The Cape of Western Australia

The Cape - Western Australia: Margaret River, Walpole and Albany - April 15-18, 2008
Great fun to be back in our second little Maui Motor home. We left Perth and drove to the beautiful area of Margaret River. Reminds us of a smaller and younger wine region like Napa or Sonoma, California. Wonderful area, some 96+ wineries plus many interesting shops, restaurants and café’s to enjoy. Again an area we could have easily spent a week or more. We took a very fun and interesting tour on Wednesday around Margaret River, into several wineries, a brewery, chocolate factory (Karen’s personal favorite) and a dairy – cheese factory. It was a full day, met a lot of very interesting people during the day. Part of the experience was a “bush tucker” lunch. We had smoked kangaroo, smoked wild turkey, field greens, lovely breads and a number of interesting and not quite identifiable sauces/chutneys; excellent meal. Also served was a Kackadoo plum (not so tasty), a tiny lime (the size of a small green grape, but very puckery sour) and 2 of our tour mates got to taste a Witchy grub – a big fat grub, said it tasted a lot like chick peas????. Hmm, don’t think we were sorry to have missed that.
We headed on Thursday to Walpole, in the south-western tip of Western Australia. It was a very pleasant drive: gums forests, pine forests, pasture lands. We toured the Cape Leeuwin Light House, (176 steps up and 176 steps down!) Beautiful view of the ocean, it sits where the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean (we know it as the Antarctic Ocean) meet; an amazing expanse of water. We saw the very interesting location of The Cumberland Rock – we had never heard of it before. Our tour guide Kevin explained to us that many Americans are excited to know that this location where supposedly one is exactly one-half way around the globe from Washington DC. So we were just about as far away from our nation’s capital as we could ever be. We camped in Walpole that night; the camp site across from us had 4 kangaroos eating right next to their tent. They were very tame and seemed unconcerned about us staring at them.
Friday morning we took the Tree Top Walk in Normalup in beautiful sunny weather. We saw the very rare and old red tingle trees: they grow to be 200+ feet tall and some 60 feet around the base; hence the name “Giants”. These trees are only found in Western Australia, and only in this area. The WALK was incredible. It was some 900 feet in length going from the floor of the forest up to some 120 feet above in the tree tops. The structure was amazing in itself. There huge trusses that were secured to the ground by steel pylons that wove through the crowns of the trees. Walking along the suspended pathway, swaying with the trees was very spectacular. We loved it so much we took the walk twice. We followed this with a short path through the floor of the forest, seeing the amazing trees at their roots. We saw many trees that have been hollowed out at their base by fire, pests and diseases, but continue to grow. It reminded us of waking through the Redwoods. We left the beautiful forest area and headed east to Albany. Along the road we saw a paddock filled with kangaroos. Mums and their joeys were quietly eating the grass, looked just like a postcard. We arrived to a change of in the weather; rain and wind. We went to see a couple of the coastal landmarks: the Natural Bridge was an incredible granite rock structure that had been worn away by the ocean to leave a resulting bridge. The stormy ocean added a lot to the view. We also saw The Gap which was a huge 100 foot chasm down into this granite rock that was washed by rushing stormy seas. Great afternoon, we got a bit wet (DRENCHED), but fun none the less. We continue to have an incredible Aussie Experience.