Some of the Pinnacles

We visited Nambung National Park in September 2007 on our return from our Coral Bay camping trip.

This area is near Cervantes on the coast in Western Australia, about 300kms North of Perth and is home to “The Pinnacles”.

And some more Pinnacles

The Pinnacles are a group of thousands of ancient rock formations of limestone that rise out of the yellow sands. These formations were began millions of years ago after  sea receded and the shells left behind were broken down into lime sand.  Then plants grew on these lime sand dunes and rain leached through the sand where their roots were causing limestone to form.

Cliff & my Pinnacle Representatives!

Pinnacles seem to come in all shapes and sizes. Some are in clusters and others stand alone.  There are some very tall ones.

Like most natural structures, the pinnacles are constantly changing, being eroded by wind and rain and perhaps even from people touching them (as happens in limestone caves here in WA).

As the area where they currently stand is devoid of plants and trees I wonder if one day they will disappear or perhaps as these existing ones reduce in size others are currently being made on the outskirts of the area where vegetation is still in existence?

You can drive your car through a long, designated sandy road, that twists and turns its way in amongst the Pinnacles and you are free to walk wherever you please.

It is very hot the day we visit and all that yellow sand makes it seem even hotter and drier - even though we are very close to the ocean.

There were a lot of tourists there the day we visited and I image as this area is not too far from Perth that this would normally be the case. (photo #3 p.s. - I am on the right!)

Termite Mound!

On our camp trip last year to Coral bay we saw lots of amazing and unique things.  There are stretches of 100’s of kilometres with no trees and no shrub over a metre in height just low prickly, inedible looking low scrub. Just South of Shark Bay there was a stretch of 3 or 4kms that had these monsterous red mounds.  Some were in groups, others stood alone.  We just had to take a photo of this Termitious Monolith!  Cliff is over 6ft tall so this Termite Mound must measure 10 feet high… that’s a lot of termites! (maybe that is why there are no trees?)

Tequila Sunrise

Usually a Scotch ‘n’ Coke or ‘Red Back‘ drinker…..with the onset of hotter weather brings my hankering of fruity cocktails.  I don’t like cream cocktails preferring ones made with fruit juices and fresh fruit.  This month my favourite cocktail is the ‘Tequila Sunrise”.  We make the Orange Juice version (rather than with lime juice). We always use lots of ice and a generous splash of Grenadine - which sinks to the bottom (completing the ’sunrise’) - plus some sort of fresh fruit.

Traditionally Tequila Sunrises are garnished with cherries (but as they don’t appear fresh until November or December here) and spring is strawberry season in Perth, we usually cut up a few ripe strawberries adding them into the cocktails as well as using one for garnishing.

The strange plant behind our glasses is an ornamental variety of the ‘Bromeliad’ which interestingly (but perhaps not surprisingly) is of the same family as the Pineapple!  Bromeliads are ancient plants that have evolved over 65 million years - this variety can be grown inside or outside and is very robust (read.. almost impossible to kill!).  This one has a long stemmed, almost plastic looking (and feeling) red flower growing from its centre that has been there for 4 months. The formation of the leaves, also from the centre of the plant, forms a reservoir where water is naturally held and it is good practice to water from a height so that this area refills (as it would if it were outside getting rain).  Every other month I also give it a liquid feed and wipe any dust off its leaves so it is always glossy and healthy looking.

Spring Flowers

Pansies

Although Spring officially started over a month ago, the weather has been taking its sweet time to warm up this year. We are still having chilly nights, overcast days and intermittent rain - which is very strange for Perth.  A couple of months ago I planted some some pots to add some colour to the brick paved area at the side of the house.  The yellow flowers are ‘everlasting’ and they live up to their name.  The other flowers are pansies which are easy to grow and flower prolifically.

