Giants

Hi Folks

We are about to leave Nornalup a small settlement (Pop 50) on the south west corner of Oz. We have had a great time here and again have met wonderful people. However the main focus of this Blog is to show the scale of some of the things we have seen. The truck or road train as they are known can tow up to four trailers. In this particular case there are two, the containers are holding liquid fertiliser which is being delivered to farms in the outback. The driver, a huge gentle giant of a man, had his wife and two daughters with him and the cab is big enough to sleep them all. This road train is part of a fleet but it is not uncommon for trucks to be owned by individuals and the trucks are their home as well.
Just outside Nornalup there is a huge forest of Tingle trees. These are giants and we were able to climb a tree top walkway ( a little scary) and this is where Fogg took the attached photo. It was taken from a height of 40 metres and there was a lot more tree above the walkway so you may be able to imagine how tall these trees are. Phileas of course in second heaven. She understands trees. The other photograph was taken looking up from inside a Tingle tree that had been hollowed out by fire, insects etc.... The biggest tree we saw was 16 metres in circumference. Beautiful majestic soft wood trees, the wood is not suitable for building thank goodness so did not meet the same fate as the Kauri trees in New Zealand.
Nornalup is near the Southern Ocean so a brief trip to the beach here revealed a most beautuful and magical place where Phileas and I sat and marvelled at the huge waves that were crashing in . As we looked out there was nothing but sea between us and the Antarctic. Also we were the only people for miles. As always the photograph is not able to tell the whole story but it was a wonderful place. The beach is adjacent to a place called Conspicuous Cliffs.

Our last evening here, Fogg indulged himself with Scallops followed by Marron, a type of crayfish/lobster/langoustine mix. Whatever, it was delicious. So this is Fogg wishing you all well. Over to Phileas.

Hi, Phileas here and as you can see from the photos in tree and beach heaven. This really is all I ask, a place where I can see both. This is that place, just too far away!
The restaurant we ate in last night was in the village and was the best place we have eaten in since we arrived in Australia. That includes Sydney, where I have to say the service was not good and the food mediocre. I had smoked (to order) salmon and a rather excellent local Shiraz (or two!). Tingle trees are a type of eucalyptus, the name is Aboriginal (the meaning has slipped my mind temporarily, must be the Shiraz! I must also tell our readers about Brenda who works in the local tourist site in Walpole, our local town. We have an Aus. mobile but have no coverage here and the local phone booth was not working. She lent us her mobile so that we could phone ahead to book accomodation. Quite a star!

I'll close now as we have a long journey today. Best wishes
Phileas

wheatfields, wasteland and wave rocks and a roo!

Hello to all our readers from the southern forests of WA and a small town called Walpole. We have been moving over the last few days, two nights here and two nights there. So we have seen a huge range of landscapes and had an opportunity to look at some very interesting parts of WA. We started about a week ago in a town called York and the first picture shows our cottage. It is built of tin and was the old barn for the house. It was wonderfully snug and comfortable with a claw foot bath and open fire. The owners keep alpacacas and sheep as well as a range of farm birds and a tame roo called Katie. She and I bonded over a banana skin and she held my hand with her front paws as she took the delicacy from me!!
York is a National Trust town as its buildings are architecturally so important. We, as they say here, 'gave it a good go' with a walk that took us to the very edge and the bush. It is fascinating to see how the towns and villages literally stop and the the bush starts. York is in a region called the wheatfields and as the name suggests is an enormous agricultural area. In order for farming to take place the forests were cleared and this has had a devastating effect on the land. This clearing coupled with climate and the underlying geology has created massive salt 'lakes' whose salinity has killed all the plants that were growing there. The photo shows the typical devastation. While it had a certain surreal beauty the farmers are struggling to stop the process - the equivalent of ten football pitches a day becoming unusable. The science is complicated, but basically the trees took up so much water that they kept the water table (and therefore the salt) deep. Take away the trees, the wheat uses less water and so the water table rises bringing the salt with it. Trees you see are so important. If the early settlers had only been to one of my lessons they would have known that!!
We moved on from York to Hyden to visit the Wave Rock. Again the area was virtually a wasteland in the middle of which were great granite outcrops. The edges had been eroded by the water running over them creating these wonderful wave shapes. We stayed in a resort again right 'on the edge'. Pretty bleak, however as you can see from the photo we got some pretty amazing sunsets which we could watch from our verandah. Very little wildlife here but we did find lots of roo tracks crisscrossing the sandy paths around the houses. We left this rather bleak area nad drove to Katanning a largish (5000) town on the edge of the wheatfields. Is was meant to be stopping off point as it was ANZAC weekend but because of that everything was closed and we stayed for two nights. An excellent B&B with the comfiest bed in WA!

