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Published: January 1st 2011
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After Pemberton we did a quick trip to Manjimup and the Cherry Festival, not much to write about there and we decided as we made for the Shannon National Park to go straight to Walpole and stay in a caravan park for showers and a camp kitchen. At Walpole we negotiated a $10 discount into the dodgier of two caravan parks, the camp kitchen was not worth using, the dryers didn't work and it was all just a bit old and run down. But the people were nice, the view was beautiful and the showers were hot. Belinda prepared us a meal that just passed due to some sun dried tomato pesto and we slept, got up early and got out.
We were in a hurry, not because the place was dodgy but because we had a big day ahead. First stop, the Giant Tingle Tree, this thing is a huge Red Tingle Tree. There are three types of Tingle Tree (an obscure type of Eucalypt), Yellow, Red and the Rates Tingle Trees, they only grow in a 6000 hectare area in Western Australia and nowhere else in the world. Red Tingle Trees are the biggest and can grow up to 75m, they have a massive but before tapering quite rapidly as they go up. Remarkably a huge amount of these trees have a hollow butt, apparently the heart wood often gets burnt out in bush fires but so long as there is bark and a thin layer of wood they will continue to live and grow. A short walk from the car park brought us to the Giant Tingle Tree, honestly you could park two small cars inside the butt of this tree, it is truly amazing.
From this great tree we then went to the Valley of the Giants and the Treetop Walk. This was a great value attraction, the walk is five 60m spans suspended on poles through the forest climbing to a height of 40m, it was a great way for people who couldn't tackle the climbing Karri trees to get an idea of the height of these massive trees. Unlike other Treetop walks I've done this one is not a return trip but actually turns 90 degrees at each pole and does a round trip dropping you at the start of a ground level walk through a clump of giant Tingle Trees. I was so close to getting the wildlife photo of the year here and if I hadn't had my family waiting for me I could possibly have stayed there all day until I got it. There were hovering bees that kept hovering above me but every time I'd get my camera focussed they'd dart off. I tried for 15min or so while the family waited for me, eventually in frustration I wished for a fly swat and slumped off to easier photos.
Back at the gift shop/entrance/exit the guy who had taken our entry fee had gathered together a bag of things for the kids, and not just dodgy brochures, there was actually two really good quality books as well as info brochures , stickers and various things for their journals. It was very kind of him and I highly recommend this place to anyone passing through the Walpole area.
Again back to the car and heading East, we stopped at the toffee factory where they make really god toffee but surprisingly they also make the best pickles, mayonnaise's, jambs and other condiments that I have ever eaten, we couldn't go past a jar of their Lemon myrtle and black pepper mayonnaise.
Jump in the car again, starving now and it was a short 20min to the Green Pools for lunch and a swim. Green Pools is beautiful, so nice that my photos will be going to my website not here (go there to see them). The West Australian coast around these parts get pretty amazing, really rugged with big boulders the size of houses dotting the shorelines and massive granite cliffs dropping into the ocean. At the Green Pools there is a line of these big granite domes rising out of the water a good fifty metres off the headland, they stretch right around the front of the headland for about 200m providing a sheltered and safe swimming hole that has shallows and plenty of areas well over my head. All along the outer line of rocks there is shallow channels open to the sea which is incredibly blue, rough and cold here. Green Pools is irresistible for a swim, the water is a crystal clear Emerald green, quite icy at first but once in it was good for about 20min, so we had a dive around the rocks and a bit of fun before getting out and dry and taking the 500m walk around the headland to the Elephant Cove.
Elephant Cove is much more sheltered than Green Pools and had we gone their first we would have swum their instead. It gets its name from the large granite rock formations that cluster one end with just a few dotting the water which look quite a bit like elephants all grouped together. Once again the water was clear, clean and green but it really wasn't warm enough to go in twice. We enjoyed a little potter around then hiked back up to a car park near ours where disaster struck. As I was strapping Zali into her seat I once again (like in Fitzroy Crossing a year ago) put my wallet on the roof of the car and drove off leaving it lying behind with all my qualifications, credit cards and $100 in cash inside. It was only 15min later that I realised but it was already gone. Putting it bluntly, my afternoon was ruined for quite a while.
It took an hour or so to get my spirits back, by then we were at Cosy Corner, a little camp ground where we stopped for a cup of tea and some biscuits. We also made the decision to carry on to Albany and our camp site for the next few nights, Glen Echo.
Glen Echo is a nice little farm out the Eastern side of Albany, the owners have some camp facilities there which they let the Scripture Union use for their camps. We were given the contact through some friends back in Perth and our wonderful friend Sally Westlake drew us a mud map to get here. Lets just say that we realised as the sun was sinking, the fuel running low and my patience wearing thin that Sally Westlake does not make a great Cartographer. We actually got quite close, missing only by 5km or so before driving up the wrong highway about 20km before turning back for Albany to get petrol. Finally on the way back we got a break, stopping at the Bakers Junction service station for fuel a very nice and very helpful lady showed us where we went wrong and directed us to the right spot, then just to ensure our fuel buying loyalty she gave us 3 pies. Finally we arrived at Glen Echo just before dark, and were blown away by the view over Oyster Harbour and the Kalgin River. We set up, showered and got to bed.
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