Shaunduvall's travel blogs:
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The Saga Tour
Entry 38 of 105 | show all | print this entry |
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Tuesday 19th October 2004
Tour One - tour of the Southwest...get on the bus with three other younger people (I'd like to say my own age but I'd be lieing)....followed by a group of Pensioners...whats going on??? I wasnt told this!
Firstly reach Castle Rock, a group of rocks weathered so they look like pebbles precariously balancing next to each other, in imminent danger of collapsing. A bit of a climb to get to them, and the pensioners keep giving up.
Onto Albany, small town (but the largest in the southwest) and stay in OK hostel
Wednesday 20th October 2004
From Albany, we go to a former whaling station - Australia stopped whaling in 1978, and whilst now converted to a museum, was pretty horrific - I know you need to preserve what happened, but the way they trapped pregnant whales, who had a horrible death, and then sometimes ripped apart by sharks, all in glorious technicolor - the museum was almost a celebration of something to be ashamed of.
Onto where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet - decide against swimming as its noticeable colder down here. See blow holes, where waves force up gust of wind that can knock you over if your not careful, and see the "natural bridge" - a rock bridge carved by the sea.
Onto the pretty town of Denmark for lunch - lunch, dinner, breakfast is all made communally, wherever we may be, and always tastes great.
Landscape is almot English - green and full of trees, and not what you envisage Australia to be - that is until you see a kangaroo hopping across a field, or an Emu wandering about.
Onto the Valley of The Giants - where huge trees grow, and there is a skybridge where you can walk around them - these trees can survive fires etc and live for hundreds of years, and some have gaps in their trunks caused by fire and rot which you can walk through.
Further onto Bi Centennial tree - you guessed it, its about 500 years old, and has metal stakes in it, surrounded by wire mesh, so you can climb the 70 metres - easy climb...er, not - problem with the stakes is that the gap in between was uncomfortabbly wide - and then you would plummit - gave up after about 15 steps, to be shamed by 15 year old kid, and one of the pensioners!
Thursday 21st October 2004
Whaling today - photographing, not killing, but it on the boat for at least and hour and a half, with no success, then, the captain claims he can see a tell tale blowhole cloud - and eventually, we see them, huge great whales, maybe 50-100 metres from the boat - amazing and so big, and we follow them (or was it them following us?) for about half an hour, and was really great to see.
Onto a chocolate factory...more of a shop really, and then wine tasting...its a hard life, and then the long drive back to Perth.
Where I stayed:
OK hostel
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