SW Coastline
Trip Start
Oct 20, 2004
1
69
84
Trip End
May 02, 2005
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SW Coastline, Australia
Friday, March 25, 2005
Today we left to go on a 4 day trip of the South West coast starting off with a visit to a cheese factory and MadFish winery in the Margaret River area. Then we went to the Mammoth Cave. A huge underground limestone cave full of stalagmites and stalactites. After that we went horse riding! We went for an hour or so through the bush, past grey kangaroos and loads of parakeets and cockatoos. We walked most of the way, but did trot a few times. The horses were so used to it though we hardly needed to tell them to do anything. After that we headed off to a campsite for the night. Swags again!
The next morning was the best part of the trip - Surf Lessons! We spent about an hour on the waves of the Margaret River Beach point break. It was and is definitely a lot harder than it looks. Brilliant fun though. After surfing we were taken to the Bi-centenial Tree, a 75 metre tall tree with special climbing poles drilled into the trunk, spiraling around to the top with various viewing platforms. We went all the way to the top which was a bit scary. On a windy day the top platform can sway up to 5 or 6 metres in each direction. Fortunately for us there was no wind at all! From here we went to the Valley of the Giants which was a tree top canopy walk about 45metres off the ground through a dense forest of huge trees (see photos). There was a bush fire a few miles away (apparently no danger to us thankfully) and the smoke had drifted into where we were which was very eery! We finished the day going to stay at a campsite beside a beach (in the swags again).
The next day we got up early to see a beautiful sunrise at the beach, then went to Madfish Bay and the 'Green Pools' for some snorkeling. The water was absolutely freezing but it was crystal clear and we saw loads of fish and even an octopus. We then went to stop off at a small town called Denmark where we went to a toffee shop for some free samples - yumm yumm. We then headed to the coast to see some huge rock formations - 'The Gap', a huge gorge reaching into the side of the cliffs and the 'Natural Bridge', where the rocks have eroded in such a way to form a gap underneath making it look like a huge bridge ( see photos). We finished off the day by going to climb a hill known as Bluff Knoll. The guide had been worried that it was going to be too hot to do the climb, as the forecast had been for about 37degrees, but as it turned out it didn't get that hot so we were able to go ahead. it was really tough going, quite steep in places and due to the heat we went really slow. It took about one hour to get to the top where we could see across the Stirling Ranges. When we got back down we saw the moon rise from behind the hill we had just climbed - cool!
On the morning of our last day we first went to visit some more strange shaped rocks, the first one called 'Hippo's Yawn', a huge overhanging rock which looked like a hippo opening its mouth. Our guide told us it used to be where Aboriginal women came to give birth. We then walked along 'Wave Rock', a massive rock which had been formed into the shape of a breaking wave. We then started heading back to Perth, stopping off briefly at an Aussie Rules pitch to try our hand at throwing a boomerang. We didn't do too bad, especially considering our guide didn't have a clue what he was doing. Our last stop of interest was few miles further down the road at a dog cemetery (the only one in Oz we think) where people bring their best friends from all over the country to their final resting place. We got back to Perth early evening and as it was Good Friday everything was closed but we did find a Dominos Pizza open for dinner.
