Denmark to 2 Peoples' Bay
This will be my last update from South Western Australia which has turned out to be an amazing beach destination - we are talking pure white talc powder sand vs dazzling blue kind of beaches. Just as visually striking as the ones I saw in Thailand or the Carribean's - take my word for it since I'm so picky. They leave me speechless every time... and it does take a lot to blow me away since you do become more and more blase the more seasoned a traveller you are. But this is quite something, every corner you turn offers different perspectives.
This morning (after hosing down the car to get rid of the dust from the Sterling Range) we set off to Frenchman's Bay (how could we miss that?) and stopped at The Gap, a place where a natural bridge occurs among huge rocks. The rocks are similar to those found in Antartica which means the 2 continents were definitely one millions & millions of years ago. They said that the two same continents still grow 5cm apart every year.
This wasn't my favourite place as the water colour was a darker blue... but we then went to Emu Point which had a lagoon on one side and the sea on another and this was very shallow water and idyllic again. Very soft pastels... the ideal spot for a picnic (tables and all...) but Janet wasn't hungry yet - she's more sensible than I am... I tend to eat whatever you put on my plate so long as it's veggie. So we then proceeded to 2 People's Bay which is a nature reserve with many mammals but the weather kept on changing every 5mns. It seems to have been the pattern the last 4 days... a bit gutting. Here we are in glorious Southern Australia and we are having to eat our sandwich in the car park of the most amazing beach, inside the car obviously, waiting for the downpour to finish. Again, the pattern is usually 15mns when it gets really strong and then clear blue skies. So we pretty much just had to sit and wait for that silver lining... Sure enough, almost 15mns later exactly we could admire Little Beach in its full glory. It even had similar rock formations to the ones you'd see in the Seychelles, large smooth 'balls' of rock and a perfect crescent shape... very secluded. As usual, not ONE person around... We have seen beaches after beaches that looked breathtakingly beautiful and were completely empty - not one footprint. They do say that a lot in the guide books and this is definitely true, we have witnessed this with our own 4 eyes. Why that is a mystery...
We reluctantly had to leave by 2:40pm latest though as we still had 5h to go back to Perth and didn't want to drive too much by night - dusk sets in at about 6:15pm here. But at least we felt we had had a good morning, though if we'd have an extra 2 or 3 days we could have driven all the way to Esperance, something that Janet really wanted to do ... it's supposed to be THE most beautiful beach in Southern West Australia... which seems hard to imagine since everything we have seen has been spectacular. We were thinking of how amazing it must be for children who are born in this country to enjoy so much space and fresh air and have such incredible natural playgrounds. Upon leaving the National Parks we also saw a whole bunch of black cockatoos on a dead tree right by the road, and Janet ('kangaroo spotter extraordinaire') managed to see another colony of wild kangaroos in the distance. Our 2nd lot today as we had gone to Peace Street this morning, opposite our b&b. We were told that they reside in areas cleared for building new houses as they enjoy the tall grass - easier to hop and hide than in the forest I guess. It was really sweet to see their little faces pop up from time to time and their ears tune in to the sound of our voices and their nostrils move to see if they could smell us too. They are all very shy though and you cannot get real close. The mothers with the joeys in particular are very protective so we didn't want to upset them either. We just kept a good distance and enjoyed watching them hop with our binoculars. As we said, it still seems surreal to see so many of them free when we are so used to thinking of them in zoos in Europe.
We then did the 3rd leg of our triangle back to Perth, via Mt Barker again (didn't even stop - no point), then onto Kojonup (we were advised to stop in a nice coffee shop for a break- which we did) and then onto Fremantle, South of Perth. 1,600 kms all in all (over 1,000 miles). Not bad, hey? 'Mad' is the better word I guess... I know, I know... Janet did remarkably well actually and asured me she wasn't too tired... Whereas I seem to still be a bit jet-lagged and tend to need to doze off for about 30mns every afternoon.
