Tues Sept 17- Fri. Sept 20  Western Australia Road Trip

As we flew into Perth on Tues. evening the landscape below looked like a patchwork of green ….this was nothing like I thought Western Australia to be.  I thought it would be more brown and burnt….but I forget this is spring and they have just come out of a very wet winter.  The temperature was a shock….both of us wearing shorts or capris, flip-flops, and no-sleeve tops... and now jackets.  We had just come from hot and humid for the last 2 weeks and now we were back to getting prepared for Vancouver winter weather.
 
We were met by Andrew, an Australian who had spent a year at Lori’s school years ago on a teacher exchange.  He and his wife Jane have graciously invited us to spend our last days in Australia at their house.  Jane had a wonderful dinner of lasagna and salad and a scrumptious brownie with strawberries and whipped cream for dessert.  We chatted for while and then they went off to bed as both had to get up in the morning to go to school  By the way Jane is a secondary Teacher Librarian!

In the morning Lori and I set off on the bus into Perth to rent a car for the next 7 days.  (By the way on the way into town our bus broke down….what is it with us and buses!!) We were back at the house by 12 loading our weekend bags into a little Toyoto Corolla.  Our destination for the first night was Hayden and the Wave Rock.  Now you may not have heard of the wave rock; neither had I until we decided to come to Perth and I started to look for the Earthcaches.   Hyden is about 300km east of Perth.  

As usual we tried to follow Marsha’s directions out of town…..but she lead us in a kind of round about way so we turned her off and followed our noses.  The landscape is nothing like I expected…..there were forests, green green fields of wheat, yellow fields of canola…..hills.  We found a couple of caches along the way….one in a pet cemetery….actually the largest dog cemetery according to Guiness World Records!

Canola fields

We arrived in Hyden just before 6, just as it was getting dark….I don’t like driving any later because Lori’s got me anxious about hitting a kangaroo.  And we did see a car at the side of the road today…..all windows gone and the front kind of mangled….looks like it hit a roo.  We pulled into the Wave Rock Motel….one of our more expensive accommodation choices on this trip but there is not much around to choose from. We ate dinner in our room of the buns, meat and cheese and potato chips and raw veggies.  Then went in search of their wifi in their lobby.  We published the blog, downloaded pictures and did our geocaching stuff while waiting for Lori’s date with Wayne on face time….which sadly didn’t happen….technical problems.

Thursday we checked out of the hotel and headed for the Wave…..I will let the pictures show you why I wanted to come!!!

After we left the area we started to head south….zig zagging through quaint “tidy” towns…..Kondinin, Kulin, Dumbleyung, Katanning, Cranbrook, Mt  Barker and spending the night in Denmark….over 400 km.

Felt like we were at home!

Denmark was our destination because of…what else, a cache, that made the “Cache of the Week” from the world wide caches….This one was a puzzle to solve at the site.  After going in the wrong direction for nearly a kilometer, we started back, and bush-whacked through the Australian forest to finally zero in on the cache.  There was a square, metal post in the ground, and we knew we had to get into it somehow.  Nearby was a little "toolkit," but we did not know what tools we needed, nor what each one was for.  We were a little worried about darkness, so we had to get going in a hurry.  In the end, we had to use a plunger to pull out a "button," a magnet to pull out a screw and plate, a handle to crank the gears....and presto!  A little head popped out the top.  We could see the cache in behind the eyes, but couldn't find a tool to help us....turns out we just needed to pull out the plate with our fingers!  A very inventive cache that was fun to do, and worthy of its award!

A cache?

Lori aka McGyver solves the puzzle!

This is spring in Western Australia…..we had been told to watch out for the widflowers blooming now but were not prepared for the amazing colours that we saw…….the red red soil, the blue sky, the many shades of springtime greens, the brilliant yellows of the canola fields and the many colours of wildflowers…..yellows, purples, oranges, reds, pinks.

We found a little motel with a great restaurant but no wifi!  W e wandered about the town and found a couple of caches.  Very cute little town.

Friday we were on the road by 8am and headed along the coast west.  The road is inland so you get very few glimpses of the ocean.  The drive is through a rain forest much like ours but with different trees and bushes.  Much of the forest is way taller and bushier than what I thought it would be. 

We stopped at the next town, Warpole, and stopped in at the information centre in search of wifi….which wasn’t open yet but guess what….there was a cache.  The gentleman at the info centre was very helpful telling us about the Tingling tree,  a tree that is only found in their area (from the whole world) and told us about a place where we could see the Giant Hollow Tingling tree that was in a picture in their office.  They didn’t have wifi though.

The Giant Tingling Tree

We went back a couple of kilometres to go a little off road on a little one way road…..we went about a kilometer and Lori said we just went past a view point that had a cache.  Now I’m not good at backing down a road, driving on the other side of the car so Lori took over!!!!  We found that cache and went on in search of the Giant Tingling tree which was a little hike in.  And Lori kept on driving on the little dirt road and then continued back on the paved road……and she continued on to Perth!!!

She's driving!

We stopped in Pemberton at the info center, again in search of wifi….didn’t find that but found a room full of computers with free access to seniors (over 50)!  There were about 15 computers the ones designated for seniors had the bigger screens!  We had lunch in this town too and after a little problem getting out town….the new navigator (me) pointed us in the wrong direction until I read the signs that were telling us distances to the wrong towns!

Large screens for seniors!

 

Torrents of rain......

 

a few minutes later sunshine

 

Wild Emus

We were headed for Cape Leeuwin, which is the most southwesterly corner of Australia, where the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean meet.   Andrew brought Lori down here on one of her visits to Perth and she remembers the sign that was there (but couldn’t remember the lighthouse)  and has told me about it.  Of course there was a cache there too, now our furthest from home cache, at 15,052 km.

Where the Southern Ocean meets the Indian Ocean

Then off we went…..we had decided to head back to Perth instead of spending another night away.  It was about 4pm when we left and it would be getting dark soon (remember the kangaroos) ….We passed through Margaret River region, a very well known wine area, and continued up the freeway to Perth, arriving about 8pm.  Our (new) little car had 680 km when we left just over 48 hours prior....now it's at 2050!  More to come...