Western Australia

THE museum to see in Darwin is the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.  Housed here is the stuffed remains of Sweetheart, a Northern Territory icon.  Sweetheart, a 17-foot estuarine crocodile, had a fondness for biting outboard motors.  After numerous attempts to capture him, Sweetheart met his demise during a botched capture that led to his drowning.

Me and Sweetheart

 

It is said that there are more things that will kill you in Australia than anywhere else in the world. And the Museum has displays dedicated to all of them – from Sweetheart to tiny marine jellyfish the size of your pinky fingernail, toxic caterpillars, stonefish, venomous snakes, innocuous looking cone shells, box jellyfish, funnel web spiders, and sharks.  These can be found along beaches and shallow coastal waters – a trip to the beach here can be a deadly outing – and in the bush outside your back door.  It was interesting to see them up close – stuffed and behind thick glass!

We spent a lot of time in Darwin researching transportation to the northwest corner of Western Australia.  Our original plans called for visits to Broome and the Kimberley region of Western Australia, the Bungle Bungles, Monkey Mia and Shark Bay.  We underestimated the vast distances between all these locations and the big bucks it would cost to fly there.  With the exception of Broome, these locales are not serviced by the big airlines.  Chartering is the only way to fly.  And four-wheel-drives are the only vehicles that can safely handle the unsealed roads linking them.  Guided tours were considered as an option, but most of them were seven to ten days in duration.  Since we had just one week before we were to meet Ashley and her parents in Perth, we had to rethink our travels.

As temperatures in Darwin were approaching 101⁰, we left town before 5AM on October 5^th for a four hour flight to Perth.  Upon landing, we headed to the Avis counter, picked up the keys for a Holden Storm sedan, loaded our gear and hit the road all the while repeating ‘drive on the left, drive on the left.’  Destination – Bunbury on Geographe Bay, 112 miles south of Perth and about as far as we could see ourselves driving after our early morning wakeup.  We wandered about town, climbed the Marlston Hill Lookout Tower, and went foraging for dinner.  After eating out so much, we faced a dilemma – no restaurant held any appeal. L

Looking out at Geographe Bay from Marlston Hill Lookout Tower

 

After a good night’s rest in Bunbury, we were feeling reinvigorated and ready to move.  The Margaret River region is Western Australia’s premier wine area.  The first significant planting of vines only began in 1967.  There are now close to 200 wineries producing Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon and other varietals of award winning quality.  Most wineries open their cellar doors to visitors.  We would not be bored here! 

At Cape Naturaliste Vineyard in Yallingup we learned about clean skin, a term used to refer to full but unlabeled bottles of wine.  All that wine has to be bottled but sometimes the winery just runs out of labels.  We picked up a fine clean skin Sauvignon Blanc for just $10AU.  Who needs a label?  We will certainly open and finish the bottle before we forget what it is.

Cellar door after cellar door line both sides of Caves Road.  We made a stop at Laurance Winery hoping to get a bite to eat at their café.  After perusing the menu of items that neither of us could pronounce, we decided this was not our kind of eating establishment.  Time to head back to the friendlier Swings&Roundabouts Winery for wood-fired pizza.

Lady of the Lake or Chick on a Stick at Laurence Winery

 

You can’t start your day with winery visits (well, you could but we chose to pace ourselves) so we opted for a jaunt to the Indian Ocean beaches at Prevelly and Gnarabup.   The weather was less than ideal – storm warnings were in effect for the coast of southwestern Western Australia from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin. Cloudy with intermittent sunshine, gusty winds and periods of heavy rain.  (At times overnight, listening to the storms, we felt like we were home living through Hurricane Matthew!)  The surf was rolling with awesome waves and a few intrepid surfers were out catching rides.  The dunes were alive with vibrant flowering shrubs.  Buffeted by the wind, we trekked along the walkway to the mouth of the Margaret River marveling at the beautiful color of the Indian Ocean.  By the time we got back to the car, it was a respectable time for wine tasting.

Prevelly Beach and the Indian Ocean

 

This area of Western Australia is not just all about wineries and breweries, art galleries and boutiques. There is also the Southern Forests region to explore.  On our way to the town of Denmark, we drove through the endless forests of towering karri, jarrah and marri trees before finally arriving in Walpole where the ancient tingle trees are found.  Within Walpole-Nornalup National Park is the Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk.  This walkway is suspended 130 feet above the forest floor, giving visitors a bird’s eye-view of the forest.  Even when you are up this high, the treetops are still overhead! 

