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Published: August 31st 2007
Our next big adventure took us South, as far as we could go. En route we stopped off at The Cidery where they make delicious cider and apple juice from Pink Lady apples, yum! Once we dragged ourselves away from the tastings and from chatting to another Scot (they are everywhere out here!) we managed to crowbar a few bottles of cider into our 'packed to the gunnels' car and continued south through magnificent Karri forests which towered above the road. These trees are giants!
We spent a couple of nights in a lovely cottage, complete with spa and wood burning stove, in Walpole. It's not a huge place, our walk round the town took about an hour and that included a look round a houseboat down at the inlet. (It was lovely, possibly a bit cosy for the 10 people who could supposedly fit in but it'd be a great way to spend a few days with close friends. It was booked though, so not really an issue.) However, there are lots of things to see and do nearby so it was a good place to base ourselves.
We visited the Valley of the Giants and the Tree
Top Walk nearby. This is a walkway built in the forest that takes you 40m up among the trees. They still tower overhead but it's pretty cool to get another peospective of the forest. Some of these trees just grow straight up - tall lanky things standing at 40m looking like they would get blown over in a slight breeze. The Karri trees look a bit strage as well, the outside looks burnt and the new tree grows inside or round the side of the trunk. They looked like they defied the laws of physics too! There are some of these 'dead' trunks that are hollow at ground level so you can walk through them. All very interesting! I hoped to see some cute furry forest dwellers there but with no luck!
In the afternoon we popped down to 'Conspicuous Cliff' to watch for the whales that migrate past here each year, humpbacks first then when they've gone up the coast the southern Rights come in to have their babies. The beach was stunning, white sand for miles, but it was so windy and choppy. This was our first glimpse of the southern ocean! The water was freezing (as
we found out when a big wave came in faster than we could run away!!)!!! Didn't see any whales - you'd think they would have come out to say hello since we'd braved the elements to see them!
Our next stop was further along the coast to Denmark - wine country! On our way there we stopped off at the toffee factory (highly recommended!!) for tastings of toffees, sauces (sweet and savoury but have to say the chocolate with lime and ginger fondue was heavenly) and a huge helping of ice cream where you choose your (locally grown) fruit and it is mixed into the ice-cream - how good an idea is that? We also called into the Meadery but we were too full of ice-cream to appreciate it.
Most of the wineries are along Scotsdale road which loops up behind the town. We thought we might as well get stuck in as soon as we got there, no point hanging around! Mark drove the first (half) day, but as I rediscovered my wine allergy I got the joy of driving every other time we went 'tasting'. Some of the wineries offer food and other goodies to try.
on a chute
I was delighted to find one that's wide enough for big kids!I really liked XXX which made loads of different cheese and fudge. The chap in the told us all his travel tales from a 13 week tour of Europe. Another great one was The Lake House which is a wooden cabin over looking a lake (really!) with lovely gardens (it even stopped raining for 10 mins for us to have wander), a log fire and great food platters. Can't comment on the wine but judging by how much of it we bought I'd guess it was lovely! It's just the sort of place I'd like to own at home. For comedy value I have to rate the Mariners Rest. The lady in there was either bonkers or had sampled some of her stock that morning! She was lovely and made us feel right at home with cheese and biscuits to go with the wine samples, Australian tourist classic songs and then we couldn't leave until we'd taken a basket out to pick satsumas from the trees in the garden!
Allan had described Albany to us as like Campbeltown, and that's not far off the mark! After a scoot round the farmer's markets we headed off to the Sandlewood factory
where we got 'gonged'! This was an experienced we got talked into on arrival and was certainly different. About 10 of us went into a room and were taught how to breathe properly and we were given a sandlewood infused scarf to inhale through. Then we went into another room that was a bit like a teepee and lay down on mats and covered up with blankets. The lady leading the session dimmed the lights and stars appeared on the top of the tent (yes, it was just sandlewood on the scarf, and no, we hadn't been tasting wine beforehand) and then started hitting three different sized gongs. The notes that came out of these gongs were incredible, their vibrations seemed to travel through our bodies. It was all so relaxing, I'm sure we all fell asleep, I mean, relaxed into the moment. So that was a bit different!
While Mark went off for a tour of the local brewery, we went off shopping in the town where most shops shut at 12 on a Saturday! Probably just as well really.
Next stop was Whale world which used to be a whaling station that only closed in the
late 1970s. We joined a tour and heard in detail how the whales were caught - a spotter plane went out and passed the co-ordinates to the boat crew who sailed out in the early hours, harpooned the whale and then fitted a radio tracking device and let it float off while they hunted down more whales. At the end of the day they's collect their prey and head back to Albany and tie the carcasses to a small island just off the shore for the wee tug to come and collect later. Once on shore the whales were cut up into smaller pieces and boiled down for future use. Apparently the stench was unreal and the sea was red all around the whaling station which attracted loads of sharks. Couldn't have been a good job. The local town only had one pub that the workers were allowed to go to due to the smell that followed them around.
Whales are amazing creatures though. They are massive, blue whales are up to the size of a commercial jet (yes I'm a geek, but as long as I know I am it's ok!) and all whales can compress their ribs
and organs so that they can dive to extraordinary depths (330m) chasing their favourite food, giant squid. They were hunted almost to extinction but since the late70s thay have been growing out of endangered species. Now the bay is home to whales during their migration and one of the staff spotted some out in the bay while we were there but we didn't see them.
Our house in Denmark was gorgeous. It was a wooden cabin set in the bush where everyone else who'd stayed had seen lots of animals feeding in the garden. Think it was a bit wet while we were there. It poured for most of the time! So much so, we had a chinese laundry effect going on round the pot-bellied stove and I managed to set fire to Mark's pants by getting them too close! Oops.
On the day we left we visited the Alpaca farm where we got to feed loads of animals. I was most excited to meet Banjo the Koala who couldn't have cared less if we were there tickling his fur or not, as long as he had his leaves and then was able to get back to his
strict regime of 20 hours sleep per day then he was happy. Think I want to be a Koala next. He had huge claws though, didn't look as cute and cuddly as he is usually portrayed! Found the roos quite funny to watch close up, they really are strange creatures. They don't look real, it's like someone was taking the p when they were invented, even if they do have incredible reproductive systems (a female can have a joey in the pouch and one in her womb who's growth she can stop until there is enough food around to sustain them all).
It had stopped raining while we were in the farm so we headed down to see the famous Greens pool. Heading down the path o the beach the rain came on, not just a little bit but the heavens opened. I was nearly at the bottom of the stairs so carried on for a photo while everyone else beat a hasty retreat. The recent storms meant that the sea was right up to the bottom of the steps leaving very little beach and the rain was so heavy it's come up on the photos! Needless to say,
by the time I got back to the car I was soaked to the skin below my jacket! We all were soggy, and as we were moving on, had a fairly uncomfy journey up to Busselton! It didn't help that we got soaked again when we stopped at Pemberton for lunch. Happy days.
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