Week 11 - The BIG week

Hi all,

A week of BIGS this week.

BIG WHALES - this week I decided that I needed to see whales up close.  I have been seeing them off the shore for weeks now and although they look fantastic through binoculars when they are only about 1 km off shore, I started to feel like I was really missing out on something wonderful.  The only problem is that the last time I tried to go whale watching about 20 years ago, I experienced a BIG SICK, lost my camera off the side of the boat, no one saw a single whale, and it took 2 full days to get my equilibrium back.  It was a most excellent weekend away!!  I tossed all the pros and cons around and decided that if I was going to do it, Dunsborough was the best place to give it a go.  I could see whales off shore (not like last time) so wouldn't have to go far out to sea this time to see them, the boat was a catamaran (not like last time), the weather forecast was for the wind to drop (last time we had seas with 3m swells) and the cruises here only go for 2 hours (5 hours the last time).  Weighing all this up, I booked us on a cruise and bought a box of Kwells.  I was a bit nervous in the morning (which I heavily diguised from the children) and we got up with enough time to have a reasonable breakfast.  I ate a few cracker biscuits about 15 minutes before boarding and it was so still and calm, I didn't bother with the Kwells.  It was very overcast and rain was forecast but that didn't really bother me.  We headed out on the boat and within 15 minutes we were up close to whales.  Absolutely takes your breath away to be so close to such huge creatures.  They are awesome.  Two whales came so close to check us out that we have photos of a whale's head coming straight at us and a tail photo that is too big to fit in the frame of the camera.  I didn't take that many photos - I was too busy looking at the whales.  It was a fantastic 2 hours on the water and despite having to sail through rain everyone was transfixed by the whales.  We saw dolphins on the way back, jumping and riding our bow waves so it was a bonus that made up for the terrible, no good, very bad  day at Bunbury. I wasn't queasy at all and was ecstatic to have pulled this off.  Eloise went green 30 minutes into the cruise but Mal shoved a half a Kwells into her and within 10 minutes she was bouncing round the boat screaming with excitement at seeing the whales.  A totally fantastic time. I am no photographer but this is one of the tail shots that I got.

BIG TREES - here in the SW of WA they grow their trees big!  They are honestly massive.  We have driven through national parks here that have huge tall Karri trees, Marri trees and Red Tingle trees.  They are usually as much as 12 metres in diameter at the base and between 30 and 40 metres tall.  Almost too big to comprehend even when your are looking up at them.  There have been a couple that are pegged so you can climb them but with a BIG SWAY (1.5 metres) at the top where the viewing platform is, we all took a BIG RAINCHECK.  We did the Tree Top Walk at Walpole and the entire platform and walking spans move about as you walk over them.  It is seriously high and I was glad to be off them.

Hard to capture the enormity of these trees with a camera.

BIG WET - This week we have hit the rain.  Not just a little shower here and there but thunderous rain that just keeps falling.  We left the Margaret River with a completely wet canvas having packed up between rain storms and drove all day through heavy rain that lashed the windscreen.  We booked into a cabin thinking that we could dry the canvas out but the rain just wouldn't let up.  The next morning we headed onwards through the most heavy rain we have seen yet to where we are now at Denmark.  Again we went for a cabin and pulled everything that was wet in from the car.  We strung up a washing line and systematically dried everything out!  Mal did a load of washing and we dried that too!  We left no stone unturned as we dried out bedding, pillows, clothes and our camper mattress.  And the rain thundered down outside and then turned to hail.  This morning we woke to cloudy sky with a few sunny breaks so Mal and I shot out of bed like little Jack Rabbits to set up the tent.  10 minutes later (which is all it takes!) the camper was up in the sun drying out.  We headed out till lunch time to do things and returned to a dry canvas which we smugly packed away all dried out.  The forecast into the next few days isn't good so we may be staying in a few more cabins yet as we aren't keen to get our canvas wet before we hit the Nullarbor mid next week.  Despite the rain, everyone is in high spirits and we have learnt to adapt what we are doing to fit the conditions.  As I type this from the comfort of my cosy coastal cabin, the wind is now howling outside and the rain isn't far away again.  After 75 nights in the camper, 4 or 5 in a cabin isn't too bad if it means we still have a good time.

As you can see, the van park is exceptionally busy (not!) and this is our trusty home having a sunbake to dry off.

BIG WAISTLINES - the Margaret River area is seriously bad for BIG CHOLESTOROL LEVELS, BIG WEIGHT GAIN and has the ability to blow your food budget right out of the water!  We now have a fridge that is loaded with gourmet cheeses, (we did have yoghurt......) and a food box that is fast turning into a long life storage area for gourmet products that we are hauling home - olive oil, nougat, honeycomb, dukka, Gaby's Muesli, choc covered almonds, other nuts and toffee.  Not much space for my rice, pasta and cereal these days.  My jeans are feeling fairly snug this week so I may have undone all my good work for the last 10 weeks in one 5 day period in the Margaret River.  Bah humbug.

