Day 23 Walpole to Albany – Cider and Mead

Today we moved on from Walpole, destination Albany around 130km so not a big drive. We got away about 9.30 ish and meandered our way through the forest. 

Elephant Rock Cidery - Where's Dougal?

Old timber boat fully restored Denmark WA

View from the caravan window

First stop was the the Elephant Rock Cider company. We tasted a few ciders and local produce made a few purchases and headed off once more. Only a few km’s down the road was our next stop. There are a number of these places around South west WA and it’s taken some time to find one open. The attraction in question is a meadery which is making wine from honey. Mead is wine made from honey rather than grapes and is the oldest fermented beverage known to man. It can be traced back at least 5,000 years dating back through antiquity to Nordic legends and non-mythological history. During these times the bee was held in high regard as honey was considered ‘the giver of life’, courage, strength and wisdom. It is different and I think an acquired taste, which I didn’t acquire never the less a worthwhile experience. Denmark came over the horizon shortly thereafter and we stopped for coffee and a break. This is  a nice little town and one that would have been worth a longer visit. On the road again and it was pretty much straight to the caravan park at Emu point, which is a suburb of Albany. The park is right on King George Sound where it meets Oyster Harbour. Not a bad outlook for us trailer folk. It was a bit wind and cold on our arrival so the afternoon was pretty relaxed.

Day 22 Walpole – Forest giants and water holes

Our main aim for staying at Walpole was to go to the Valley of the Giants treetop walk and Ancient Empire Boardwalk during our planning session we discovered there was a scenic route which offered good views back over the coast and a walk into view a giant tingle tree. 

View back towards Walpole from lookout near Giant Tingle tree

Base of giant tingle tree

This was unusual

more of the giant tingle tree

 These tingle trees have very tenuous hold on mother earth but are huge and up to 400 years old. They have incredible character in their trunks and most of the older ones are hollow in side. There is a picture in the discovery centre of one that was used as a garage for an old Holden. The tree, unfortunately, fell over a few years back, not sure if the car was still parked in it at the time. We then followed a dirt track up to the circular pond which was a spectacular water fall and rapids. 

Circular pool

Section of the Forest walk suspension walk way

The water was the colour of coffee and covered in a foam layer. The foam is caused by an excretion from the trees that line the river and not pollution and in places had to be a metre thick.. It called the circular pond because of the way the water rotates around the pond. From there it was on to the Treetop Walk. This is very different to the Colac fly in that there is no cantilever just the suspension walk way up to 40 mtrs above the forest floor. It’s like walking on a swing bridge and very disconcerting at times. The trees here are huge both in height and circumference. You are only allowed 20 people per section at any one time and 10 people on each of the landings. The place is well set up and enjoyable. By now it was mid-afternoon so we headed back to camp. Gaz and I wanted to get the kayaks on the water and do a spot of fishing. We ended up out for about 2 hrs on the water. Got a lot of small black bream but no keepers but it was enjoyable. Wendy tried her hand at fishing from the jetty with Laura and managed to land 5 – all undersize – black bream , not  bad effort for the novice.

Day 21 Pemberton to Walpole – Breakfast Treats

Today is another “travel” day from Pemberton to Walpole not a huge distance about 130kms all up. We had been discussing with Laura the merits of a trip to the berry farm and well last minute decision we decided to pack and have breakfast at Lavender and berry farm. So we hooked up and headed off.

Breakfast

Plants around the Berry and lavender farm 

Plants around the Berry and lavender farm

 What can I say other than it was a fantastic little interlude to the start of the days trip. Apart from the scrumptious mixed berry pancakes with berry sauce and ice cream the surrounds, gardens and the beautiful day made it just a great start. We opted for the small size, thank god, the large one would have fed a small nation. As we partook of our fare we were visited by fairy wrens with a large variety of colour and a friendly bandicoot which popped in and out as we ate. It was a fitting end to Pemberton as we quite liked the place. After that it was pretty much a straight drive to Walpole. We had been given the heads up on a nice park to stay at, right on the river feeding into Nornalup inlet.. At the moment its ok a bit run down but the site fees reflect that but wouldn’t like to be here during the high season. You would never get near the one toilet/shower block. In that vein I’m not sure what it is with our body clocks that says when you age starts to get into the 50's your bladder will shrink and it will be necessary to go to the dunny at least once or twice during the night. I mean there can be no other reason for it – I don’t drink any more than I used to, in fact I probably drink less. And then you get up in the morning enjoy your morning coffee and start heading off, you guessed it that’s the trigger your brain says “toilet time” 45 minutes later were on the road and I have to go again. I guess I have raised this cause we are in caravan parks and the need to go in the wee small hours (no pun intended) requires a sprint of some distance. I wonder what 60 will bring?

Day 20 Pemberton and Yeagarup sand dunes

The Yeagarup Forest, lake and sand dunes in the D’Entrecasteaux National Park are a site to behold. The dunes are the biggest land locked, mobile dunes in Australia and move a couple of metres each year, inland. You are permitted to drive over them and it provides beach access. A challenge we could not pass up. We made it there and back without getting bogged, although the BT50, at times, resembled a bulldozer. I also may have been a bit exuberant in my attacking the dunes on the way in. 

Yeagerup Dunes

Yeagerup Dunes

images from heartbreak trail

Heartbreak trail

 This lead to some lengthy discussions on my driving prowess and detracted somewhat from the otherwise pleasant experience. Lost a few brownie point I did, however, I took the critique on board and the return journey was acceptable. We captured a fair bit on the Gopro and I must say the footage provides a better perspective even if its upside down. (I forgot to invert the camera image – more lost brownie points). From there it was on to the Warren National Park and we followed Heartbreak trail through the park. This is a very picturesque track and was a fitting end to the day. Tomorrow its on the road again.