We are now in the Southern Forests and the area could not be more different. Tall trees as far as the eye can see and the coast just beyond. We will blog more from here once we have explored. Just for now here is a visitor spotted last night just a few feet from our cottage. We are in a wildlife paradise at the Riverside Retreat, in a cottage whose verandah gives us wonderful vistaa over the trees down to the Frankland River. The place is called Nornalup and is about 8kms from Walpole. Enough from me now, here is Fogg. Best wishes from me, Phileas

Hi. Fogg here. Stunning photographs again. Of course, as ever photographs do not do justice to the sights we have seen. I did not even attempt to take the wheatfields. They are so vast but beautiful and quite breathtaking. We are exploring such a small area of Australia and yet the distances between towns is immense and our driving has been challenging. We stop on the way by the roadside and marvel at where we are. We know how incredibly lucky we are.

So my very best wishes to you all. Fogg x

Suplimentary to Fogg surfing and stuff

Hi folks
These are additional images we meant to include in the previous blog which we hope you enjoyed!
These are the 'Pinnacles' at Cervantes. There are thousands of them covering many acres. We travelled about 4 km to circumnavigate them whilst stopping on the way to go in and explore them on foot. They became strangely eerie as the sun went down.

Best wishes to you all. Fogg and Phileas

Fogg surfing? and other stuff!

Hi Fogg here
I would like to tell you about my surfing exploits as evidenced by the photograph of a beardless and slimmer Fogg to the left. A fantastic experience which I will not forget. I hung 10 with the best of them and waited for the ultimate 'rip and curl'. As you can see not only have I honed my skills I have learnt the lingo too!

We stayed on Brighton beach at Scarborough (it's true!) on the west coast. A wonderful beach for surfing and watching sunsets, before heading north to Cervantes. This is a small settlement of about 750 named after an American whaling

ship that ran aground off shore in 1840. All the street names are Spanish too when in fact the whole area has nothing to do with Spain! Nearby Cervantes there are the 'Pinnacles', limestone outcrops that developed around the roots of trees. They are in desert conditions and are all set in sand. As you can see there are some strange markings which we found in a straight line in the sand heading towards the 'bush' . A prize for the first correct identification of the attached photo. So over to Phileas and this is Fogg sending you very best wishes x

Hi Phileas here, a second photo for identification
too, answers next time! The clue is it's very old and involves cyno - bacteria (blue green algae).
Enough of this, we loved the beach at Cervantes as well. The sand was white and the sea turquoise and emerald green. Had some good bird spots as you can see from the emu photo; also pelicans, ospreys, willie wagtails (seriously, they are a feisty bird, well they'd have to be with a name like that!!), cockatoos and parakeets and galahs. Just as the sun was setting we also glimpsed three grey kangaroos but they were too far away to 'snap'.

Yesterday we drove from Cervantes to York where we are staying for a few days. On the way we passed through the small settlement of New Norcia which is a Spanish Benedictine town dominated by a monastery, convents and associated buildings all dating from the 1840s. Strangely nothing to do with Cervantes. We browsed their extensive collection of European and WA religious art and had a good lunch at the Hotel before heading off again to our present destination, York. I'll talk about York later when we have taken some photographs. Suffice to say that we are staying in a converted tin barn - very comfy!!

Best wishes
Phileasxx

The Indian Pacific

G'day from Perth, Western Australia. Phileas here and some wonderful photos of our trip on the Indian Pacific. The first is obviously the train, the second shows the main street in Broken Hill, the third the view from the main street in Cook (popn. 4) and finally a typical view as we crossed the Nullarbor Plain.

This was an amazing trip, 3 days and nights in a tiny cabin travelling through some of the most desolute and unpopulated areas of Australia. We met some very interesting people from all over the world as we sat and drank G&T in the lounge before dinner, or whilst eating breakfast, lunch or dinner in the dining car. The food was delicious and we feel very full!!! There is not much room to move, so we took walks up and down the train. There were however, opportunities to get off the train to explore some of the remotest settlements in Australia. Broken Hill has been a familiar name to us for many years through friends who worked there and it was great to see this very singular town and learn about its mining history. Cook was a busy railway town until privatisation. Now just 4 people live there and it is a rest area for train drivers and crew. Last night we had a moonlight tour of Kalgoorlie and its historic buildings, brothels and the largest gold mine in the world, the Super Pit!!!!

