Anyway, as my contract here is coming to an end, I've been forced to keep my holidays. Oh no, what a terrible obligation. To survive the sadness I felt from being prevented from going to work, we did a short tour of Southern West Australia. Pictures ahead, copyright belongs to my boyfriend, and click to see a bigger version.
Driving south from Perth there are a couple of lovely coastal towns on the way. First one, Rockingham, is supposed to have really lovely fresh seafood, but we missed that and soon we were in Mandurah. We were planning to drive straight through, but I spotted claw-like canals all over the suburbia on the street map, so we decided to check those out. It turns out that yes, the town has numerous canals lined with big suburban houses. Most of them have also big boats in front of the house, and when you look at the cars that these people drive, they're normal... oh wait, that guy is a plumber! The picture shows some of the houses facing the canal (you can see a boat or seven there).
Our next stop was a quick one in Busselton just after sunset. There is a 2km long jetty reaching out to the sea, and there were quite a few people fishing on it. But we didn't fish, or even walk to the end, as we were in a hurry to get to Margaret River by a reasonable time.
Margaret River is a famous wine growing region due to its Mediterranean climate. There are hundreds of wineries in the region, and most of them have "cellar doors", which basically are shops with a bar where you can sample their premium wines for free. We visited Leeuwin winery, which was on impressively beautiful grounds surrounded by tall Karri forest (more on trees later), and Xanadu winery, whose wines we liked and bought some to bring home. I think I could spend a forever sampling all the wines of Margaret River and eating in the fine vineyard restaurants.
In addition to fertile land to grow wine, there were a few limestone caves in the region. We visited the lake cave, which went about 70m underground and was 80m long. In the picture you can see the entrance to the cave as well as some very tall Karri trees.
The cave was absolutely stunning with the numerous stalagmites and stalagtites reflecting from the lake at the bottom. The lights were fairly dim to prevent algal growths, so the taking pictures was a bit tricky. This picture is taken at the very end of the cave towards the entrance, and for the scale, you can see a person leaning on the railing on the right.
The surfs in Margaret River region are meant to be really good too, so we went to see the waves at Prevelly Point and managed to catch some surfers practicing.
After two days in Margaret River we carried on forward. This is Cape Leeuwin lighthouse in the most South-Western point of Australia. It's also the tallest lighthouse in main land Australia. However, we were more interested in watching the beautiful waves of Southern Ocean whilst eating a picnic lunch in the car, as it was very windy and raining.
Then we were headed to the Southern Forests and the trees suddenly got very very tall. I started learning that there were not just Eucalyptus trees (as an European would think), but several species of Eucalyptus, which included the usual Jarrah trees, the tall Karris, the Marris that flower red when the grapes are ripe for winemaking, a variety of Tingles, the lemon-scented gum that shed its sticky flowers on our car overnight... Simply stunning and beautiful!
In the Walpole-Nornalup national park we saw gigantuous Red Tingles, where a car could've fit in the middle of the trunk. The holes were caused by fires and fungal degradation, but only the outernmost layer of the tree is required for growth. The reason for widening tree trunk was that the roots of Tingle trees are very shallow and the wide trunk gives support against strong winds (which came with some rain whilst we were there). This tree is approximately 400 years old!
The tree-top walk in the Valley of Giants rose to about 40 meters and swayed gently in the wind, allowing a good feel what would it be like to be in a tall Tingle tree.
Finally we had to head home, as Monday and work were looming ahead. We ran out of time to go whale-spotting in Albany and explore the Stirling Range national park, but we at least had time to go and see the Stirling Range looming in the horizon (above). The landscapes of Western Australia seems to have such variation; from desert to tall forests, from sea and islands to tall mountains, from bushland to vineyards and farmlands, and we even haven't seen any of the north with savannahs and much higher all-year temperatures. It makes me wish we had more time to explore!