Actually, whilst in the coffee shop we saw a book on Australian birds and it seems that the tall bird we saw in the Stirling Range was not an emu but a cassowary which was even more remarkable. According to the book this amazing bird only lives in Northern Australia but we both remember the blue neck and I'm sure it had a red crest on top too. I had seen a very similar type of bird in the Bird Park in Brazil, one from Papa New Guinea which had similar height and colour but a bit bigger overall, they had said on the fence's board that it was the most vicious bird on the planet and had been known to seek out and kill men who came on his territory as it had a powerful beak and feet. Hence when we saw some that looked very similar in Warren Park I wasn't too keen to get too close in case they were cousins (they definitely looked it) and could hurt us. Mother always says 'be careful when you take your photos, don't take chances for the sake of a good shot'... and her words of wisdom echoed in my head !
We then got back to town as we needed to grab a bite before bed time and to get more money too (money does go very fast as food is about the same price as in the UK and a lot of petrol is needed for long distances... plus b&b prices are also higher than I thought) but having tried 3 ATM machines and getting 'transaction cancelled' 3 times, I soon realised that my bank must have blocked my card ! This would have been a worse disaster if I'd travelled alone. Still, I couldn't be relying on Janet's cash forever more, especially as we are off to Kangaroo Island tomorrow for 4 days with more things to pay for. Had to call my parents to get my sister's work number, who in turn gave me Barclays' 24H helpline. Phew. They sorted me out within 2mns - indeed they had blocked my card due to Hong Kong being a 'hot spot' for fraud. Hum.
So, that was the last bit of panic for the day. Thankfully you can buy these special phone cards here where you get 500 minutes of international calls for some $10 which is well worth it as we can keep in touch with our families more regularly. The time difference works great as we are too busy to call before 8pm and by then it's lunch time in Europe.
Time for bed now... long day tomorrow. It's great that we have internet access in the b&b where we are staying tonight. It means I can update this without depriving Janet of much needed sleep (if we go to an internet cafe or if she has to call her dad from a call box we always stick together as even though we might think it looks non threatening we have been warned that the Aboriginal people can cause some trouble and we should be careful). Better safe than sorry.
On this note, off to bed ! Bisous, Sylvie x
This will be my last update from South Western Australia which has turned out to be an amazing beach destination - we are talking pure white talc powder sand vs dazzling blue kind of beaches. Just as visually striking as the ones I saw in Thailand or the Carribean's - take my word for it since I'm so picky. They leave me speechless every time... and it does take a lot to blow me away since you do become more and more blase the more seasoned a traveller you are. But this is quite something, every corner you turn offers different perspectives.
This morning (after hosing down the car to get rid of the dust from the Sterling Range) we set off to Frenchman's Bay (how could we miss that?) and stopped at The Gap, a place where a natural bridge occurs among huge rocks. The rocks are similar to those found in Antartica which means the 2 continents were definitely one millions & millions of years ago. They said that the two same continents still grow 5cm apart every year.
This wasn't my favourite place as the water colour was a darker blue... but we then went to Emu Point which had a lagoon on one side and the sea on another and this was very shallow water and idyllic again. Very soft pastels... the ideal spot for a picnic (tables and all...) but Janet wasn't hungry yet - she's more sensible than I am... I tend to eat whatever you put on my plate so long as it's veggie. So we then proceeded to 2 People's Bay which is a nature reserve with many mammals but the weather kept on changing every 5mns. It seems to have been the pattern the last 4 days... a bit gutting. Here we are in glorious Southern Australia and we are having to eat our sandwich in the car park of the most amazing beach, inside the car obviously, waiting for the downpour to finish. Again, the pattern is usually 15mns when it gets really strong and then clear blue skies. So we pretty much just had to sit and wait for that silver lining... Sure enough, almost 15mns later exactly we could admire Little Beach in its full glory. It even had similar rock formations to the ones you'd see in the Seychelles, large smooth 'balls' of rock and a perfect crescent shape... very secluded. As usual, not ONE person around... We have seen beaches after beaches that looked breathtakingly beautiful and were completely empty - not one footprint. They do say that a lot in the guide books and this is definitely true, we have witnessed this with our own 4 eyes. Why that is a mystery...