The scenery was stunning, the colours almost indescribable although I am sure that Fogg will have a go. Disappointed to only see one grey kangaroo, but did spot two dingoes, many magnificent wedge tailed eagles, galahs and cockatoos. The gum trees are of course my favourite, brilliant trees that can survive the most extreme conditions.

Over to Fogg now, best wishes from me Phileas.

Hi folks

A wonderful journey. Broken Hill was fascinating although its future seems to be fragile. There is a little mining done here but this is rapidly coming to an end and about 12000 people have left the town in the last ten years. The youth tend to leave for the big cities and old folks homes are springing up which is in itself pushing house prices up . It is hoped to make Broken Hill a heritage site and it will become a tourist destination although the disused and broken down mines will probably have limited appeal. But I did learn about '2Up' a gambling game which is illegal in Australia except on ANZAC day, but Broken Hill which seems to a law unto itself play it on a regular basis legally on a Friday night although our coach driver pointed out that nobody checked.

Cook is an extra ordinary place. The remotest place I had ever been to. It had its own unique beauty. It did have a population of 300 but almost depleted now. It did have a hospital, golf course and school once and those buildings are still there but are slowly being eroded away by the wind, occasional rain and blistering heat in the summer. A ghost town.

The views from the train were fantastic. Whilst it seemed to be endless it was in fact fascinating to see the subtle changes as we travelled. (The light brought the rocks into sharp relief and accentuated the colours) Phileases words!!

Some of the people we met were very interesting and were travelling to Perth for a variety of reasons one of which was to compete in or support competitors in the 'Masters' swimming event. One of our travelling companions who was involved is a 74 year old back stroke specialist and the American couple we met from Connecticut were supporting their 40 year old daughter in the 200 metres freestyle. Others were there for holiday or big family reunions . It was so interesting to meet so many types of people and hear their stories.

So this is Fogg signing off. Best wishes to you all.

Goodbye New Zealand, hello Australia!

Hi Folks

We are now in Sydney having left New Zealand on the 6th April. We had a fantastic time in NZ which we hope we have conveyed in our previous blogs from there. So many happy memories, not least is the people we met. Everybody has been so kind. Complete strangers who invited us to their house to eat. Old friends and colleagues and new friends. They have all been wonderful and there is no doubt that we will keep in touch with many of them. Of course the scenery and wildlife have been outstanding. Too much to mention here but a real favourite was the Pukeko featured to the left. A wonderful and delicate bird with real attitude, apparently much loathed by the locals but as a foreigner I have the luxury of not having to deal with them on a day to day basis. The food and wine have also been a real treat and the wine of course is cheap compared to prices of the same in UK. Fruit and fresh veg very tasty. It is an amazing country with so many positive aspects to it. The cultural diversity is exciting and its history, whilst short, is facinating. We have learnt so much from so many people. So whilst we were sorry to say good bye to New Zealand we are excited by what lies ahead in Australia and beyond. Over to Phileas now.

I was very sad to say goodbye to a country that has felt like home for the last 4 months. My newly discovered cousin Jude was in Auckland on the day we left and came to wave us goodbye, or as her husband Alan put it 'to make sure they left' !! Typical!! As Fogg has said we have left behind many new friends and also have caught up with old ones. But it wasn't just friends and relatives who were so wonderful, all the people we met in shops and restaurants seemed genuinely pleased to serve us. For me the wildlife and trees were absolutely fantastic, an 'A' Level biology lesson round every corner! So thank you to everyone we have met, I can't name you all, you have reinforced for me the importance of family and friends.

Now we are in a very exciting city as you can see from Fogg's photos. Apparently the population of Sydney is the same as the whole of NZ. So this is a very different experience. However no less interesting; sharp eyed Fogg spotted a fruit bat last night and we have had two sightings of Ibis in the park by the harbour. As always we have hit the streets running and are exhausted but exhilerated (and slightly sunburnt). Very excited at getting hold of tickets for Swan Lake at The Opera House (what an amazing building), more on that later. Brilliant cruise round the Harbour this morning in the most glorious and hot sunshine.

Enough from me now, Fogg champing at the bit. Thank you NZ, we love you.

Phileas


The Opera House is fantastic. Allegedly inspired by the architect peeling an orange one day it is all it is cracked up to be. As we were cruising in the harbour I noticed that the span of the bridge echoed the shapes of the OH, hence the photo above to illustrate that. Sydney is a very exciting city and we are lucky enough to be in a hotel right in the middle. Eighteen stories high with a swimming pool on the 19th! I am trying to encourage Phileas to take a dip! On Saturday we take the Indian Pacific train to Perth on the west coast. So this is Fogg signing off. My love and very best wishes to you all Fogg xx