Suburbia - BEFORE photo

Having lived in our house in ’suburbia’ for 5 months now, we find the outside very clinical with its neat grassed areas, paving and tidy garden beds.  So we’ve decided to make some changes and convert two thirds of the front grass area to a native garden.  This will have three outcomes - (1)  reduce our reticulating requirements, (2) increase the natural habitat for bees, native birds and the quenda (of which many live in our area) as well as (3) give us some nice areas to sit outside.  The plan is to take out the grass from where the brick letter box currently is, across to the standardised wisteria (which is in the middle of the grassed area) and to the right side.  We are thinking of including some Xanthorrheoa (more commonly known as ‘grass trees’ now but were formerly known as ‘black boys’), lots of different Grevilleas (prostrate & bushy ones) as the local birds - New Holland Honeyeaters and Wattle birds love these flowers. Yesterday I bought a couple of trees that are all around a metre in height - two are red flowering gums and also a couple of Agonis (that  have weeping tendancies).  Currently we only have a few tall Cocos palms, mostly along side the pool out the back and it is quite strange living in a house without a proper tree!  Hopefully, being spring the trees will ‘take off’ and quickly gain height.

Magnificient Hallway!

On Tuesday 30 September we reach The Regency Beach Club in Dunsborough just before 2pm.  We booked an apartment online just the week before, quite amazed that we managed to ‘jag one’ in the school holidays when everything is usually booked up.

As we pull in to reception we are amazed at the place.  There are 3 rows of semi-detached double or triple story apartments with lawn areas and beautifully landscaped gardens in between.  We get the key for apt 6A which we are told is right on the beach and it is like a mansion rather than an apartment.  We realise that only a couple of other apartment homes in he complex actually have people staying at them and the place is quiet and deserted.  While probably not good for business it is perfect for our escape away from people and more importantly… kids (our own or any ones else’s for that matter!).

Meelup Bay, Dunsborough

The apartment is an upstairs one with magnificent, unobstructed views to the ocean and landscaped gardens with a cycle path just below us.  A BBQ, huge table and chairs and two lounges adorn the balcony that has 180 degree views.  The main bedroom has a huge spa (which I use several times to help my weary, mountain climbing legs) and the huge lounge has a plasma tv with foxtel and national geographic channels.

We drive to Meelup, a bay just 10 minutes away where you can catch huge salmon (good to catch but not so good to eat and they are either thrown back or made into fish cakes).  The weather is very strange, sunny one moment and then fleeting light showers the next.  We take photos in between the rain and watch a seagull pecking at a dead blowfish on the sand trying to work out how to swallow it whole.

Kangaroos are wild everywhere here

We decide to travel the “artisan” trail around Dunsborough which is shown in a map given to us at reception at the Regency.  The first few places we go to (both galleries) are strangely closed although the map says they are open weekdays during the holidays.  We decide to head to Petra Olive Estate and Cafe where the advertisement says they grow their own olives, make their own oil and have a gift shop and cafe.  We both settle for just a coffee.. .which is very good and look out at the lovely view of olive trees and a dam where the resident dog sits with a tennis ball willing a patron to come and play and game with her.  The place has quite of lot of different oils and oil containers and implements on display and have several tasting tables set aside for visitors to try before they buy.  Although we hadn’t intended on trying, or buying anything the pungent smell of the oil draws us in and we decide their 2nd press, virgin olive oil tastes quite amazing.  We then spy some “lemon olive oil” which is an amazing yellow, lemon colour and smells just divine and tastes even better when eaten with a square of Turkish bread.  We decide to buy a bottle of both to take home with us.

Some of the galleries and pottery places are in Yallingup (which is next to Dunsborough) and there is a new estate with big acreage with beautiful new homes built on them everywhere.  Most of the paddocks have bushy areas with clearings covered in yellow daisies and (wild) kangaroos.  It is a good year and most of the kangaroos have joeys.  Our favourite wine comes from the area - Happs Fusia (which is a light, sweetish red that has a mild zesty finish).  The Happs family has been in the area for several generations and they are not only grape growers and wine makers but are also big into pottery and we have bought a piece of their original pottery pieces on a previous visit.  We visit the Happs pottery gallery again while we are in he area to see what new glazes they have come up with.  Pottery pieces are priced from just $15 for small items up to several hundred and even $600 for large, beautifully made unique platters.

