Another interesting week. Perhaps the town and location names were nearly as interesting as the locations. We reckon that all towns should revert to their native names. Compare Denmark, Albany, Esperance and Stirling Ranges with Ongerup, Jerramungup, Munginlup and the Porongurups. ‘up’ is of course the local aboriginal suffix for ‘place of’.
We started the week in Denmark with Alan and Marilyn. We ‘did’ that town on the Monday and then tried our hands at lawn bowls in the late afternoon.
Tuesday we went up to Albany with Marilyn for a look around. Then on Wednesday, after a pleasant little interlude at Denmark, it was Willie Nelson time (“On the road again”.)
We made it as far as the Porongorups, claimed to be the oldest mountain range in the world. we cannot vouch for the statement, after all the Finke River in the Macdonells was claimed to be the oldest river in the world at 1 billion years plus. Anyway they are now worn down to a string of granite ‘humps’ up to around 500m high, generally smooth, but with many fissures, and rising straight out of the surrounding farming country. On the way in we visited the only complete collection of Banksia specimens in the world at Mt Barker, within a 5 hectare Proteacea garden.
We faced our most challenging walk to date, only about 4.6km but around 3.5 hours with some very steep scrambles up the rock faces. Put paid to our intentions of further walks the next day both there and in the Stirling Ranges. Geoff’s back was not good at all for a couple of days!
Thursday we did the scenic drives around the Porongerups and the Stirling Ranges and ended up with another bush camp near the Fitzgerald River. More stunning scenery!
Talking of stunning scenery, the beaches around Esperance are claimed to be the whitest in the world. Fair dinkum, you have got to admire the West Australian attitude; every second thing is the biggest, oldest, best etc in the world! Thing is, they could often be right. Even with the overcast weather we encountered, the beaches were dazzling. The interesting coincidence was that we were watching a tv program that evening about the shoreline of the British Isles where they were claiming the beaches in Cornwall (perhaps) were the whitest in the world.
After overnighting in Esperance we headed out to Cap Le Grand with the intention of staying overnight out there. The weather however was not only overcast but also windy; so we just did the loop, more fantastic beach/rock/ocean scenery, and moved on. However it is another place to which we have vowed to return, we can just imagine it on a still, sunny day.
“still” may be a bit much to hope for; Two of the largest wind farms in WA strongly indicate to the contrary.
Saturday night saw us at Norseman, a place with little to recommend it except as a convenient stop over on the way to Kalgoorlie, our location this cool Sunday evening. In passing, and we did pass through quickly, the town of Widgiemooltha must rate special mention as being right up there with Andamooka and Wyndham in our worst town competition.
Tomorrow we check in for the CMCA rally, our 5 day interlude before the dash for the ferry on 22 October.
The weather is still nothing special, with rain forecast here for Tuesday and a maximum of 30 for Thursday. Good thing to note is that our re-acclimatization is obviously proceeding. Maxima only around 17-21C and we are managing to get by without coats for a fair part of the day now! We are starting to think more positively about our return too. Maybe a week of good weather and a few days of relaxation may reverse the trend; but we are looking forward to family, friends and home – though we do dread the prospect of facing the garden especially in view of the ‘do’ for Sue and Dale’s 60th so shortly after our return.
This week WILL see a selection of photos up on the Picassa site and (Geoff Shaw willing) referenced from our website via ‘Photos Galore”. Already I have uploaded a South Australian selection (reference below) with more to follow soon. We are informed by those in the know that our website is actually a blog.We suppose they must be right; but what the hell is a blog. Also on the theme of the technologically challenged; we never did get Skype working properly. Could not create contacts without help, call people not on our contact list or receive incoming calls. Will try to do better next time. Actually maybe we can get some hands on help at the rally.
Thanks to you who have responded kindly, and perhaps more tongue in cheek too, to our emails and photos, it was good to have those more personal contacts.
See you all soon, two weeks today and we are home!
