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Published: December 26th 2006
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Merry Christmas!!
We arrived back in Perth on the 23rd December after spending our second week on the road, this time in the South of WA. First off, we had a mammoth drive from Cervantes, all the way past Perth, down to Bunbury, a cute little town we used as a stop over for the night. Nothing eventful to tell you about Bunbury, other than the hostel having the highest population of flies anywhere , ever. Still the beds were pretty comfy and there was a fine festive spirit, with free cake and a newly cut Christmas tree going up. The town also had a couple of really nice coffee shops!
From Bunbury we made our way down to Walpole, a little town on the South coast in Walpole National Park. The town itself was another 'one street wonder' - little more than a supermarket and a bakery, even our host at the Tingle All Over Hostel (yes, that's its real name) found it funny that the pub there closes at 8pm. The hostel was decent, although the couple that ran it were a little, er, eccentric? They were obviously starved for company in this little town, and accosted
James on the Tree Top Walk
The trees around this walkway were 400 years old and were full of brightly coloured birds flying from branch to branch us at ever opportunity to ask 'Where are you kids going today?'
Well, we were off to see the Valley of the Giants of course, the main reason for us visiting the area (as well as the wheat free piazza shop in nearby Denmark, for Joanna!). The 'giants' are, as you can tell from the photos, are huge tingle tingle trees (see, the hostel name isn't SO weird is it? okay, it's still weird) between which a tree-top walk has been constructed. The walkway is a massive steel structure, which looks pretty sturdy from the ground, but when you're up there 40 metres from the ground you realise it swings with the wind and the movement of people marching up and down it, and that's pretty scary!
After surviving this ordeal we continued on to the Ancient Empires walk along the forest floor, posing for some photos in the fantastic, but very strange shaped tingle trees. Later in the day we came across the most giant tingle tree of all, one which people used to park their cars in for photo opportunities - unfortunately, for us, but fortunately for the tree, this has since been banned so Ned
James and Joanna in a Tree Trunk
All of the Tingle Trees we saw had trunks like this, with huge openings above the roots the hire car never did get his tree-shot.
Leaving Walpole behind we headed up the highway again for the main attraction of southern WA - wine, wine, chocolate, cheese, and more wine! Margaret River is Australia's oldest and poshest wine regions so as we headed to our posh hostel, Surfpoint Resort, on the coast we were getting pretty excited. The weather was much cooler here in the south so while we didn't take a dip i the hostels pool, we did dare to test the waters at the nearby beach - it was bloody freezing!! James even compared it to th north sea at one point, but as we didn't die of hypothermia or pollution at any point, i feel he was a little dramatic. Once we were in it was amazing, a real surf and swimming beach with big waves and rampant seaweed! Phil the 'sea dog' joined us for a swim, but the poor pooch didn't understand how waves work and nearly drowned several times.
As well as sampling the surf we got down to the serious business the next day, planing with military precision our own tour of MR's finest wineries and food factories. We
James and Phil the 'Sea Dog'
We have no idea where he came from, but we made friends and hung out for a few hours soon lost all appreciation about tasting all the free samples on offer and over indulged on chocolate and cheese at a ridiculously early hour, considerably damaging our ability to quaff wine samples at various vineyards. But still, like true heroes, we soldiered on and kept up the pretense of actually being interested in the various wines, even tasting them in the 'suggested' order. We did eventually purchase a good red for Christmas to compensate for Joanna's look of disgust when she tasted one particularly awful dessert wine!
Back in Perth, we settled in to our 'home from home' Governor Robinson's Guesthouse, for the festive season, where we will be until our flight on to Adelaide just before the new year. We spent the evening of Christmas Eve at Perth's Moonlight Cinema at Kings Park - we sat there on huge beanbags in front of the big screen and waited of the sun to go down, drinking wine and eating chocolate, it was a great setting and felt really festive!
On Christmas Day we joined the great Aussie Christmas tradition of going to the beach and having a dip! We got there and the sea was full of swimmers
James Amongst the Vines
At the Vasse Felix Winery, the poshest we visited and the most generous with the tasters! sporting Santa hats and reindeer antlers, it was a pretty bizarre sight, the whole Christmas imagery mixed with sun, sea and surfboards! It was pretty hot too, 37 degrees by one account, easily the hottest Christmas Day we've ever experienced, so it was easy to see why the Aussies head for the beach and its no wonder seafood outsells turkey for Christmas lunch here! For our lunch we retreated to the hostel for a barbecue with some friends we'd met the day before, where plenty of wine was consumed. After which we decided to steal the hostel cool box, load it up with free wine and gate-crash another hostel to use its pool - this was a complete success, to our surprise and we rocked up without being noticed by their staff, although there were a few suspicious looks from other residents staying there!
We've also been told to document the establishment of our new sport 'Pan-It', a sort of cricket/rounders hybrid which requires two flip-flops, one ball and a saucepan. The aim of the game, to hit the ball as far as you can (or 'pan it') to score runs between the two flip-flops, without being caught or
Moonlight Cinema
Open air cinema at Kings Park, James has been drinking red wine, can you tell? run out. Simple. Well not when a little wine has gone to your head, Simon (ex-professional international handball player back in his native Switzerland - no joke!) won, with a grand total of nine runs. Anyway, we retired to the hostel exhausted and a little sun burnt, where drinking games were played to the early hours... needless to say, we are still recovering today (but that's what Boxing Day is for, right?).
Anyway, we hope everyone had a great Christmas back in England and we'll be in touch before the New Year!
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Gillian
non-member comment
Happy New Year!
Hiya, Just been catching up on all your latest adventures, I think you should write an epic with the amount of stuff you've been up to! Sounds like you are having an amazing time, really fancy going to australia so I will look forward to reading your journals!! Just been back from Canada a few days, almost didnt get back at all with the BA flights in Heathrow (all domestic flights had been cancelled for 3 days) so werent sure we were going to get back at all. Vancouver was good, bit of a contrast through from the expensive end and 5 blocks away Chinatown which was full of tramps and druggies (not quite as it is made out to be)! Whistler itself where we went skiing was amazing, it was a little winter wonderland. You should have a trip up there and have a skiing lesson if your in the area,3hrs from Downtown vancouver and the shuttle buses are fairly cheap considering it is a 3hr ride. Didnt break any bones and can ski!!!!Yippee! Just as well we didnt book to go to Europe as they have had no snow and has been all over the news as there have been loads of cancelleations! Just got back in time for xmas and have been visiting family so Im a bit knackered, Sunderland beat Leeds 2-0 you will be pleased to know! New year in a few days then back to work for us folks back here (stop laughing!) Hope you have a great new year, loadsa love, Gillian xxx