photoposts!

Finally managed to get the photos I uploaded at Eric's published (damnable internet kiosks... grrrr) so there are now a heap of backdated posts covering my trip through the South West (best way to make sure you see them all is to click the November archive link on the right, and scroll back to November 22nd) Meanwhile I've been to Ayers Rock (which was too hot and a bit too alien) and am now in Cairns which (so far) I really like.

Busy being here though so no new posts for now.

Leaving Perth

OK folks, there are a grand total of Five partially created blog posts waiting in the wings with a metric schwackload of pictures from my adventures along the south coast, photos are all edited and uploaded but it's my last night here and so instead of writing the posts to go with them I've decided to go down the pub with Eric one last time. Look out over the next day or two though as I'll be stuck in airports a bit and with luck some of them might have net access...

...anyway here's one photo to keep you all going in the meantime, this one's courtesy of Eric who has been great company and a fantastic host while I've been in Perth, we spotted this sign a few weeks back and on our way back from Freemantke today detoured to get a shot because... well look:



:)

Albany & the Wheat Belt

Further along that same stretch of coastline we visited some blowholes set into the cliff top - here the swell of the southern ocean forces air (and in high seas whole waves) up through the cliffs, we arrived there as the sun was setting and the sound they made in the failing light was astonishing, and quite erie.



walking back up we snapped at the colours of the setting sun, as always they hardly do it justice



That night we camped on the coast, with the tent pitched in the lee of the car to keep it from blowing away



Last day with the car, and we motored north through the Southwestern wheatbelt (no pics of that, I was busy driving) to the pretty town of York before heading back to Perth itself.

Giant Tingle Trees

After Margaret River I met up with Eric back up in Bunbury (close as the train gets) and we headed down the coast again visiting various places along the way, including (after an overnight stop) this:



It's called the valley of the giants treetop walk, and is a steel suspension walkway that rises from the forest floor to 40m up in the trees canopy. Tingle trees grow to as tall as 60m so even way up there we weren't above all of them... it was a pretty spectacular sight



As were the bases of the trees. After walking through their canopy we took a second walk along the forest floor among some of the oldest Tingle trees, many of which like this one have been hollowed out by fire in the distant past but are still growing. Eric's very kindly providing a sense scale in this shot: he's stretching to get a shot of one of the spider's webs, and given that he's 6'4" the fact that stretching his hands barely reach halfway up the hollow gives you some idea just how big the trees are!



After the valley of the Giants we headed down to Albany and the National Park beyond it on the coastline - this place is on Australia's Southwestern most tip where the Southern and Indian oceans meet. Pretty spectacular piece of coastline all round.

Margaret River

I motored on to visit Margaret River, I stayed in the town overnight and spent the next day exploring the cool shaded forests south of the town.

Bunbury

Day two of the South West and I reached Bunbury. The beach was pretty impressive and different again from those I'd already visited but it was the middle of teh day so I didn't stay too long...



... heading instead for Bunbury's Mangrove swamps which (as you can see from the carpark) are a huge tourist draw...



... which I found odd, considering how peaceful and utterly other they are. The assorted boards around the board walk out into the swamps themselves told me it's one of only a few such sites in the country, and (for me at least) it was the highlight of Bunbury.

Mandurah & Secret Harbour

Right here (as promised) are the backdated posts from my adventures in teh South West - back on metered internet access so they'll be brief... first stop on my journeys in the south was Mandurah:



I ended up here first, completely by chance but it turned out to be a really lovely spot to see the town from, not to mention a peaceful sculptural memorial - three rows of white stone columns march up out of the ground rising in height in the middle then falling away into the river, this stream runs between them and disapears into the river. Very tranquil spot for writing.



Seems that the endless bronze statues aren't limited to Perth, still this Pelican madea great foreground for the sunset.



After Mandurah I rolled on to an amyusingly well signposted spot called Secret Harbour, where I kipped in the back of the Holden overnight awaking to this stunning white beach at dawn - lovely spot for a bit of yoga and a refresing morning swim.