Southwest - Albany, rock formations, Tree Top Walk and find the big tree

Hallihallo friends and strangers,

You cannot possibly imagine how cold and tired and miserable I was when we had to get up at 5am again on Thursday morning. This time we had to pack our swags, tents and stuff away before we could have breakfast. Nearly on time at 8:10am we sat off towards Albany, the first settlement of Western Australia. On the way there Damian suddenly started to break and as I looked to the front of the bus I saw a fairly big kangaroo jumping across the road quite leisurely from right to left. He had one more jump to do but Damian couldn’t stop anymore or any harder and there was no point in swerving. So, well, we hit the kangaroo. It happened quite fast. Damian stopped next to the road, asked us to stay in the bus and together with Dennis he cleared the biggest parts off the road and had a look at the front of the bus. Luckily everything seemed ok, so we drove on. This happens every day all over Australia, guys, and there are still enough kangaroos left.

In Albany we walked along a very easy walkable coastal walk towards the beach. 

We then wanted to drive up Mount Clarence to get a nice overview of Albany and see why through the surrounding islands this port has been seen as a fairly safe port. But the road was closed for road works to make the path ready for ANZAC Day next week. So instead we drove to a ship replica of the Amity. Damian was very surprised to find out that the entry to the ship now costs 6 AUD per person, so we stood in front of the ship while Damian told a story about it but he isn’t the best storyteller and it was something about a woman who got onboard because of her husband and it is a really big ship and lots of people and animals had to live on it during the long journeys.

Then we drove to the Gap and the Natural Bridge and due to the rough sea there was a lot of splashing water to be seen.

Our next quick stop was a rock formation called The Elephants. But it rained a bit, so I didn’t take my camera with me. Then we went to the blowhole. Andre, Q-Yuan, Erin and Twiggy stood there while they got water and air blown all over them. Really funny!

Then we drove to the Valley of the Giants to the award-winning Tree Top Walk! It is a little bit wonky on this steel-bridge and it goes up very quickly. As it wasn’t the best weather also the view might not have been the best. It was nice to walk 40m high around these giant trees but somehow everyone I talked to expected something more. Including me.

After that there is the Ancient Empire Walk on the ground amongst Red Tingles which get burnt inside every now and then when a fire comes through the forest.

Then we drove to a little city nearby to have lunch (wraps filled with salad and meat) and then Damian tried to find the Bicennial Tree. Yes, he TRIED to find it but he didn’t in the end. We got to the Boorara Tree which is basically the same. These trees are higher and stronger than the surrounding trees. So you put stacks in them to climb to the top where fire-lookouts were built.

 We got back into the bus on the impression that we would head directly to our next campground. Suddenly Damian stopped on the road, waited for the next car to slow down and asked the driver a few things. Damian explained that he wanted to do a little circle around the area to show us some unique plants but instead of an hour detour it turned out to be a three-hour-detour. So together with Dennis and Andre the navigation team was set up to find the shortest route through all these national parks to our next campground near Margret River. Damian has missed quite a few turns during the day and also in the days before. We arrived at about 7pm and met the othergroup again! What a surprise. We set up camp, showered and waited for Damian and Andre to return from the shopping trip and then had a BBQ with steaks, sausages and coleslaw.

After dinner we sat down to play some drinking games but a part of our group went to bed early (in the bus) and some others from the other group joined us. We had to explain the rules again and again and it was much slower to play. It was still funny but nowhere near as funny as a few nights ago. After one game at 11pm I headed into the tent for the last night on this trip.

Yours Tree-Top-walking Stefanie