Disappointed that our travel plans would have to be revised, we resigned ourselves to returning south towards Perth and continuing on to the Southwest corner of Australia. We'd heard lots of good reviews from friends on the ice about the southwest - great wines, good food, lovely beaches and tall trees - but none of this really excited us too much. We WERE excited; however, by the lower temperatures...but not by the huge increase in cars on the road and people (read: really noisy families) in the campgrounds. We attempted to make the best of it by visiting as many eucalypt forests as possible and climbing really tall fire lookout trees (well, I should say that I climbed the trees and Michiel enjoyed the security of the forest floor after a pair of aborted attempts). The experience of swaying in the wind at the top of the Bicentennial Tree (70 meters/210 feet above the ground) was exhilarating if not a bit terrifying, but to be above all the other tree tops looking out into the distance was quite wonderful.
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| Treetop Walk - a bit disappointing after climbing the giant trees |
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| Bicentennial Tree |
We stayed in some nice campgrounds, took a couple of walks along the beautiful Indian and Southern Ocean coastlines, craned our necks looking at giant old Tingle and Karri trees (types of eucalyptus trees), and sampled a little wine. It was....well, nice - not spectacular, just nice.
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| Indian Ocean shoreline at Conto Campground |
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| Looking out towards Antarctica from Torndirrup National Park near Albany |
We returned to Perth just in time to catch another heat wave and absolutely melted while doing a short, self-guided walk around the city and the Botanic Garden in Kings Park. That heat was ferocious enough to wipe away any nostalgia or sadness we might have felt about our vacation being over. We flew through Sydney and on to Los Angeles, Dallas and New York, where we had a great but short visit with my sister, Dad and step-mom. Our last flight(s), took us through Iceland to finally land in the Netherlands - just in time to leave for a 30-person family reunion in Belgium the next day!
Here are a few more shots from our Australia trip:
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| The big dish at Carnarvon (no longer operating) |
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| Banksia |
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| The Pinnacles near Cervantes |
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| Port Gregory. This really is a pink lake. They do beta-carotene mining here. Who knew??? |
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