G’Day, All!
At the moment, I’m taking the opportunity to run my SPA bathtub full of water! (I know that water is tight, so I’m only doing this once, and with any luck, I’ll be able to convince R to come in with me! You know the old California saying: Save water, shower with a friend!) We’ve had another lovely day in Western Australia, and I have to say: we’re really in love with this part of the world!
We were very rudely awakened this morning about 5:30 by a HUGE clap of thunder! Sounded like it was right overhead! Lovely lightening storm – didn’t seem to rain very much, but quite a display nonetheless. Outside it was VERY cool and breezy and overcast (which, to be honest, we prefer greatly over HOT!) A sweat pants kind of day, actually. And, the very BEST news is that R is feeling VERY much better!!!!! He still sounds really funny (very nasal-y) but at least his throat isn’t sore anymore and he can swallow and TALK! It’s SO lonely traveling when your partner can’t even talk to you!!
We decided to set out around 8 for Walpole and the Valley of the Giants. Lovely drive; about 120 km, through Denmark and several other small communities. The road doesn’t really follow the coast around, which kind of surprised me – more inland, through beautiful forested areas and farm land. Not much traffic to speak of; lovely roads. We were also in search of more throat spray for R, as he had used up the one we got on Sunday. Found an open pharmacy in Walpole; lovely little community, very small. Then stopped at their visitor center and got our tickets for the Tree Top Walk in the National Park, which was a couple of km away.
Reached the Park about 9:45 a.m. and walked through their visitor center/gift shop to the sky walk. It was AMAZING! We had been to one in Otaway along the Great Ocean Road, which may have been higher – but this one MOVED like it was swaying in the breeze! (I was basically OK until I looked down (and through) the walk…we were WAY up in the air!) A really wonderful concept, done to help preserve the Red Tingle and Karri trees. They have a very sensitive root structure, so to keep people from walking around their bases, everyone is up in the sky! The trees are beautiful and really massive. Most of them have lost at least part of their tops to weather and wind, but the effect is spectacular! After doing the sky walk, we did the Ancient Empire walk which is on a board walk through another grove of tingle and karri trees. We were actually able to walk into or through couple of these trees, they were that big!
Headed back toward Albany, stopping at the indoor/outdoor Figtree Café in Denmark for lunch (eating indoors, as it was a bit chilly!). R ordered beef satay and rice (which actually was more curried beef than satayed, but was good nonetheless!) and I ordered their foccacio sandwich with salami, feta, tomatoes and spinach – GREAT! Both dishes came with salads, and we shared our meals, which was fun. Decided on the way back to Albany that we would use the leftover chicken from last night to make fajitas – of course then the question came up, could we find guacamole and tortillas??
Decided that we should at least try a Coles grocery store (could it be better than Woolies?) so stopped there on our way into town. And was it better? It was fine; very similar, although R says the veggies are better at Woolies. And there were tortillas!! Our problem came with guacamole! No guac that didn’t have neuchatel cheese as its BASE – and a VERY odd pale green color! So, decided to make our own. Unable to find Serrano chiles, so used jalapenos instead; found all the other ingredients. Back to the motel and I put a load of laundry in to wash, as R just about out of clean white shorts. Then made guacamole … quite a challenge, as there are NO decent sized bowls; had to use pots instead! It actually came out really well, so I’m pleased, although I did need to run back to Woolies for plastic wrap to cover it, as well as corn chips to use for leftovers.
R made wonderful fajitas – we figure we were probably having the only mostly authentic Mexican dinner in Albany!
Wanted to take just a moment to address a couple of things happening in OZ at the moment! The first thing is the huge number of pregnant women we’ve been seeing! Then we heard on the radio about something called the Baby Bonus, which went up this year! Can only imagine (although we haven’t confirmed this) that families get bonus payments for having kids! Interesting concept! Secondly is that we seem to be in the middle of a national election – and you’d almost not even know it! Looks like John Howard’s Labor Government may be in trouble – but the party just announced its policies – and the election is 10 days from now – and there is a GREAT rule that says there are no campaign ads running the last three days prior to an election! What a GREAT idea! Will let you know who wins!
Had planned on posting yesterday’s blog first thing this morning, but when R tried to log in, no luck! Apparently (according to the motel front desk…) the storm must have knocked out the server! So! Did manage to post it (with photos!) this afternoon, using the phone lines … and boy, is that SLOW! So, will post this when we get to Dunsborough tomorrow, unless were somehow back on line in the morning! We sure do get spoiled with wi-fi!!
So now to the bath! Leaving tomorrow for Dunsborough and our three nights on the beach! Hopefully the weather will warm up a bit! Looking forward to exploring the costal caves as well as tasting some wines at Margaret River (what a NICE name for a river, don’t you think?)
Much love to all,
m
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