A Tour of the South
Trip Start
Jun 09, 2003
1
148
169
Trip End
Jun 02, 2007
Perth,
Australia
Friday, January 20, 2006
Another night in Denmark and we headed west to Pemberton, stopping en-route at the tree-top walk which was fun! Once we'd got to our hostel in Pemberton we had some lunch and headed out to the Gloucester Tree. A 61m (200ft) high tree. Very high! Around the tree are metal poles, driven into the trunk to make a stairway. Very scary but I decided to give it a go! Got a little way up and decided I couldn't do it! My knuckles were white from holding on so tightly. Anyway I had to stop and let some people pass coming down the way and then decided what the heck, I can do this. It took a while but I eventually made it all the way to the top. I could see the ground miles below, well it felt like miles! It was worth it for the view from the top. I could see forest fires burning in the distance. After a quick look round I had to go back the way I'd come. I thought this would be scarier, but it wasn't too bad at all. Back on firm ground, I was shaking for quite a good.
The following day we headed over to Augusta right on the south-west corner of Australia where the Pacific meets the Southern Ocean. We headed out to the lighthouse to watch the sunset and see where the oceans meet. Unfortunately the lighthouse was closed so we got some fish and chips and sat down by the water while the sun set.
On Wednesday we headed north to Margaret River, stopping off to visit some caves. The first cave was a self-guided tour so once we were kitted out in helmets and torches and mum had decided that she was game we headed into the darkness. There were a lot of walkways, but at some points we had to climb up ladders and squeeze through little gaps, then we had to lower ourselves down a slope using a rope. Mum ended up having a really good time after thinking it would be too scary. Back out in the daylight we headed to another cave, this time with a guide. There was an underwater lake and lots of stalamites and tites! The guide showed us a point where another guide and blackened the ends of some stalagtites about 60 years ago. They'd only grown about 1 inch since, so it went to show us how long it had taken some of the bigger ones to grow - millions of years!
Into Margaret River and we caught up with Sylvie who had just got the bus down from Perth. We all had dinner together and enjoyed a quiet, relaxed evening. We were planning to stay in Margaret River for a couple of days but there wasn't much to do so after a visit to the beach we headed north to Dunsborough and stayed in a lovely little hostel right on the beach! On Friday we headed out to another lighthouse and walked around the headland, again there were a lot of flies so in the end we gave up. We drove to the Mythic Maze. A fantastic little place in the middle of nowhere full of fun mazes. We spent a couple of hours running around in and out of the mazes before heading into Busselton and the longest jetty in the Southern Hemisphere - 2km. We walked out to the very end and then back again. We watched as kids jumped off the jetty into the crystal clear water.
Saturday we headed up to Bunbury where we walked passed another lighthouse, enjoyed some cake and went out to the dolphin discovery centre. It was very interesting but there were no dolphins about. We went to the cinema that evening and the following day we headed back out to the dolphin centre where we were lucky enough to see some dolphins.
It was then back to Perth to return our car and get prepare for my next adventure!
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