We spend a lovely, peaceful 3 nights at the Regency.  Manage to fit in a bike ride the length of the cycle way from Dusborough heading towards Busselton along the coast and head for home on Friday morning  (3rd Oct) to the real world, where reality will hit us like a brick and we are destined to be parents to our bunch of teenagers again and work on Monday!

Canola fields and view to Stirling Ranges

After 4 days at the camp ground, our triumphant climb of Bluff Knoll, a visit Albany, Porongurups and Mt Barker we start our pack up of our camp trailer.  Having had a 5 minute instruction when we bought our trailer we look at the huge tent and wonder if it will fold up over the trailer 4 or 5 times and end up looking like the neat pack that we started with.  We feel it will end up like the proverbial sleeping bag…. that comes out neating folded from a teeny, tiny bag never to go back from where it came (or at least without a hissy fit or divorce!).

However, we are pleasantly surprised.  It is quite easy to ’stack’ the tent onto the top of the trailer/bed area and just drag the next section up on top of it and under 1/2 hour we have completely packed everything, tidied up, packed away the tent and readied the trailer to travel.

Sheep Farm, Stirling Ranges.

We head off towards Mt Barker to meet the highways that will head West and then North up the coast line making our way torward Dunsborough (which is 2 1/2 hours drive south down the coast from Perth).  Just 20 minutes into our trip Cliff is looking nervous and he carefully pulls the car up and veers off to the side of the road as a range rover overtakes us.  As we both look back the gas bottle (that was supposed to be tightly packed into a holding section at the side of our trailer) breaks free and launches itself free, landing heavily on the blue metal rocks of the road and bouncing several times before rolling off the other side and into a gully.  We look at each other in relief that it has missed the overtaking 4wd thinking of McGiver scenarios that could have resulted (where the gas bottle blows up the vehicle in a huge exposion!).

Glider and plane on runway

During our stay at the Stirling Range Camp group we discover that the Northam Glider club has a weekend meet in the paddock directly behind our tent.  We were facinated to be able to walk right up cose to the gliders which are so different up close to how I imagined.  They have just two wheels that are inline and a person holds one of the gliders wings while it is on the run way, even after the rope is attached to the plane that is going to take it up in the air.

We watch the plane commence its takeoff and are amazed as the glider takes to the air, tethered by its rope, before the motored plane is even half way down the short runway.

Glider behind plane

As the plane gets some air the glider is almost at level pegging and they commence a circling climb above us and the camping ground before heading higher and towards the peak of Bluff Knoll where the glider will catch the up drafts that will allow it to drop its tether.  We remember seeing gliders silently swooping through the clouds above us at the summit and marvel at how amazing and gutsy these glider pilots are, not to mention clever to be able to read the air currents and negotiate their way safely back down to the runway an hour or so later to land.  Some of the pilots are very young.

We see dozens of take offs and landings in the four days we are at the camp site.  All of them are done easily and with hardly a bump.  The organisers invite us to come closer and even sit in the planes.  One lady saying “you can have a flight if you like”.  I think she is joking, but she is not….. apparently they are always on the look out for new members.  I would be the most unlikeliest to ring in to flying as I have a major phobia with flying or planes of anykind and need to be drugged to the eyeballs before getting on one to go on holiday let alone a joy flight in an engine-less plane 1,500 metres in the air above a mountain!

The Gap, Albany WA

Albany is only 90kms from Bluff Knoll and is at the southern end of the Stirling Ranges.  We visit the old whaling station that is celebrating 30 years of closure.  The sights and smell of the place is still horrific and it is not hard to remember back to the days when the station was a working one.  I have vague recollections of a visit there as a child in the mid 70’s when they were still killing and cutting up whales there, and the smell of whale oil that remains at the site today bring back vivid and disturbing memories for me.