Tree Top Walk

On the Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk

 

The hollowed out base of a healthy tingle tree

Burls, bulges on the tree trunks caused by insect and fungal damage, give each tingle tree a unique character.  We convinced ourselves that one tingle tree’s burls had formed the face of a koala bear high up on its trunk.  Then there is Grandma Tingle, a 400-year-old tree whose base looks like the gnarly wrinkled face of an old woman. 





Grandma Tingle

 

On our way to Denmark, we stopped at Wilson Head for a spectacular view of the Southern Ocean.
 



 

 

 

Three kangaroos in the bush behind our room at the Koorabup Motel in Denmark, WA

 

The water of the Southern Ocean crashes underneath the Natural Bridge at Torndirrup National Park
on the way to Albany, WA
 

Listening to the roar of the blow holes at Torndirrup National Park

 

Along Mercer Road in Albany there is a wooded drive-thru area displaying a collection of works carved by a fellow with a chain saw.  It would have been interesting to meet him.  Here are some of our favorite carvings.

 

 

 

In our travels across Australia and New Zealand, we noticed that every town no matter how small had erected a memorial to their service men and women from World War I.  The town of Albany was no exception.  In late 1914, over 40,000 Australians and New Zealanders left the port of Albany in two convoys bound for the battlefields of Gallipoli, Palestine, Sinai and the Western front.  For more than one-third of these Anzacs, it would be their last ever view of Australia. 

A tranquil Port of Albany today

 

 

This monument stands on the summit of Mount Clarence in the Albany Heritage Park.  It features two soldiers, one an Australian and one a New Zealander.  It is a replica of a monument that once stood on the banks of Port Said in Egypt.  That statue, paid for by the Anzac soldiers after the First World War, was toppled in 1956 during the Suez Crisis.  Some of its remnants were eventually returned to Australia.  This Desert Mounted Corps Memorial was unveiled in 1964.



 

We returned to Perth today where we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Ashley and her parents tomorrow morning! 



The Red Centre and The Top End

 

Uluru from Imalung Lookout - midday...




...And at sunset...

...And at sunrise

On September 27^th, we found ourselves back at Canberra Airport for a short flight to Sydney where we caught our three-hour flight to Ayers Rock Airport.  From there it was a short shuttle ride to the Ayers Rock Resort, a sprawling complex that is THE township of Yulara, the only place to stay in this part of the Red Centre of the Northern Territory.  The landscape here is most closely associated with Australia’s Outback – red sand desert stretching for miles and miles in every direction under beautiful bright blue skies.  When here, you feel that you are truly in the middle of nowhere!

Ghost gum trees at Ayers Rock Resort

Ayers Rock Resort is an oasis in the middle of this vast red desert, 12 miles from Uluru (Ayers Rock) and 33 miles from Kata Tjuta (the Olgas).  Huge sails provide shade and native trees thrive throughout.  The desert here receives an average of seven inches of rainfall per year.  However, this year almost eleven inches has already fallen and the desert floor is in full bloom.  A ranger reported that plants that have not been seen for ten years are sprouting!

Wild flowers in bloom

The resort is able to generate its own electricity through several solar generating fields.  It is also able to find enough water to sustain its needs.  But everything else must be trucked in over long distances over a very inhospitable terrain.  Twice a week, three fully-loaded ‘road trains’ (multiple trailers hauled by one semi-tractor with a combined total length of 180 feet!) arrive with food from Adelaide, 990 miles away.  Other trucks hauling other necessities arrive daily from Alice Springs, 300 miles away.  The road train returns to Adelaide with the resort’s accumulated recyclables.

After checking into our room in the Outback Pioneer Hotel, one of four hotels in the resort, we hustled over to Imalung Lookout for a good look at Uluru.  This rust-colored mammoth sandstone boulder with a circumference of six miles rises 1,141 feet over the flat desert and is said to continue below the ground for over three miles.  It shows a dazzling variety of colors depending on the time of day it is viewed.  Prior to our arrival, Yulara had some rainfall, so the desert floor was just coming into bloom with wildflowers – red and yellow Grevillea, pale pink Sturt’s Desert Rose, yellow Mulga, and the bright red Quandong.



At Uluru-Katya Tjuta National Park

An excursion to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park brought us up close to Uluru.  From a distance Uluru looks smooth but close up it looks more like a weather-beaten rusty rock with dappled areas of flaky red skin and pockmarked with holes and coves and caves that are of sacred significance to the Anangu, the native people who are the caretakers of the park. The Anangu believe that the features of Uluru are related to the journeys and actions of ancestral beings across the landscape during the creation period – Kuniya (python woman), Liru (poisonous snake man), Mala (rufous hare-wallaby) and Lungkata (blue-tongued lizard man). 

