Near Pemberton to Albany
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ANTS! We’ve been invaded by ants. Violating all known rules of camping, we left out a bag of garbage in the forest and it’s swarming with ants. They discovered the camper and are all over the doors, on the floorboards and everywhere. I discovered this when I woke up before Les and sat down in one of the camp chairs to look over our travel guides. I kept finding ants on me and finally got up to see a swarm of them all over the chair. I HATE ants. They creep me out.
So rather than face the cleanup, I took a walk out the forest lane we were on and down into a little glen nearby. The roos were out again where we saw them last night, and they bolted for the forest when they saw me, just like before. But the walk was very pleasant. Lots of birds. The morning light was very pretty. I wandered about a quarter mile before coming back to face the ants.
We got the major swarms pretty well removed, but for the rest of the day, we’ve been finding them all over the place. You only need to look at a particular spot for a few seconds and you’ll see one or two running around. Luckily, they did not get into the food. Yet anyway. You can bet we are going to keep an eye on the food to make sure it isn’t moving before we eat it for awhile.
We headed off for Pemberton, where we were headed last night, streaming ants behind us, and then on to Walpole. The road winds through the forest and in the morning light was really pretty. We kept stopping, every couple of miles it seemed, to take more pictures. So it was slow going. At one point, we saw a flock of strange long beaked birds, which we later found out (from Parrot Man, see below) were Ibises. There were a bunch of them, all in this one farm field in a line. Turns out they feed on dung beetles. The dung beetles are not native. They were brought in to combat the flies caused by the cattle poop. But it’s not working so well because the Ibis think they’re really tasty. So basically, the Ibis are getting subsidized food. Kind of like the free cheese program.
But after awhile, we made it to Walpole. Just beyond is something called the Valley of the Giants and the “Treewalk”. The “Giants” are Tingle trees (great name) which are Australia’s equivalent of the redwoods. Although in comparison to redwoods, they are lightweights. Mere children. They grow up to 200 ft and about 40 feet around and are on the order of 400 years old. The valley is an area where there is an old-growth stand of these trees. They’ve built a suspended walkway that goes up into the canopy about 40 meters high and lets you wander around through them. It’s quite elaborate and gives you a great view. It’s quite a piece of engineering as well and fun from that perspective too. The walkway sways (by design) as you walk across it. It’s kind of like being on a ship. A group of old ladies was acting a bit nervous about the swaying and Les was pretending to cause it to sway which gave everyone a bit of a laugh.
I’ve said it before but the Australians are great. They are friendly, always willing to talk or help out and have a great sense of humor. This was just another example. And in fact, when we were stopped to take pictures, someone pulled over to make sure we were all right.
So now the plan was to continue to Albany, the next major town, see the whaling museum, then head off to Esperance which is the eastern-most town before heading north to connect with the highway across the Nullarbor desert. But, as fate would have it, on the way out of the Treewalk, we saw a sign for “Parrot Jungle” about 12km down the road. We decided to stop and have a look and see if it was worth anything. This started a series of events that led to us only getting to Albany but I’ll get to that.
We entered Parrot Jungle and talked to the proprietor. It was $9 and Les was waffling about going in. But the guy seemed nice as he was explaining that it was expensive because he wasn’t subsidized by the government like those Treewalk folk and there were a couple of macaws running around the room, and we were already there, so I decided to pay and we went in.
The guy was great and walked around with us explaining the various birds and reptiles. He had a hooded lizard (like Frank in Rescuers Down Under if you’ve seen it), a Goanna, some skinks, a Tiger snake (3rd most poisonous in Australia and common in these parts) and quite a collection of birds. Many native to Australia and others from South America. He explained what they were, which were native, etc. Very interesting. We also learned a bit about the Australian tax system, the attempts to keep starlings out of Western Australia by posting hunters at the border, and had a bit of a discussion about Bush, Iraq and how rich a country we are.
But the best part was he keeps kangaroos, which were tame, and you can go in and feed them just like the goats at the zoo. They’re just like the goats too. They come to you and try to grab the food. But unlike goats, these guys can get up pretty high. We got to feed them and pet them and they seemed pleased. As were we.
We asked the proprietor (now referred to as Parrot Man) about what we should see up the road and he suggested Williams Bay. So we thought we’d have a look on the way by. Well it’s amazing. There is an area called Greens Pool that is a shallow area with the beach on one side and a series of rock formations on the other that protects it from the ocean. So it creates a giant salt-water swimming pool. Well, we couldn’t pass it up so we went down to have a swim. This is the Southern Ocean vs. the Indian Ocean up north so we’ve added another of the seven seas to the list of those we’ve swam in. A bit colder than up north. Actually more than a bit but very pleasant.
The day had been very hot and muggy, just like yesterday, so a cool swim was just the ticket. The other attraction nearby was the Elephant Rocks at Elephant Cove. We got out and started walking over that way when we noticed a wall of clouds heading towards us from the northwest and thunder started rumbling. The crowd on the beach started heading for their cars. But it was too cool and we stayed to watch. It looked like a special effect from Raiders of the Lost Ark or something. From ocean to ceiling and across half the horizon behind us. It came on pretty quickly and the next thing we knew it was pouring down rain. But we were already wet so we didn’t care and the rain was warm. We hadn’t gotten a shower this morning because of our forest campsite, and our swimsuits and shirts needed a rinse anyway.
So we stood in the rain for awhile, having a good time. Then decided to wander over to Elephant Cove while we were at it. Elephant Cove is so named because of the giant rocks in it that look like elephants. Or in my opinion, they are just big and therefore remind people of elephants. But regardless of whether you think they look like elephants or not, they are quite a sight. Well, we had to have a picture, so we went back to the van, waited for the rain to stop and went back. Les went in for a swim and I stood up on the rocks to get his picture, and he got mine.
On the way out, we also stopped at Waterfall Beach (where the “waterfall” was pathetic and looked more like sewer runoff) and Madfish Bay where a couple of guys were fishing for dinner and there’s an island bird refuge you can practically walk out to, but we chose not to (and not just because it’s full of snakes).
All in all, we burned most of the afternoon at the bay but we really enjoyed it. And given that yesterday was kind of a loser day, except for the caves, we felt we were justified. So we only made it as far as Albany and tomorrow we’re going to have to really put the hammer down and get moving. But we probably won’t. Albany has all kinds of sights to see and the road to Esperance is supposed to be quite scenic. We’ll end up paying for this with long days through the desert but so be it.
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