The BIG UNDERGOUND - this week we have been into the most spectacular caves here in WA and seen the most astonishing limestone formations.  Regrettably, they leave anything on the East Coast for dead.  We got a Caves Pass which got us into 4 caves in total out of a possible 7.  We chose carefully and visited Jewel Cave, Mammoth Cave, Lake Cave and Ngilgi Cave.  The advantage of travelling out of peak season and out of school holidays is that there are so few tourists that you almost have the tour guide all to yourself!  It is incredible to think that these caves have been thousands of years in the making and are just so incredibly beautiful - Jewel Cave blew our minds with the formations, stalactites and stalactites, Lake Cave was the best of all with an underground lake in it with astonishing formations up close, Mammoth Cave was just that - BIG and Ngilgi cave was full of shawls and colours in the formations.

Looking out of the start of Mammoth Cave

Mal's BIG adventure - Mal was taken with the lighthouses at each end of the Cape.  He went on a tour of both and survived gale force winds at the top of both.  He saw whales off the top of the Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse to the North and he saw the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean's meet from the top of Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse.  The two ocean's meet front on to each other which makes for some pretty big waves and very choppy conditions.  Both lighthouses are BIG in themselves and Mal now knows how they decide how tall they need to build each lighthouse.  Handy for when you need to build your next tower over the sea.  Just give him a call - he is a sharing kind of guy.

Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse - Mal informs me as I type that this is the smaller of the two lighthouses.......

The BIG BORE - You may be thinking this is some kind of water well in the ground or in fact, it could be us getting ready for the drive over the Nullarbor(ing) - but you would be wrong on both counts!   If you ever visit Pemberton, you can probably safely give the Tramway Company Forest scenic tram ride a miss - unless of course you have a fetish to be bored stupid by a very boring commentary from a long term Pemberton resident (that says it all to start with really).  Almost nothing to salvage from that morning activity except that Mal and I got to sit quietly for a couple of hours while Eloise slept (yes, she actually put her head down and slept) and Rachel went through her camera and deleted dodgy photos.  Such a shame - that could be such a great opportunity to share with tourists the story of Pemberton and the mill there and all about the Karri trees........but no, instead it would have to go down as the most boring thing I have done for a very long time.

Before the trip.  The after shots aren't so lively!

BIG BAROMETER - we were hoping to finish this week with a visit to the world's biggest barometer here in Denmark but apparently, the man who built it, got the strops with the visitor's centre (despite the custom made centre to house it and the visit from the Guiness Book of Records to record it) and took it home to his back shed!  So, no barometer viewing for us.

You can guess that our eyes have been wide open and BIG this week taking it all in.  It is a sensory overload - we feel that our eyes and ears just can't take any more in.

The Good, Bad and Ugly for this week:  The Good would hands down go to the whale watching cruise.  Awesome!!!!!!!!  The Bad - the visit to the Bettanay Nougat Factory to stock up on fancy nougat only to find that all their nougat has white chocolate mixed with it.  Not real nougat at all, and not nougat that can be safely consumed by the chief planner, map reader, navigator, cook and distance education specialist. 
The Ugly - easy one this week.  Picture if you will a cosy tent all closed up tightly against the rain and a family all snugly wrapped up in sleeping bags sleeping through the rain storm.  The Mummy wakes and is unable to go back to sleep without a trip to the loo (noise associations with running rain water are most unhelpful) so she heads down the ladder from her penthouse sleeping platform.  As she reaches the bottom rung she puts out her foot to the floor of the tent and steps into a freezing cold puddle of water.  She screeches to wake her sleeping mate.  He wakes (slowly) and asks (slowly) what the problem might be now.  He is instantly briefed about the water situation and the fact that the children have wet pillows.  She doesn't get much feedback.  So she loses her temper BIG time.  It's midnight, the tent is full of water, the children are going to die from water poisoning, her bladder is not a snap lock bag that can hold water indefinately, it's raining, and he is lying down in the penthouse.  His solution - to turn off the heater (the water ingress is caused by condensation - BIG fancy words for midnight with a cranky spouse) and put everything liftable into the car.  These two actions were executed and then the adult members of this family head back to bed.  The male of the species falls asleep instantly (chuckling) but the female lies awake for many hours in a hot temper watching the tent poles for water "ingress".  Humph.  Very ugly.

No Dream Stealers this week - they have all gone home to Victoria with their vans.

The car and trailer sitting on the side of the road in Jane National Park.  Yes, it really is called Jane National Park.  It's very beautiful (naturally) and very peaceful (how does that work?? Mal).

Till next week,

Love and rain drops,

Jane, Mal, Rachel and Eloise