The red skin of Uluru

 

We joined a ranger for the Mala walk to Kantju Gorge.  The morning was very, very windy but the ranger managed to lead us into several caves along the base of Uluru and explain their cultural significance.  He also asked for everyone to understand why the Anangu request that visitors not climb Uluru since the climb’s pathway is the same route taken by ancestral Mala men on their arrival here.  While this is a request, the climb is not expressly prohibited.  It was not an issue on the day of our visit since the winds were howling at the base and at the top causing the park to close the path.  At the park’s cultural center, visitors are encouraged to sign the ‘I-didn’t-climb-Uluru’ guestbook.

Kata Tjuta



Sunrise at Kata Tjuta

Frank rose one morning in the pre-dawn hours to join a busload of hearty souls to see the sunrise over Kata Tjuta.  Kata Tjuta (many heads) is comprised of thirty-six rock domes, the tallest of which is higher than Uluru.  I was content to wander back to Imalung Lookout to observe sunrise over Uluru.  It was a cold, cold morning in the desert - 39⁰.

One of the highlights of our stay in Ayers Rock Resort was A Night at the Field of Light.  One hour before sunset we boarded a bus to the Uluru sunset viewing station.  The camels were heading back to the resort’s farm after a day of ferrying tourists through the desert as we were enjoying champagne along with crocodile frittata and kangaroo canapes. Our guides escorted us to one of ten dinner tables where they kept the wine flowing.  As the skies darkened, the table lanterns were extinguished and the resident star talker pointed out the Southern Cross and other Southern Hemisphere constellations.  A leisurely stroll through the Field of Light, a solar powered art installation, capped off the evening.

Sunset over Katya Tjuta from the Uluru sunset viewing station

The Field of Light was conceived by internationally-known artist Bruce Munro and required 3,900 hours to assemble on site.  Stretching over eleven acres of the desert floor, fifty thousand frosted spheres gently sway on stems planted among the clumps of prickly spinifex.  The twinkling lights of the Field of Lights combined with the dazzling star lit sky – what a magical display!

Our stay at Ayres Rock Resort was over much too quickly.  On September 30^th we boarded our Qantas flight to Alice Springs, the unofficial capital of the Red Centre.  It was a quick 45 minute flight over 300 miles of desert and the rippling mountains of the MacDonnell Ranges.  Alice Springs was settled in the early 1870’s as a telegraph repeater station that would link Adelaide with Darwin and the rest of the world.  “The Alice” is the only big town (25,000 people) in Central Australia and the second largest city in the Northern Territory.  It is the heart of the Aboriginal Arrernte people’s country.  We saw the largest numbers of indigenous people here on the streets of Alice.

Alice Springs from atop Anzac Hill

The six-hour layover between landing in Alice Springs and our next flight to Darwin gave us the opportunity to head into town.  Our taxi driver deposited us at the top of Anzac Hill Lookout for a panoramic view of Alice and the surrounding area.  Originally dedicated to those who served in World War I, the Anzac Hill monument now serves as a memorial to all servicemen and women who served in all the wars and conflicts both before and after WWI.

Memorial atop Anzac Hill in Alice Springs

While atop Anzac Hill, I noticed a young woman walking a dog sporting a University of Michigan collar.  We engaged the woman in conversation and found that she was a recent U of M grad who was now working in Alice Springs.  Another woman at the top was from Maine and she asked us for directions to the shopping district.  We must look knowledgeable!  Anyway, we Americans were the only visitors on the top of Anzac Hill at the time.

The mighty Todd River

There was not much going on in Alice.  Other times of the year Alice hosts such events as the Camel Cup Race and the Henley-on-Todd Regatta.  Now that would be a bizarre event to attend since the Todd River only flows three days a year - the homemade boats race down the dry Todd River bed!  We made our way down the Lions Walk to the Red Ochre Grill for a bite to eat before heading over to the Royal Flying Doctor Service, a small museum telling the story of this airborne medical service that treats the people living in the vast and remote Outback.  Then it was back to the airport…

 When we stepped out of the arrivals building at the Darwin airport after our two-hour flight, we were overwhelmed by the heat and humidity at 8PM.  Whoa!!  This was tropical!  We were glad to hop in a cab and check into the air-conditioned comfort of the Adina Apartment Hotel at the Darwin waterfront.

Darwin is the largest city in the Northern Territory.  This is the Top End of Australia, a sort of last frontier – isolated with predatory crocodiles, deadly marine stingers and a sometimes inhospitable tropical climate with monsoons, cyclones and just two seasons, the Wet and the Dry.  We are visiting in the Dry when it is hot and humid but the upcoming Wet is even hotter (104 ⁰ is typical) and more humid with heavy downpours that flood the surrounding area and cut off access to many of the tourist attractions.

