After a couple of days in Albany, we headed south and west to a beach-camp in West Cape Howe National Park. The surf was pretty fierce, so we didn't venture in for a dip.
We did however find an amusing diversion in sliding down the sand cliffs that had formed on the beach. To get back up to the top however, you had to run as hard as you could up the cliff, the sand collapsing all around you, and with limbs flailing, frantically hurl yourself back over the top before the sand swept you back down.
At Ocean Beach in Denmark I was very excited that the surf was gentle enough for me to use my new boogie board! It's not the flashiest of boards - really just a hunk of polystyrene, but she rode the waves a treat. Having previously poo-pooed my purchase of the board ($2 in an op shop), I could tell Andy was more than a little envious when he saw it in action.
Along the road towards Walpole we stopped in at a honey farm. Here we tried numerous samples of honey mead and scoffed down some honey ice-cream to round off. Needless to say, we were feeling a little queasy by the time we left.
In William Bay National Park we snorkelled around Green's Pool, a natural sea-pool protected from the surf by massive granite boulders.
A short walk away in the shallows we came across the huge huddle of boulders collectively known as Elephant Rocks. You could wade through the crevasses between boulders that form a kind of natural maze.
Around Walpole we entered the famous tall-tree forests of south-western WA. Red Tingle (Eucalyptus jacksonii) is the predominant tall tree in the Valley of the Giants. These monsters grow to around 60 metres, with a circumference around the base of up to 25 metres. The inner trunk tends to get hollowed out by fungus and fire, so the remaining outer layer must flare and buttress outward to retain the tree's stability - hence the enormity of the basal circumference.
With no tap-root and and a very shallow root system, it's a wonder they stand at all!
The big attraction in the Valley of the Giants is the Tree-Top Walk. This narrow walkway is suspended 40 metres up in the canopy of the giant tingles, allowing you a spectacular view usually reserved only for the birds. In case just seeing the canopy isn't enough for you, the walkway also sways with the trees in the wind, so you really get a (somewhat unnerving) taste of life at the top.
Further into the Walpole Wilderness area (a conglomeration of around 8 big tree national parks), we swam in a pool in the Shannon River. This abundance of water made quite a change from the bone-dry Australia we have mostly seen so far.
With our new power source – the solar panels on the roof of the van – we are able to indulge in a couple of little electrical luxuries. In a bold move, Andy decided that he wanted me to learn to trim his mop, so that he can have it done whenever he wants. So we invested in some electric clippers (for about the price of a haircut with a barber), and I got busy. To my great surprise, I did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself!
Back at the coast, we took a walk along the cliff-tops on the wild coast at Windy Harbour.
At window lookout along the walk, a hole in the limestone cliff framed a view down to the waves gnashing at the base of the rock.
Heading back inland, we visited the Gloucester Tree near Pemberton. This 60 metre Karri tree was used as a fire-lookout until the 1960s. Spikes were driven into the side of the tree in a spiral arrangement to provide rungs for the watchmen to scale. Having read about it in the guidebook, I had ambitions of scaling the thing myself.
However, on actually seeing the beast in question I had no hesitation in chickening out. You can't even see the “cabin” at the top in the photo, but it was LONG way up. No sir-ee, no way, na-ah, not climbing that thing.
That night we camped among Californian sequoias in the Tall Tree Arboretum near Pemberton. The morning happened to be cool and crisp. Together with the smell of the sequoias, it was strongly reminiscent of our mornings waking up in the back of a van on the west coast of another continent.
Our arrival at Cape Leeuwin, the most south-westerly point in Australia, marks the transition from travelling westward to travelling northward on our circuit of the continent.
This water-wheel was constructed in 1895 to supply the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse with drinking water from a nearby spring. Incredibly, the tank in which the wheel used to turn has become entirely filled by limestone precipitating out of the spring water, with the wheel itself being half-entombed.
From here we have nowhere to go but north, so north it shall be...
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