We are in Albany just for the day to get over our climb of Bluff Knoll yesterday (which we achieved in 3hrs 45 minutes - less than the 4-6 hours they say that it generally takes).  My legs are very sore and my left calf muscle makes it hard to walk and it is swollen behind me knee and I am forced to climb up and down stairs like an 80 year old.

We visit the usual suspects - The blow holes, The Gap, The Natural bridge and we are told that we may be lucky enough to spot a migrating whale while at these places.  We are amazed to see not just one or two, but groups of whales.

The Blow Holes, Albany WA

The whales are most likely hump backs on their way back north with calves in tow.  We can easily see them blowing water out of their blow holes and some of them come right out of the water and we can clearly see their heads and then a side fin and tail as they play or catch food.  It is an amazing sight and I never imaged that I would be able to spot whales from land as I had heard that you had to be on a boat to do so.  Albany however has the advantage of having very deep water directly off the Cliffs over a large area which allows the whales to come in close to land making viewing easy from the rocks without binoculars whereas further up the coast the water is shallower with beaches on the coast that makes it only possible to view the whales by boat as they continue their return to the Norther oceans.

Geocache Travel Bug - Tigger

Another new past time that we have discovered recently is GEOCACHING.  We have been researching GPS units for years and could never decide which one was the right one.  P, had bought one early in the year and we had seen her using in on many occasion and it seemed to work as well as we had hoped they would.  A GPS sort of goes hand in hand with camping I feel.  It is quite fun to track the path you have travelled, to be able to see where you are headed and where you have been and Cliff had been looking at the geocache website which seemed to bring even more interest into the scenario.

Cliff eventually decided on a GPS and bought a Magelan eXplorist XL which has a nice sized colour screen.  Within hours of purchasing it he had downloaded various geocaches that are close by to where we live and we soon head out for our first geocache find.  Geocaching is sort of like adult treasure hunting in a way.  A person or team hide a container which holds a small item a note book and pencil (to record finders) in a spot in the bush, or metro area in a tree or hidden in rocks or plants etc.  The site of the geocache is recorded with its co-ordinates at the geocache site and sometimes hints are given to assist to person who later looks for it.  You download geocache sites off of the website and the co-ordinates load onto your GPS and you can track your path as you go and the GPS shows you the direction to head.  Once you are in the vicinity of the geocache target your GPS signals that you are within a certain number of metres and then it is time for you to search high and low for it.  Sometimes it can be a canister hidden on a tree trunk, or a metal box hidden in rocks or a plant.  Some are fairly visual and others are very tricky to find.  Once you have found the geocache you can mark it on your GPS and on the geocache website as ‘found’ and this keeps a record on your finds.

Before we head off to Bluff Knoll Cliff locates a geocache at bluff knoll and a “Travel Bug” Geocache to take with us.  A Travel Bug is an item which has a metal registration tag on it.  Its purpose is to be found and taken by the finder to another site where it is deposited and left to be found by the next person who repeats the process.  In this way the ‘Travel Bug’ can travel wide distances and from country to country.  The Travel Bug that Cliff that Cliff finds is a plastic toy “Tigger” that has originated from Washington DC and has travelled to Alaska before coming to Western Australia.  It has been found and relocated on over 150 occasions and when we pick it up we log it online to say that we have removed it and will take it with us ‘down south’.

We loaded a geocache that is at the summit of Bluff Knoll onto our GPS before we sent off on our trip and we take the “Tigger Travel Bug” with us on our climb to the summit.  After we reach the summit we start our search for the geocache that is hidden there.  We find it within 10 minutes and record our name “Black Gecko” onto the log book in the cache…. and then deposit tigger into the cache box leaving a note about it.  The next week when we return home we put a post against the owner of the tigger travel bug to advise that we have left it at the Bluff Knoll geocache and hope that an overseas traveller will pick it up to continue it on its way around the world.

