Flora and Fauna

We have turned the corner of the winter solstice and the bush is waking up, everyday reveals more and more native plants in bloom. Early spring is supposed to be the time here for wildflowers display, but already with every bush walk we discover new wonders, specially the local floral emblem, the Royal Hakea.

Bird life is also very rich from tiny wrens to emus, with everything in between, parrots, cockatoos, pelicans. There is one type of fauna with which we have been having rather too close and personal contact with : snakes. We know they are mostly shy, but it is unnerving watching them slither off the path, just a few centimeters from our feet. It's no good telling us they are more scared of us than we are of them, THEY are the ones with the fangs and venom, not us.

Baleinophiles

We are devoted to whalewatching. We do it all the time. If we are out on a bushwalk, our eyes are fixed on the ocean, in the hope of a new sighting. We think nothing of walking over snakes in pursuit of our new hobby.

Today we had a special thrill. We headed for Waychinicup as usual, and and although our last visit resulted in hours of peering out to sea, and achieving nothing but eye strain, today it was different. The whales were out in force. we saw dozens, all Humpback whales, which we could identify by their behaviour, for example breaching and tail slapping, and by their peculiar long thin flippers, quite different from the squat paddles of the Southern Right Whale. Humpbacks are essentially black, although covered in white blotches, which close up look like barnacles. They tend to meander about, to our eyes, having no fixed purpose other than Douglas Adams's 'messing about in the sea and having fun'

All of a sudden a quite different animal appeared, unbelievably close below the steep cliffs upon which we were stationed. Three things distinguished him from the Humpbacks all around ; Firstly, he was moving incredibly quickly, and in a straight line, so that he rounded the promontory to our left, and within minutes he had disappeared beyond the cliffs to our right. Secondly, he was a very light colour, light grey verging on blue. When he submerged, he was clearly visible beneath the water, unlike the Humpbacks, which almost immediately disappear from view. Thirdly, he was enormous. The Humpbacks are the largest animals I have ever seen, yet Cecile and I agree that this fellow was between 2 and 3 times as big as the largest of them. We think we have been watching a Blue Whale. I am still excited writing this 6 hours later!

Unfortunately for everybody, I was in charge of the camera during this encounter, and one blurred image is all I can offer you.

Whales

We've been hard at work exploring Albany and its surrounds, or as hard as possible once you have settled into a routine of rising at 9.30.

We climbed to the top of Mount Frankland ( the summit of which is used for firewatching ) via a couple of steep ladders, just in time to be drenched by an intense rain storm. We then drove back to Albany uncomfortably steaming in the car. Between the showers we did a walk at Shellys beach, and were thrilled to see a vague grey shape in the water. It is one thing to see a whale on a specific tour, but we did quite a bit of mutual backslapping at our cleverness -or luck on this occasion.

The following day, working our way through a list of National Parks, we headed for Waychinicup National Park, about 30 kilometres west of Albany. After a half hour walk from the carpark, we followed an extremely rutted track to the point at which it rounded a headland. Armed with our experience of the previous day, Cecile pointed at the sea breaking over a semi submerged rock, and asked tentatively "That is not a whale is it ?" I said "No, but that is !" as a monster surfaced just beneath the cliff we were standing on. All of a sudden there was not one, or two or three whales, but dozens. They were swimming mostly in twos, one large, and one small, and we think that we had stumbled upon a nursery. Every so often, one would hurl itself out of the water, and come down with a loud crash, then two would reverse their position, sticking their tails in the air, and repeatedly slapping the water. To give you an indication of the scene, at one point Cecile and I were focusing our attention on a couple crossing our viewpoint from left to right, and as we stared right, we only became aware of another large one close by on our left when he let out a roar when spouting. Close up, the noise they make is remarkable, like a cross between a steam train and an elephant - and loud ! We sat perched on some rather unforgiving granite boulders, amongst the wildflowers for what seemed like a few moments. A quick look at our watch confirmed that we had been enthralled for over two hours. As we walked back to the car, we stopped occasionally and looked out to sea. There were whales everywhere, a little further out they seemed to congregate in large groups, with great masses of spouts. We both have to admit that our photographs do not do the event justice. We are making plans for a picnic revisit tomorrow.

You know, whaling is big business here, and there is an excellent museum full of exhibits and audio-visual horrors documenting the whaling industry and its demise. Whale watching is a tourist bonanza, with local operators getting good publicity from the media spruiking their cruises. For example it was big news recently when a blue whale was sighted locally. I did however find a small news report buried amongst local government tenders and phone sex offers at the back of the newspaper. Apparently, the captain of a charter boat had been successful in locating a couple of mothers and their calves, unfortunately the arrival of the tourists coincided with the arrival of a pod of killer whales who proceeded to rip the babies to bits, leaving a boat load of traumatised sightseers drifting in a sea of blood. Nature red in tooth and claw, I suppose.

