In the shadow of Giants

---

If there’s such a place as Europe in Australia then I think we’ve found it: the South-West. Between the forests, the vineyards and the hills it’s often a little like Germany.

Since my last report we’ve traveled further down. We were in Yallingup, on the northern end of the ‘bulge’ of South-West WA and we’re now in Denmark, on the southern side. A different ocean crashes onto the shores here, the Pacific Ocean -although the Australians call it the Southern Ocean.

We continued our wine and food tasting with a visit to Vasse Felix Estate, quite a large vineyard north of Margaret River who make a very impressive range of reds and whites. We tasted most of them, from their entry level wines up to the flagship reserves and even after visiting some more wineries afterwards, I have to say that they probably produce some of the best wines in the region, especially if you take price into account. They also had a Noble Riesling, a desert wine, which they had to stop making because the noble rot they introduced into the grapes was hopping the fence into their neighbors’ vineyards. Instead they’ve now moved onto the ‘cane cut’ method which is an interesting way of making late harvest (sweet) wines in which they sever the stems of about eight in ten bunches of grapes so they concentrate to the point where they’re almost raisins. In the press, the grapes that were left connected to the plant and as a result haven’t dried out supply the liquid, while the ‘raisins’ supply the intense flavors. This is a method which is apparently used quite a bit in Italy although I had never heard of it. The Cane Cut Semillion they sell is a very interesting fresh desert wine and although it doesn’t have the particular characteristics of a noble wine, it’s quite good.

Continuing south, we visited Margaret River, a nice small town at the heart of the region. I had expected lots of shops selling local produce and was a bit disappointed by what was on offer, especially when it comes to meats and cheeses, but we did find one very good shop where we bought prosciutto, salami and a type of air-dried beef which reminded me a lot of the stuff they have in Austria. Combined with a cellar-door only Vasse Felix Shiraz, we had yet another rough afternoon and evening. We stayed on a campground in the Leeuwin-Naturaliste NP, in the forest and just a few kilometers from the coast which we reached by a pretty rough 4WD track. The fire was nice and necessary as the night temperature dipped quite a bit again. In the morning we set out for some final wine tasting at Watershed Wineries before driving south and east for our longest drive so far, but at less than 200km we still have very little to complain about.

We found a really cool campground in Warren NP, next to Pemberton and in the middle of a Karri forest. There are several species of giant hardwood trees in this part of Australia and the Karri trees are the tallest. They grow up to 90 meters high and because they are quite thin, this makes for really impressive forests where you sometimes literally can’t see the forest for the trees. Our campsite was by the river, surrounded by these massive trees and it was beautiful. Especially in the morning when the sun cut through the damp, misty air throwing beams of light into the forest.

One of the biggest Karri trees in this area at 75 meters, the Bicentennial Tree can be climbed. I saw it somewhere in a brochure and thought that would be cool so we went out there in the morning. In a small clearing stands a truly massive tree which has had metal rods driven into it in the 80's to form a sort of giant staircase leading all the way up the trunk. Where the trunk ends and the crown starts, they’ve built a four story tree-house with ladders so you can climb all the way up above the canopy of the forest. Sounds great in theory, right? Well it’s plenty scary! The rungs are far enough apart that you could theoretically fall through them if you slip and it’s HIGH. I think that’s the scariest thing I’ve done in a long time. Going up was alright, although quite the exercise, but coming down you have no choice but to look down at where you’re placing your feet and so you look straight down to the ground to the tiny people crawling like ants below you. Janine is not a fan of heights and wisely decided to stay on the ground; I don’t think she would’ve enjoyed the climb much.

Leaving the Karri forest behind, we traveled further east towards Walpole and the giant Tingle trees. These are another type of giant hardwood tree and are a bit more like the redwoods in California in that they are not only high, but also have a wide base. The regular fires here cause the base to split open and as the trees grow, they develop hollow shelters at the bottom, some big enough to park your car in! Apparently this used to be a big thing in the past; people came up and drove their car into the Giant Tingle Tree and took a picture of it. Of course that's impossible nowadays with the whole 'sustainable tourism' thing so now you've got to settle for parking yourself inside for a photo.