We reluctantly had to leave by 2:40pm latest though as we still had 5h to go back to Perth and didn't want to drive too much by night - dusk sets in at about 6:15pm here. But at least we felt we had had a good morning, though if we'd have an extra 2 or 3 days we could have driven all the way to Esperance, something that Janet really wanted to do ... it's supposed to be THE most beautiful beach in Southern West Australia... which seems hard to imagine since everything we have seen has been spectacular. We were thinking of how amazing it must be for children who are born in this country to enjoy so much space and fresh air and have such incredible natural playgrounds. Upon leaving the National Parks we also saw a whole bunch of black cockatoos on a dead tree right by the road, and Janet ('kangaroo spotter extraordinaire') managed to see another colony of wild kangaroos in the distance. Our 2nd lot today as we had gone to Peace Street this morning, opposite our b&b. We were told that they reside in areas cleared for building new houses as they enjoy the tall grass - easier to hop and hide than in the forest I guess. It was really sweet to see their little faces pop up from time to time and their ears tune in to the sound of our voices and their nostrils move to see if they could smell us too. They are all very shy though and you cannot get real close. The mothers with the joeys in particular are very protective so we didn't want to upset them either. We just kept a good distance and enjoyed watching them hop with our binoculars. As we said, it still seems surreal to see so many of them free when we are so used to thinking of them in zoos in Europe.
We then did the 3rd leg of our triangle back to Perth, via Mt Barker again (didn't even stop - no point), then onto Kojonup (we were advised to stop in a nice coffee shop for a break- which we did) and then onto Fremantle, South of Perth. 1,600 kms all in all (over 1,000 miles). Not bad, hey? 'Mad' is the better word I guess... I know, I know... Janet did remarkably well actually and asured me she wasn't too tired... Whereas I seem to still be a bit jet-lagged and tend to need to doze off for about 30mns every afternoon.
Actually, whilst in the coffee shop we saw a book on Australian birds and it seems that the tall bird we saw in the Stirling Range was not an emu but a cassowary which was even more remarkable. According to the book this amazing bird only lives in Northern Australia but we both remember the blue neck and I'm sure it had a red crest on top too. I had seen a very similar type of bird in the Bird Park in Brazil, one from Papa New Guinea which had similar height and colour but a bit bigger overall, they had said on the fence's board that it was the most vicious bird on the planet and had been known to seek out and kill men who came on his territory as it had a powerful beak and feet. Hence when we saw some that looked very similar in Warren Park I wasn't too keen to get too close in case they were cousins (they definitely looked it) and could hurt us. Mother always says 'be careful when you take your photos, don't take chances for the sake of a good shot'... and her words of wisdom echoed in my head !
We then got back to town as we needed to grab a bite before bed time and to get more money too (money does go very fast as food is about the same price as in the UK and a lot of petrol is needed for long distances... plus b&b prices are also higher than I thought) but having tried 3 ATM machines and getting 'transaction cancelled' 3 times, I soon realised that my bank must have blocked my card ! This would have been a worse disaster if I'd travelled alone. Still, I couldn't be relying on Janet's cash forever more, especially as we are off to Kangaroo Island tomorrow for 4 days with more things to pay for. Had to call my parents to get my sister's work number, who in turn gave me Barclays' 24H helpline. Phew. They sorted me out within 2mns - indeed they had blocked my card due to Hong Kong being a 'hot spot' for fraud. Hum.
So, that was the last bit of panic for the day. Thankfully you can buy these special phone cards here where you get 500 minutes of international calls for some $10 which is well worth it as we can keep in touch with our families more regularly. The time difference works great as we are too busy to call before 8pm and by then it's lunch time in Europe.
Time for bed now... long day tomorrow. It's great that we have internet access in the b&b where we are staying tonight. It means I can update this without depriving Janet of much needed sleep (if we go to an internet cafe or if she has to call her dad from a call box we always stick together as even though we might think it looks non threatening we have been warned that the Aboriginal people can cause some trouble and we should be careful). Better safe than sorry.
On this note, off to bed ! Bisous, Sylvie x
posted by Sylvie at 3:00 PM
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