Still Around Albany

We've bought a book called "Western Australia's Natural Wonders" which is produced by the Department of Environment and Conservation. It describes in some detail every National park in Western Australia, and provides information on the features of each . We are particularly interested by its list of walks, and have determined to do as many as we can. In the past few days, we have tackled Mount Clare, Hayward Peak, Castle Rock, and have visited the famous Valley of the Giants, and the Tree Top Discovery walk. I have to admit that after a tentative start, we chickened out of the Flinders Peninsula walk in the Torndirrup National park, after reading the instructional sign at the beginning, and having its message prey on our minds with each step. We are continuing to enjoy our outings with the Nude Bushwalking Group of Albany.

Around Albany

When we were on holiday in WA four years ago, one of our favourite towns was Albany, so when we came back to the state, we decided to stay there for a while. Why ? Well, I find that a lot of WA towns have a sort of temporary feel, Ringwood without the rubbish perhaps, whereas Albany is literally dripping with history - too much perhaps, when you consider that whaling finished here in 1978 ! It has a wonderful setting on the sea, nestled between two mountains, Mt Clarence and Mt Melville, wonderful harbours, and a nice stock of colonial buildings. Unfortunately whilst full time work is available, temporary work is not, but we decided to lob in Albany for a while anyway, and use it as a base to explore the picturesque South West. Incidentally, although on average the Western Australian economy is doing better than the rest of Australia, it is operating a two track system, with mining going gangbusters, but the remaining sectors doing less well than the Australian average. I am amused by West Australian politicians of all varieties, who have been net importers of federal funding for 97 years, but have miraculously discovered, just recently, the principle of retaining all tax revenues in the states in which they were generated.

Anyway, we have taken a small house with spectacular views of the harbour, and are wisely using our time to wander. We have come across some local inhabitants, rather scary snakes, attractive lizards, and more emus than I have seen anywhere else on our travels.

This part of WA has some of the most spectacular forests in Australia. For me the most impressive tree is the Karri, although slightly shorter than the mountain ash, it boasts some impressive statistics - growing up to 88 metres tall, weighting up to 120 tonnes, a tree can produce 250,000 flowers, only one fifth of which will mature into gum nuts, only one quarter of which will germinate, and only one thousandth of which will grow into mature trees. A large Karri will drink 170 litres of water a day, and produce one kilo of honey per year.

Our vegetarianism experiment is moving into its third month, and seems to be going well.

We have also scaled some rather impressive peaks, and while I doubt that we are quite ready to tackle the south col and the Hilary step, we are feeling rather pleased with ourselves.

Brothels and Gold

We emerged from the Nullarbor and turned right at Norseman for Kalgoolie, where we expected to spend maybe a few days. But "Kal"turned out to be rather a mixed bag. The town has some wonderful 19 century buildings and is still obviously very wealthy, but extremely expensive, as are most towns involved in the mining boom, and not really "our kind of town". Why? Well, one of the first thing we noticed were bars on shop windows everywhere, obviously a place with a very high crime rate. Then we had trouble finding an even half decent place to have lunch, in spite of "Kal" being the second largest city in WA, and one where money is obviously not in short supply, people there would rather spend their cash on shiny new utes, booze or greasy take away rather than on dainty morsels.

We did, none the less experience something dainty in the shape of Madame Carmen, the owner/manager of "Questa Casa", the oldest brothel in Kal. we thought," in Rome do as the Roman do",brothels are an integral part of the history of the town, so why not take advantage of the conducted tour offered? And may be there would be free samples at the end.

Madame Carmen, an extremely posh lady, gave us a fascinating insight into the old fashion world of the kalgoorie brothel. Nineteen years ago, Carmen was looking for something to do to get her out of the deep depression she was experiencing after the death of her husband. Her doctor suggested she tried to find some new direction to her life. As a joke, a friend sent her the "for sale " brochure of the brothel. She flew to Kalgoolie from Queensland, and bought it, more or less on impulse. When she told her doctor the new direction to her life was going to be running a brothel the doctor exclaimed "oh! I meant for you to get involved in charity work!" Madame Carmen was a fascinating story teller and we would recommend the tour to anyone in Kal, but, unfortunately, no free samples!

A stay in Kal, is not complete without a visit to the "superpit". Those huge trucks and bulldozers look like toys, driving up and down the jaw-droppingly big pit. All this energy just to get bits of gold out of the ground does not really inspire us, but the sheer magnitude of the mining pit is phenomenal.

So, having ticked the super pit and the Hay Street brothels, we said :" let's move on!"