Willow Springs round two - turning feral...
Trip Start
Jan 19, 2010
1
38
42
Trip End
Ongoing
Willow Springs, Western Australia, Australia
Sunday, May 23, 2010
This was not welcome news. We had already had a less than exciting morning packing down our very wet and by now muddy tent and tarp, cooked breakfast in the rain and battled to keep the fire burning against the ever increasing sog, and changed into dry clothes which in no time at all were far from dry. Now we had less than half a tank in the car and a gamble at which direction we should drive to find a fuel station that might possibly be open.
And so we hedged our bets on Nannup - one of the few towns we knew in the area to have a fairly decent population potentially large enough to support Sunday opening at the local servo. We calculated that we might just make it that far on the dwindling amount of fuel in the tank, but that didn't really matter anyway as trying to get somewhere useful was better than sitting in the rain waiting for Monday to arrive.
Eventually we did make it and to our relief, found the servo open and selling hot food as well as petrol. I think I may have actually shaken the owner's hand in gratitude. So able to re-stock our food and water supplies and celebrate with one of Mrs Mac's finest steak pies, our minds turned to which direction to head next.
It seems a little boring now I write this to say we went back to the first campsite we'd stayed at for sentimental reasons, but it was also a practical choice as we had left a huge stack of dry fire wood underneath the picnic table there, and we knew where to get lots more. Anywhere else we went there was a high chance we'd not find anything dry due to the amount of rain that had fallen in the last few days. Plus the day was short; already the light was dwindling and we knew we could make it there and have our camp set up again and a fire going before dark. So Willow springs it was, at least just for another night...
Returning to Willow Springs was weirdly like arriving home after a short holiday! Fortunately we found our stack of wood untouched and still dry, and as we already knew a good pitch for the tent, it took us no time at all to reconstruct the camp.
When we awoke to the first clear, sunny morning we'd seen in days, it felt like we were being welcomed back and we both had smiles on our faces and lifted spirits as we brewed the coffee.
We realised that we'd not explored much of the area around so after a late breakfast, with the weather for once on our side, we set off for a walk, randomly picking a trail just to see where it took us.
The forest here is awesome, with most of the treetops pushing forty meters or more, it's dizzying to keep your eyes focused on the canopy for too long. Many of the trees were shedding ridiculous amounts of bark, which had peeled it's way down the entire length of the trunk, and was currently hanging from branches in giant tendrils or adding to the already massive layer of forest floor mulch. The trees after shedding this bark were so amazingly smooth and silver in colour, that they almost appeared man-made.
After a while of exploring, we happened upon a couple of 'walkers'. You know the ones. With all the gear including poles, hats and trousers that unzip at the knee, maps around their necks in specially designed and branded protective plastic pockets and brand new hiking boots that look like they've just come out of their box. We, on the other hand, were 'strollers', with thongs, t-shirt, shorts and a beer. As you can imagine we probably came across as a little odd. I mean we didn't even have a compass! We called out 'G'day' as we passed, but I fear we either scared or offended them as they scowled in unison, put their heads down and upped the pace without saying a word.
We continued on, and eventually came back along the track that led us past the small billabong close to camp. We had found this place on our first visit here but hadn't really spent much time exploring. I now had with me a miniature tripod that we'd picked up for $1 in Bussleton, so I started to play with getting macro shots of some fungus growing near the water. Being closer to ground level, we noticed what looked like silver glitter in the mud so began poking about and soon discovered it was a rich deposit of clay. So with not much else to do we took on the challenge of making and firing our own clay pots! It turned out to be a fairly successful venture, and a project which kept us occupied for the next few days. We easily made a make shift kiln from retrieving some over sized slabs of wood from the loggers offcuts. You can see more in the pictures here. Charlie also mad a yabby trap (pictured) - which did work, but as it only caught one, and we weren't sure of the existing population, we let it go free.
All too soon and the day had arrived for us to return to Freo to re-unite with Sophie and Jacob to prepare for the next part of our journey - up the west coast...