The whole of the south-west used to be covered in giant hardwoods but most of these trees have been cut down. Originally just because they were considered to be a nuisance and needed to be cleared to make room for agriculture, and later for the wood. Luckily quite large swathes of forest have been spared so you can still spend most of the day driving through the trees and being impressed by just hw big they are. It's also interesting that the aboriginals that used to live in this region didn't actually live in the forest as they consider it a place of bad spirits, something having to do with the 'bad serpent' (in other words not the rainbow sperpent who is the creation mother come back to earth) living there.

One of the tourist attractions in the Tingle forest is the Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk which is a metal boardwalk that runs -as one might expect- into the canopy so you can walk among the treetops. It’s not as high as the bicentennial tree but at 40 meters it’s still quite an experience. The floor is made out of metal grates so you can look straight down and because they wanted to make a non-invasive structure -the whole thing only occupies 4 square meters of forest floor, incredibly- it sways somewhat when you walk on it. I thought it was great and although Janine still had to conquer her fear of heights a little, in the end she also enjoyed the unique view this gives you. The forests are absolutely filled with birds who spend their days flitting around the tree tops and quite besides that, the trees themselves offer an impressive sight.

With predictions of the weather turning bad, we decided to spend one more day camping ‘in the wild’ before possibly being forced indoors by the weather. My map had a nice campground listed just on the coast not too far from Walpole so we decided to check it out. Parry Beach; a beautiful spot in the forest just next to a rocky bay. Absolutely perfect. Their hot showers were out for the moment but at $3,50 each we weren’t complaining. Even national park campgrounds without facilities charge almost double that. So we fished (mostly in vain, again. But again we weren’t the only ones) and sat by the fire. The morning was still quite good after a bit of early rain but as we were packing up the rain started in earnest so we decided to find something with a roof for the night which turned out to be a massive triple-axle caravan just outside of Denmark. It can sleep six people and there’s an enclosed area in front of it with a dining table, sofas and double bed and -most importantly- a gas heater. It costs us one dollar a night more than we would pay for a tiny room with a double bed in the hostel in town so it's a pretty fair deal. I honestly don't know why hostels in this area are so expensive. They think nothing of charging upwards of 25 dollars a night for a dorm bed and we're not exactly in the high season. We then bought loads of food again; local cheeses, a blade roast, pumpkin and potatoes, so we’ve decided to stay one more night here, also because Janine is a little bit under the weather and it will be good for her to stay out of the cold.

Ironically, apart from a bit of rain last night, it’s actually warmer in the morning than it has been the last week or so, but the forecasts say more showers and then thunderstorms for a few days so we’ll probably head back north a bit sooner than expected. No real problem there. We’ve had a great run, the weather is supposed to be a lot worse a lot earlier in the year and all the locals have been complaining about the amazing drought so they’ll be well pleased with the rain. We've seen a lot of beautiful coastline and wildlife, as well as the great forests which were part of the reason for our trip. And actually, while I've been writing this blog, the sun has come out and it is now quite nice again; around 20-22 degrees and sunny if a bit windy, so who knows, maybe we'll get lucky.

We’ll stay in Perth for a few more days to sort out our stuff, buy the last supplies, get some more shots and then go up to Gingin -just north of Perth- where I’m leaving the car with a friend of our Irish housemate for the four months we'll be in Asia. Then on Monday the 1st of June at ten minutes to ten in the evening, our planes leaves for Singapore. We’ll be there at the ungodly hour of 2 or-so am before flying out to Jakarta at 7.40 am. That’s when the new adventure really starts and I’m sure it will be accompanied by plenty of blogs to keep you guys up to date.

For now we wish you all the best; we'll catch up again soon.

---