Darwin is a city that has suffered a great deal of devastation – some wrought by man, some by Mother Nature.  On February 19^th, 1942, the same Japanese attack force that bombed Pearl Harbor ten weeks earlier bombed Darwin.  In anticipation of an attack, the civilian population had been evacuated to safer places just weeks before the 242 aircraft descended on Darwin.  It was the first of 64 Japanese air raids on the city.  To the Japanese, Darwin was an important strategic target – not only was it a supply base and fueling station for the Allies naval vessels and planes, it was close enough to Timor and Java for the Allies to militarily contest Japan’s invasion of those islands.  Across the street from our hotel is the entrance to the now empty World War II oil storage tunnels constructed after the above ground tanks had been destroyed in the first air raid.  Surprisingly, these tunnels which are now a tourist attraction were kept secret from the Australians until 1992 when they were revealed as part of the 50 year commemoration of the war.  Why so secretive?  The Australians were concerned that the Cold War would erupt into a real war.




Inside the WWII Oil Storage Tunnels

 

On Christmas Eve 1974, Cyclone Tracy wiped out the city of Darwin and the majority of its buildings were constructed afterwards.  As a result the city is very modern looking with high rise residential buildings and hotels, and a recreation area at the waterfront that includes a wave pool and a large lagoon.  A stinger-net in the lagoon supposedly offers swimmers some protection from the stinging jellyfish of the Arafura Sea.  However, two people had been stung over the past few days and authorities had closed the lagoon until divers completed drag netting and stinger spottings.  A spokeswoman was quoted as saying, “Some marine stings here will always be possible.”  I know two people who will not be visiting the lagoon when it reopens on Sunday…

The weekend news here in Australia seems to center on two things – the U.S. Presidential election and the AFL final game between the Western Bulldogs and the Sydney Swans.  The Bulldogs won that game of Australian football – we attempted to watch the game on a big screen TV in a local bar but we did not get much out of it.  We did not know the rules and were bewildered by the commentators’ lingo – ‘he gets half a sniff,’ ‘he toned down his infamous niggle,’ ‘he charges through the middle of the ruck,’ disposals, stoppages, involvements, and contested possessions???  More bewildering to the Australians is our election.  A common comment – “Is this the best slate of candidates you can come up with?”  And this surprising observation – “You know, the whole world will have to suffer the consequences of this election.”

A chuckle from the Sunday edition of the Northern Territory Territorian newspaper.  The headline on the page with wedding announcements and birth announcements read HITCHED AND HATCHED.

Early on the morning of October 3^rd we joined a day trip tour to Litchfield Park.  With us on the tour was an assortment of Aussies, Brits, Italians, Germans, Japanese, and one University of Virginia grad student.  Along the way we drove through mango groves, spotted a few wallabies, learned that this was open hunting season for magpie geese (an annoyance here just like Canada geese are at home), passed many road trains (even a five trailer) and stopped for coffee in the town of Humpty Doo before arriving at Pat’s Place for a cruise and crocodile sighting on the Adelaide River.  It was quite a thrilling experience to see the crocodiles up close.  Pat, looking as if he just stepped off the set of Duck Dynasty, told us that the males are a bit sluggish because all their energy is geared towards mating season.  We all agreed that they were looking mighty active!  An interest tidbit he conveyed – for every croc you see there are sixty more lurking in the water and the surrounding muddy river bank.

This male croc was enticed to come close to the tour boat by a hunk of chicken dangling off Pat's fishing pole.

 

Our first stop in Litchfield Park was at the termite mounds. Cathedral termite mounds are built by termites that feed on plant litter.  It takes about ten years to build up three feet so this mound is about 50 years old.

Cathedral termite mound

Magnetic termite mounds are built by termites that feed on grass.  They are called magnetic because they are all built in alignment with the magnetic north and south poles – positioning the most exposed ends away from the sun.  They resemble grave stones.

A field of Magnetic termite mounds

Some of the roads through Litchfield Park are only accessible via four-wheel drive vehicles.  Our tour guide described these roads as “absolute bone shakers” and we would not be traveling on any of them.

An interesting bird is the bower.  He constructs his unique bachelor pad, decorates its entrance with shiny things like bottle caps and seashells, all in an elaborate attempt to woo females.  The females lay their eggs in their own nests in the trees.

Built by a bower

 

Litchfield Park is home to several swimming holes that are popular with Darwinians.  The first one we stopped at was located at the base of Wangi Falls.  Here is the sign that is posted at the lookout.  Excuse me for not wanting to jump right in!

Wangi Falls swimming hole

 

Sign at Wangi Falls

 

Florence Falls in Litchfield Park