Day 19 Augusta – Pemberton. Has the weather final broken?

Our brief stay at Augusta has come to an end and we are moving on to Pemberton. It’s only a short hop (as in fact our next few will be) of about 140 kms. There are a couple of stops for us on the way for a bit of sightseeing. The first was Beedelup Falls in the Beedelup National Park. With all the rain etc we have had the falls were in full flight and quite spectacular. We walked the loop track, which returned by a swing bridge across the falls back to the car park. It was a great spot and a refreshing stop on our travels. Onward to Pemberton and it would appear that the weather may be on the improve with only a few light showers so far. We decided to stay at the Pemberton Caravan Park for two nights and checked in just after lunch. This afternoon we decided that we would have a look at the Gloucester Tree.  

Beedelup Falls

Guess Who???

Beedelup Falls swing bridge

Gloucester Tree

Gaz and Laura on the decent

The Gloucester Tree was chosen as a fire lookout in 1947, one of a network of lookouts built in the Karri forest between 1937 and 1952. The Gloucester Tree was named after the then Governor-General of Australia, His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, who was visiting Pemberton as the lookout was being built. Today, visitors can climb up the 61m to see one of the most spectacular views of the Karri forest.  Gaz and Laura accepted the challenge to climb on behalf of the group with me at bottom supervising and planning (in the event assistance was required). They made the accent and decent without a hitch and were duly applauded for their efforts – it was no mean feat. A number of others attempted while we were there and each successful trip was greeted with applause. I made 8 steps and was well satisfied! And that about finished our day.

Day 18 Augusta – The meeting of two oceans

The weather has moderated a little today and our real goal today was the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse. The lighthouse is still fully functional although totally automated these days but the grounds are open to the public and there are guided tours of the lighthouse. The grounds tour includes and audio device for each person which relates the key feature of each of the exhibits and provided a wealth of anecdotes and history, some being recounted by one of the last lighthouse keepers. 

Where's Dougal????

Yep is that bloody cold

Cape Leeuwin Light house

Water wheel originally used to pump waster to the lighthouse

Three of us went on the guided tour of the lighthouse. It was 138 steep steps but well worth the trip. My knee and back didn’t give me too much grief (managed to get some anti inflammatories to help). The point at Cape Leeuwin is the meeting of two oceans – the Southern Ocean and the Indian Ocean - with the lighthouse slap bang in the middle. Today they both seemed to be fighting for superiority. Once we ascended the steps and stepped out on to the platform around the light the wind hit us and it was ferocious but what an outlook. Well worth the money. The lighthouse is the highest in Australia and is still used as a navigation aid today. We had noticed, not for the first time, that the lights revolve during the daylight hours which seemed strange. The reasons, we have discovered, for this is that the light actually sits on a bed of mercury and so requires very little in the way of effort to keep it rotating and that if the prisms stop they can concentrate the rays of the sun on a spot and start a grass/bush fire. After the tour and walk around the grounds it was off to the coffee shop for coffee and scones – Coffee very good scones good.

After lunch with the weather looking ok Gaz, Laura and I went fishing (I guess you could call it that) of the beach near the van park. Lots of bites, lots of lost bait, 4 small bream safely returned to the briny sea. Very pleasant afternoon. Tomorrow we move on to Pemberton.

Day 17 Yallingup to Augusta

You know sometimes you shouldn’t let your guard down. The weather has been less than friendly over the last week with gale force winds, rain, more rain and more wind. I thought last night (for a fleeting moment) that it had passed. It hadn’t, over night rain belted down and the wind blew. In between the wind and the rain we managed to pack albeit the tents were still saturated. We pulled out about 10ish with our first stop Gabrielle’s Chocolates. This was only about 20 km’s down the road so not a long first leg. We only had about 90kms to do today anyway so it was never going to be a long day. The wild weather has created a bit of a mess with lots of debris, branches etc all over the roads. We slowed our pace a bit due to the winds and the uncertainty of what might be around the corner. The debris on the road wasn’t so much dangerous more a nuisance with the possibility it would damage something. I made the comment to Di about this after we went over a particularly large branch and it bounced around under the car which concerned Di. The omen was to come true but more on that later. The choc master at Gabriel’s was very knowledgeable on chocolate which you would expect him to be. It was interesting how the flavours change subtly with the different beans even when making the same product.  Gabriel’s under our belt (cause you can never have too much chocolate) we continued south to the Lake Cave. 

Cavern down to the entrance to the entrance of Lake Cave

Straw stalactites

There are a multitude of caves in these parts so we picked one. It’s well serviced and has a great information/reception area and the deck overlooking the cave entrance is quite spectacular. I have elected not to do the cave as there are over 300 steps and the way my back and knee have been going I would have put a sizable bet on me not making the first landing. Di and the rest of our intrepid travellers, however, did go down. The summary of accounts would indicate it was spectacular and thanks to Laura for acting as my photographer. From there it was straight into Augusta and the Flinders Bay Caravan Park. This park is a council run park and is closed 3 months of the year. It had only been open a week when we arrived. It’s a nice surprise and appears to be well run, clean and has some great hedging around some sites. This has given us some reprieve from the winds and rain. After we had set up we just dagged around for the remainder of the day. As for the omen as we set up the new water pump in the van was going flat out but no water. We traced the problem to a broken drain tap on the water tank, some debris had obliviously bounced up and clobbered the drain tap and emptied our water tank. We fixed the problem in about 15 minutes between showers of rain. Thanks to Gaz for crawling under the van.