Albany through Denmark

While in Albany we walked up to the top of this big hill where they had a war memorial and got some lovely views of the area, and before heading towards Denmark we stopped at this really neat rocky area in Torndirrup National Park on the peninsula just south of Albany. We did a lot of climbing around on the huge rocks, it was really neat!!









We also visited a wind farm where they had paths all around with information sign boards up everywhere. There's a really long trail that goes through a lot of Southern WA that goes through this area as well (seen in one of the pictures).



When we got closer to Denmark we went an visited The Valley of the Giants where the giant tingle trees grow (I know, what a great name for a type of tree :P)! There are truly some giants there, as you can see in the pictures. There's also a treetop walk here that you can do, but we opted not to as we did one in Victoria, but we want to go, so we thought we'd save that for sometime when we have visitors. :)











After all of this it was getting dark and we decided that we were close enough and we were eager enough to get home (in David's case, to the home he had never been to) that we just drove through the night (only a few hour drive). The area around Denmark is very forested so the first part of driving in the dark was a bit hectic as the road was really twisty and not very wide, but after that it was all good. We made it back to Perth safe and sound.

And here you FINALLY have the end of our Nullarbor trip across Australia!

Stirling Ranges National Park

We camped for two nights at Stirling Ranges National Park. We hiked to the top of the second tallest point in WA, Bluff Knoll, which would have an amazing view except that for most of the year it is covered by clouds. The aboriginals have a story for this: "Local Aboriginal people, from the Qaaniyan and Koreng groups (or tribes), who wore kangaroo skin cloaks in cold weather, called the mountain Pualaar Miial, meaning "great many-faced hill".[2] The mountain is often shrouded in a mist which curls around the peaks and floats into the gullies. Local people believed this to be a spirit named Noatch (literally meaning "dead body" or "corpse").[2]" (Wikipedia). It was really quite etherial up there. When we got to the top you couldn't see much further than a few feet, which was interesting looking down the cliffs, knowing that it must me a huge drop, but only seeing for a ways, it was like looking at the end of the world! :D And as you can imagine, it was quite wet and kind of chilly.











You can see the parking lot as seen in one of the above pictures, from here.

We also took a little drive to Porongurup National Park and hiked up to Balacing Rock and Castle Rock! Not too difficult, but really neat! As you can see, Castle Rock was a lot of climbing up walkways they had made onto these enormous rocks!














We also did a bit of a hike closer to our camp site at Mt. Hassell, but didn't make it all the way up because it was 2 hours return and we only had our little head lamp, which was starting to go pretty dull, and didn't want to be stuck up ANOTHER mountain at night. :P Haha. But we did get some lovely views from part way up. We were glad we didn't go all the way up because it's quite a rocky, slippery trail. Maybe next time we go there. :)




At our campsite we met our neighbors who came in just after us. We had apparently taken their annual camping spot, haha, but they said they'd live. They were two men in their 50's who came to the Stirling Ranges every year doing mountain biking. One of them, David came over to me to introduce himself and he said "Hi, I'm David and my partner's name is also David" and I said, "Haha, well, I'm Cassie and my husband's name is David!" and he responded with "You've got to be shitting me!" hahaha! So I was surrounded by Davids that night. They invited us to share dinner with them, which was homemade chill and wine (one of the Davids is a chef!). It was delicious!
Later on we also had a big German family move in next door, so that was interesting. :)

We had such a great time, and we really look forward to going back, which is doable because it's only a few hours drive away from Perth! :D

Norseman and the Southwest of WA

Norseman (or Nawsman as they pronounce it in Australia) was named after the horse of the guy who found gold in the area. The horse was pawing the ground and uncovered gold; so, naturally there are a lot of horse statues and themes in the town.

We used the internet at the information office and charged my camera battery for a bit before heading off to walk some of the trails in the area. We found one that went past a big gold mining area (there's still gold in them thar hills), and went to the top of a large hill; it's a really neat, and beautiful area. We didn't spend a lot of time in Norseman before heading down to Esperance in the South.








We had decided in advance that we were going to stay at Cape Le Grande National Park just to the East of Esperance because it looked like a neat area and was close enough to get to before nightfall. We originally had wanted to visit Cape Arid National Park further East, but at this point it would have been cutting too deep into our petrol funds and it didn't look like a very 2-wheel-drive friendly park. We got to Cape Le Grande in just enough time to put up out tent and go for a walk on Lucky Beach, just next to our campsite. It's a beautiful place that we really want to go back to (and it being only a few hours drive from Perth, it's doable!!).
We cooked in the open air camp kitchen by torchlight and met a very nice middle-aged couple who were just cleaning up their cooking.

Ant blops (I would hardly call them hills)




The next morning we went for another walk on the beach to get some views that we couldn't in the dark the night before, then packed up (while a kangaroo and her joeys, one in pouch and one at heel, hung about). We headed out and went and climbed to the top of Frenchman Peak that we saw on our way into the campground, the view from it was amazing!


Kangaroo tracks

This was how the trail was marked, so it was kind of make-your-own-trail up to the top. Lots of rock scrambling, awesome!









Then we were off to Stirling Ranges National Park!!