cold and wild for a quick dip, but we had a nice walk on the sand. The home made muffins for afternoon tea on the way back upstream were pretty welcome too!

On our other tourist day we headed to a place called Windy Harbour, which luckily didn't live up to its name for us. This is a collection of weekender and fishing shacks, slap in the heart of the D'Entrecasteaux NP. They date from before the national park was declared, but the government has allowed them to remain. However, there is nothing else there, not even a general store. The wild coast line is pretty spectacular though, and we spotted a migratory whale coming up for air. On the way home we stopped at a town called Northcliffe, which has an unusual sculpture park. We aren't terribly arty, but we enjoyed walking around spotting the sculptures set into the native bushland, accompanied by an audio tour with the artists explaining the intent of each sculpture and how it was created. After all, if you weren't told would you have guessed that the welcome archway shown at right 'embodies the colours of the bush, including flashes of red from the tails of parrots'?