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| Bibbulman Marker |
After a few minutes of late night talk with Ash-da and some of Kir's door-slamming echoing through the high-ceiling of the house, I fell asleep in a hurry. Perhaps the beer did its job or perhaps just the pleasantly eventful day was enough I would never find out. The next morning started with sun shining through the glass door and the window pane just below the ceiling [see picture here]. So the day began in the living area with brave-hearts trying and some even pretending to enjoy the notorious vegemite spread on their toast. Some of us feeble souls refused to take on the challenge. Ash-da had left a jar in Kathmandu a few years ago for me to try. On my visit home I had spread the paste of yeast extract on my toast resulting in a near regurgitation. With "been there done that" attitude, I did not partake in further torturing of my taste buds and the pre-frontal lobe. After breaking the fast through the night, we gathered our stuff and rushed to the iMax.
This was the only complete day we had to explore Albany and we were determined to put it to good use. Ash-da drove the eight of us to the windmill farm where we could see the famous Bibbulmun trail which starts in Albany and goes all the way to Kalamunda just outside of Perth stretching almost 1000 kilometers or roughly 620 miles. We took some magnificent pictures on wooden lookouts and even walked on the trail for a few minutes to realize how fly infested the track really was during this time of the year. December is the peak of summer in this hemisphere after all. The slightly cooler temperate of Albany hadn't helped a bit when it came to flies. I could literally see countless number of those dingy creatures just sitting on the back of whoever was in front, Pa-jwai and Ash-da in particular. As I was realizing why the person I had seen on the trail earlier had nets hanging from his hat and around his head, Ash-da started telling me about this special kind of hat with hanging beads swaying to keep the flies and other bugs away. I still think the net idea is better just because I'd rather pay attention to any possible predatory noise while on a trail like that. We mistook the signature Bibbulman track marker (see picture above) for the warning signs of possible snake presence, even though there is little doubt snake encounter is a very likely happening as evidenced by the story "A Tale of a Snake." After our half an hour adventure on the track where people spend a whole month, we had our share of fly hating but nature loving moment and started heading back to the car park (aka parking lot). Throughout our short time on the track, I kept wondering what reptiles lurked under that wooden walkway and if such a wooden track existed along the entire 600 plus miles. It was quite an experience to be in the middle of thick shrubs and see the ocean. After we came back up, KK decided to go and look for the restroom. A minute later she came back startled saying she saw a snake slithering into the information center.
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| King's Skink |
We got back in the van, had some Tim-Tams, and started rolling again. Next we stopped by a good looking beach which I don't remember the name of. Rosh and Kir sat under a tree to get their fair mojo back, Swe and Pa-jwai took off for a walk and Ash-da, D-bhauju, KK and I hauled our butts on the beach soon after. We saw a couple of fresh water streams cutting through the beach and mixing into the ocean. It was something I theoretically knew but hadn't seen in real life. A dad and his boy were playing cricket and others were enjoying themselves while we livened our mood by walking barefooted on the whitest sand on the continent. A couple clicks here and a couple clicks there and off we went to the Salmon Hole off Frenchman Bay road. This was the most beautiful beach I have seen to date. We easily spent an hour there even though we weren't beach ready or knew how to swim. Somebody came up with the flying picture idea and Kir and Rosh, Pa-jwai and Swe started jumping in the air while the photographer, whosoever turn it was, was trying to capture an air shot with the pristine beach as the backdrop. It was quite a drama and we all were laughing our butt off. After shooting a brief video of the drama with my phone, I took some time alone to enjoy the place. Found "Riders on the storm" on my phone and with that I took a few minute walk along the beach playing with waves. It was beyond majestic.
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| Salmon Hole |
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| The Natural Bridge |
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| The Gap |
We headed back to town for a late lunch. I was craving sushi, Pa-jwai was looking forward to Japanese, and Kir was awaiting his noodle soup. The rest were plain hungry and so we stormed into the Noodler's Noodle bar. I had my sushi, everyone found something they liked. I was sad to see Kir change his mind at the last minute, though he enjoyed his lunch alright. KK found herself a vegetarian box noodle. And we were still hungry for more touristy stuff.
KK's friend from Nepal and now Ash-da and bhauju's friends in Perth, Ana and Nab, had casually mentioned "tree top walk," in the Valley of the Giants, and Ash-da had been planning to check out that place. I couldn't really wrap my head around the thought of walking atop trees. So I was quite curious to see what it all meant. It was already past two and with about 50 kms of driving, we headed straight towards Denmark. No, not the one in Europe. Though the GPS took us close by, we were off tracked into quite an adventurous dirt road. Five minutes into it, Ash-da had enough, and with some khalasi help he somehow managed to turn the van around to get back on the highway. Another five minutes later, we had found the much coveted tree top walking area. We made it there a few minutes before they were supposed to close. The topic never came up, so I'm guessing they are pretty flexible with their closing. I think everybody enjoyed the walk. The bridge gradually gained altitude almost to the top of the tree, about 35 meters, and it climbed down again the same way. The place seemed quite popular among tourists. Right next to it was a boardwalk through a grove of trees. These trees are called tingle trees and they are supposedly able to tolerate low level fires and can grow from just the layer of outside bark. It was a good place to take some pictures. The souvenir shop was quite interesting too. Swe decided she could use the certificate of having tree top walked in Walpole and to my surprise bought the damn thing. The lady at the counter even suggested she could put the certificate on her actual resume. Green with envy (not!), Kir decided he could glorify his own CV with the great accomplishment of treetop walk and so he went ahead and bought another for two AUD which I might dare say was around USD 2.10 on that day. The whole saga was amusing enough to all of us that we got its money's worth, no doubt.
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| Tree top walk |
The drive back felt longer. That always seems to be the case. After a "longer" hour back, we stopped by the grocery store to pick up bread and jam. We headed home, KK made my favorite pasta of hers, Kir passed around some Guinness black lager he had picked up a day earlier at Albany downtown liquor store. It was yet another relaxing night with all of us reminiscing over the day's pictures on KK's Macbook.
