Forest people we are

We took our time exploring the South West with its magnificent tall forests, the picturesque Margaret River wine region and many more beautiful white beaches (and we thought we had seen them all by now).

The landscape south and southwest of Perth reminded us a bit of Victoria - lush green bushland, undulating hills and a temperate climate with fresh nights to cool down. Besides many other activities, the region offers a great network of trails for hiking and mountain biking, which we took to our advantage.

We realized that we had left the harsh emptiness of the Outback behind - the long and lonely stretches of endless roads, the soaring heat and the bright red earth - and we already miss it. In contrary, we have returned to civilization, everything seems so easy, we live in comfort, no need to worry about fuel, food and water; our greatest challenges and adventures seem so far away!

In Dunsborough we took our chance to go scuba diving again and went for our first ever wreck dive. The Australian destroyer HMAS Swan was purpose sunk in 1996 and has become a popular artificial reef in 30m deep water. It was an interesting experience and quite challenging not to bump into things with our tanks or accidently touch anything with our fins in the tight corridors of the ship. In addition Andy and I were giving far too much weight and we were busy getting our buoyancy right.

Margaret River is well known as a gourmet region, home to internationally acclaimed Wines.
We took our mission seriously and tasted as many products and saw as many vineyards as we could - hoping to become wine experts smelling and tasting the grapes of Shiraz, Pinot Noir, Semillon, Chardonnay, Riesling, Cabernet, Merlot… you name it. After two full days, 12 cellar doors, a brewery, a delicious coffee roaster, a distillery, a disappointing chocolate fabric and a fudge fabric, we had finally purchased 12 bottles of wine, one bottle of Champagne, one bottle of butter scotch liqueur and had enough (…well to be honest we were running out of storage space). By the way, the driver (me) only had a tiny little bit of wine [and the voluntary taster (the other me) had to give his best and did a great job tasting each and every bottle – cheers!]. There are some seriously big wine estates out there, sitting in picturesque scenery, which makes you think about France, but not Australia. We are currently working on reducing our stock of wine bottles so that we have space again by the time we get to the Barossa Valley - the other well known wine region in Australia.

Further inland, we were positively surprised how forested the area between Perth and Denmark was; they call it the southern forests and there a plenty of chances to get lost in old-growth forest that can be up to 300 years old.
Between the majestic Jarrah, Marri and Karri forests, we realized that, if we had to choose between ocean and forest, we’d rather go for the trees. We didn’t want to leave the forests anymore and therefore choose to have Christmas in Pemberton near the tall Karri trees (max 75metres). Andy climbed up to the 68m high fire-lookout tree (but only up to the middle), laddered with a spiral metal stair. But this is nothing for the faint-hearted, it is really quiet scary and it wasn’t anything for me either…

We rode our bikes as often as we could along the forest tracks, riding sections of the 900 km long Bibbulmun walking track (which goes all the way down to Albany) and some parts of the 300+ km Munda Bidi mountain bike trail(which will go down to Albany once its finished). It was a bit frustrating sometimes as I can’t deny that Andy passed me at most of the uphill’s, leaving me back swearing and crawling up behind him. True! But I swished passed him going downhill. It was wonderful to ride our bikes a bit more often and to have some good fun single tracks. It has been some time now!

Somewhere along the way, a mouse must have sensed all those yummy Christmas treats in our food storage and wanted to get a taste of it, favouring the chocolate coated marzipan. As a result we were forced to stay at a motel in Harvey for one night and to take EVERYTHING out of the car, place mouse-traps (we had no choice) and vacuum clean all the mouse droppings - only to realize that the mouse must have left already. Lucky mouse!

Down south the daylight is very bright, the air clear and the sky almost always bright blue. Sunglasses are a must! With one blinking eye on the sky I can’t help but wondering how we are going to survive without any sunlight penetrating the grey sky once we are back in Germany… [well… there is nothing that drugs and alcohol can’t solve].

A well worth detour via the Stirling Ranges took us up to the Mountains (well… the height of an Australian mountain is nothing compared to the height of a European mountain - but better than nothing! [and don’t tell this to an Australian. It’s not that bad]). What a satisfying feeling to climb up a mountain peak, to go up and up and up, to feel the sweat dripping down on the rocks, heavy breathing and than a breath taking view with strong winds at the top.

The Stirling Ranges rise almost from see-level out of nowhere, towering above broad valleys.
The area (like so many in Australia) is of botanic significance, many plant species are found nowhere else in the world.
At first we climbed the hard and steep track to the 1052m high ‘Mt. Toolbrunup’ peak, but coming down was the absolute killer. Our legs were all jelly and shaking having to support our own weight with every step down. I’d rather walk up, that’s for sure. And because we enjoyed it so much, we carried on with the much easier route up to the 1073m high ‘Bluff Knoll’, the second highest Mountain in W.A. (the highest one is Mt. Bruce near Karijini NP, which we had climbed of course, too at the time we were there).
I was still walking like a robot two days later, every muscle in my legs stiff and in agony. Andy seemed to be fine; he must have done some secret bike ride- and mountain climbing training somewhere… [having one or two cheap and nasty beers before going to bed is actually the secret].

We had a very quiet New Years Eve party - just the two of us in the Fitzgerald National Park.
Set up just behind the beach under the stars with a bottle of nice Sumerset Hill Margaret River Champagne. We turned up the music and even danced with flashing headlights.

We are in Esperance right now to get some repairs done to our car before crossing the Nullarbor plain - the usual tear and wear after around 19000 km of driving, lots of it off-road on corrugated roads. The bill pushes what is left over of our travel budget to the verge. We might have to consider some fruit picking [or selling our bodies] if we have some other unexpected expenses :-) [like some more wine].

Esperance has been spoiling us with a pristine coastline where forests meet rocky cliffs and stunning white beaches. Did we mention white sand beaches before??? Endless Fascination! What a life.

We are off today to Cape Le Grand and Cape Arid National Parks before crossing the straightest road in the world on our way to Adelaide. Looking forward to ~ 2500 km of nothingness, as Nullarbor means in badly translated Latin ‘No Tree’.

You will hear from us again once we have made it over to Adelaide.

If you like have a look at the new photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/22614024@N04