Postscript:  Geocache website notation from 7 October, Tigger has been retreived from Bluff Knoll by a German Tourist and taken to Germany to continue on his journey.

Bluff Knoll Looms

Bluff Knoll is the highest mountain in Western Australia (well it would be classed as a big hill on world standards) it is part of the beautiful Stirling Ranges in Western Australia about 450kms South East of the city of Perth and just 90kms shy of Albany which is on the coast.  Bluff Knoll is 1095 metres (3593 feet) in height and is advertised as a 3-5 hour round trip dependent on your fitness level for the 20,000 people who attempt to climb it each year.  Bluff Knoll was rather an imposing sight as we headed towards it.  Its peak is a rugged looking rocky outcrop that looks impenetrable and impossible to reach.  As we pull up in the car park at 11am on Saturday 27th September 2008, the mountain looms above us and we wonder if we will be in the reported 50% of the climbers who manage reach the summit.

The carpark view from the summit

The Stirling Ranges are rather magnificient and reach as far as the eye can see.  The range includes the Porongurups and extends over about 100kms, almost down to Albany.   The area around the ranges are national forests, sheep and canola farms with a grape growing region and wineries towards Mount Baker.

We camped at the Stirling Range Caravan & Camp Ground which is a 5 minute drive from the car park at the base of Bluff Knoll (which we can clearly see from our camp site).

We commence our climb at 11.30am and it is beautiful, sunny but mild day and we are in fine spirits and fairly confident at this point.  There are quite a few other family groups heading off at the same time as us and some with young kids and we wonder how they are going to make it to the top (and secretly worry that they will make it and we won’t!).  Cliff finds the ‘going up’ very hard going.  His asthma, which is quite bad at the moment, is not helping things (not to mention the fact that we are generally 15 years older than the people passing us it seems!).  We decide rather than exhausting ourselves that we will travel about 50 to 100 metres at a time and then rest for 30 seconds or so to catch our breath.  The climb is incredibly steep and the rocky terrain is quite hard to negotiate at times with steep cliffs at one side but is pleasantly covered, at this point with mid sized gum trees.  We are passed by a group of young guys in their early 20’s who are holidaying from Pakistan.  They are wearing thongs and have no drinks (beside one smiling fellow who proudly holds a can of coke!).  They seem ill prepared compared to our laden backpack (which Cliff lugs at this point) full of snacks and 4 litres of water (the recommenced dose for 2 people).  This weight will prove to be a pain later!

Cliff and Barry Quokka

We let the faster climbers pass us including a group with a bunch of kids aged from about 5 through to 13 and curse ourselves quietly about obviously being as old as we feel.  To our delight half an hour later we overtake this group.  The Pakistani Boys continually pass us then rest and we pass them several times over the next hour as they stop to take photos and some decide they’ve climbed high enough…. only 2 of them continue to the top.  About 3/4 of the way up the track has turned around the back of the mountain.  The views are quite breathtaking and each stop we take in the view which extends to the coast at Albany towards the South.  At this point Cliff has almost had enough and I too am exhausted but am determined to get to the top after almost 2 hours of climbing.

Me at the Summit

As we reach the summit the breeze is quite strong and cold and the 360 degree view is simple stunning and well worth the aching legs and thumping heart.  We sit near the edge of the rocks and look out towards the West (towards Mt Barker and the Porongurupsl) and we see the car park where we started out looking like an ant farm with cars too small to be made out and we can see the winding road that leads back to our camping ground.  We sit and eat crackers and cheese and take photos of the view and proof that we have made it to the top.  We include a photo of “Barry”…. who is a stuffed Quokka that we bought 8 years ago on a camp trip to Rottnest.  “Barry Quokka” accompanies us on all of our travels and we always take photos of him as some sort of family tradition.  Barry has been skiing in New Zealand, to Parliment House in Canberra, walked the Tree Top Walk near Denmarkand now he has made it to the summit at Bluff Knoll (and the little bugger is not even out of breath!).