Something Wicked This Way Comes

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We arrived in Perth not entirely sure how we would like to finalize our time in Australia. After a bit of discussion we finally decided we would brave the open road again and rent a camper van. To be honest the thought of having to drive around in Perth on the wrong side of the road made my hands go clammy. But it seemed like a nice finale for Australia. We had been on a few too many tours and it would be nice to have our travel time on the road be ourselves.

We chose a campervan rental company called Wicked. They service the UK as well as New Zealand. Everyone can recognize a Wicked campervan because they are covered with graffiti art and often have rather rude or vulgar phrases spray painted on their sides. It can make for a more interesting van than your run of the mill white paint job. I seem to recall one saying “men are like toilets, either empty, engaged or full of shit.” Some may find this offensive but to be honest I thought it was funny. I was just glad I wasn’t the person driving that van around.

When you request a Wicked van you find out you don't get to pick out the van that has the paint job you like. You may end up with one that has the great green hulk along the side or you may be lucky enough to be the guy driving a van with care bears doing the “dirty.” We got the Motley Crue van. Bleh! Booh on Motley Crue. Oh well. I didn’t even understand the statement written on our van. It said “where is my chest?” All I could think is that was maybe a reference to the manhood of the band Motley Crue (lack of). I wanted the van with the naughty gingerbread men. But we all know the verses to that song...”you can’t always get what you want...”

We climbed into our van. Nervous smiles and clammy feet. Yah, you got that right. Instead of clammy hands I got clammy feet. It was very odd. It can’t be explained. I took my role as navigator and Scott took the wheel. He pulled away from the side walk chanting “stay on the left side of the road, stay on the left side.”

Actually driving felt much more natural this time around. We were both glad that we had rented that car in Yungaburra awhile back. It worked out as a practice session. Getting out of Perth was a cake walk. And my feet soon stopped sweating nervously.
Originally when we planned on renting a vehicle we wanted to drive north from Perth along the coast. However, plans changed the day before picking up the van because of a cyclone passing by. Not sure what to do, we instead headed south of Perth along the coast. Neither of us had done any reading on this area so we weren’t sure what to expect or even what was available to peak our interest. But we had the van for the next 7 nights and we didn’t stress the details to much. We didn’t even have a map. Oops. After six hours of driving we finally picked up a map in Albany.

We followed the coast line and every beach we saw was gorgeous. The weather was like the coast back at home in Oregon but the beaches were white and the water was a tropical clear blue. It was amazing. Needless to say not much swimming was going on but every sunset was lovely. As was every sunrise I am sure but we missed all of those. We didn’t have a schedule to keep and when you don’t why bother waking up early.

Our camper van was amazingly comfortable. It had a full bed that you could set up in and a little sink in the back with cupboards for food. It also came with a single burner cook stove. Cooking top ramen got pretty creative. And I always thought it was about the noodles. Tisk, tisk.

In Albany we found A place called Whale World. To me that sounds like cute likable name. It turned out to be the last whaling station in Australia which was closed down back in 1978. Before the station was closed down it was already a tourist attraction and after it was closed down the locals decided to turn it into a museum of whale oddities. The old structures we maintained and everything was almost as it was when it was last in use. Which proved to be both creepy and eerie. The station was for the mass slaughter of thousands of whales yet all the signs there had happy smiling whale cartoons on them. There were huge whale oil tanks that you could walk into and watch video clips to learn about marine life and the history of whaling. They smelled weird. I wasn’t sure if I was smelling whale blubber. Ack! On the slaughter decks were huge saws and winches for the dismembering of the whales.

We walked through the old wooden and rusting outbuildings slowly. The pristine blue waters of the ocean contrasted sharply against the weathered old whaling station. We tried to imagine what the little bay would have looked like with floating whale bodies waiting to be loaded onto the flencing deck (where the whales were chopped into pieces). It was a rather brutal image. When the whaling station was in operation they used to have one person hanging out in the bay along a buoy stand where he could shoot at the sharks feeding on the dead whales. Glancing at the photos, as we walked along, it became apparent that this used to be an extremely stinky and dirty business. Perhaps it’s the sense of what used to occur, or the death of both an industry and the near destruction of several whale species, but as we walked through the museum there lingered with us a ghostly feeling. All in all a strange but interesting museum that opens your eyes to many things.

Outside of another coastal town called Demark we found a skyline tree walk through a Tingle tree grove. The trees were huge. The area was aptly named when someone thought to call it the Valley of the Giants. A suspension bridge with a max height of 40 meters brought us into the upper leafy branches of the tingle trees.

I would have to say my favourite part of our road trip was the caves we visited though. There were three all together. They were so close together we were able to visit them all in the same day. Here is where Scott would want to bust in and tell us all why they are there. But I think I will let him keep reading news paper and just tell you how pretty they were. (Computer hijacked for one second. They are rather fascinating being Aeolian Limestone caves that were formed syngentically. Yup, trippy eh. The caves were being formed at the same time as the limestone was forming. Quite cool! The corrosion mixing from the percolating ground water mixing with the incoming streams has a profound effect of aggressive calcite absorption. Here’s the neatest fact. Percolating ground water that is over saturated with calcite that meets another source of over saturated water will become under saturated upon meeting and begin to actively absorb more calcite, thus making bigger cooler caves ). Sigh....As I was saying they are pretty. Just so you know he keeps doing that.

The first one was called Jewel Cave but I prefer to call it the “The Cave of the Squalling Baby.” I shouldn’t be too insensitive but if I were a parent I might reconsider bringing a baby into cave with many other people who are looking for the peaceful interest a cave can offer. It honestly was one of the more lovely caves I have been in. The purity of the calcite deposits in the formations was so white they were almost clear. Ugh, freakin’ geologist is rubbing off on me. Whatever, they were pretty and they sparkled. In this same cave we saw the world’s third longest soda straw. That one is for Adam my brother.

The other caves were Lake Cave and then Mammoth cave. Mammoth Cave wasn’t he most amazing for its formations but it stood out because it was self guided. We were handed headsets and walked right in. We were almost the only people there. It was great. So quiet too. No wailing demon babies. Sorry mothers your children are lovely I shouldn’t say anymore. One day I might have my very own demon child. Ack! But I promise not to take them to caves.

(Of note, in Mammoth cave 25 species of mega fauna were found along with a ton of other currently existing mammals from Australia. Mega fauna is just a fancy way of saying very large animals like giant wombats and such. For some reason or other mega fauna went extinct over 30,000 years ago. So for the local palaeontologists this was a super important cave since it had tons and tons preserved bones.) That would be Scott butting in again.

Being able to do a road trip to finalize our visit to Australia was really nice. Australia is one of those countries that is so large that if you are able to you should explore it in your own vehicle. It is very nearly the same size of the States not including Alaska. And contains only half the population of Canada. This equals a lot of lonely roads to travel with many wonderful stops to make along the way.

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Photos

Wicked!!
Cause it's good to be wicked.

Salmon Holes.
Sweet little bay near Albany. Not good for swimming.

Lake Cave.
A sweet hanging table. Soon the water will be all gone from this cave :(

On the John.
Clover caught in the act on board.

Lake Cave entrance
into the bowels

Dinner bell
Haggus forgets about the sunset when he hears the dinner bell