29 June
The proprietor passed by this morning as I was admiring the setting we called "home for the night." We had a warm and friendly chat while standing out in the cold as the sun began to rise. Dew glistened from every surface. He said the temperature had reached minus 1 Celsius. It certainly felt close to freezing, but Razelle and I had enough bedding to be comfortable in the camper. I learned the name of the black-and-white crow-like bird that watched me with anticipation as I ate a bowl of cheerios and milk outside. This is a magpie. He had a big black beak and beady black eyes that watched me expectantly for a hint of compassion. Under my breath I said I hoped he had no thoughts of larceny and he must have understood because he flew away. These magpies have a distinctive call we heard all morning, along with other bird calls that intrigued me because I couldn't match them with their source. I finally got to hear a kookaburra. As they "laugh" they sound like excited howler monkeys, I guess.
Razelle read in the literature that in Pemberton there is a tram ride through the forest that sounded worth doing. If we didn't waste time we could get there before the tram left the station. The road to Pemberton from Nannup is again through national forest areas with scenic side roads to spectacular groves of superlative trees. We rapidly passed them all as I drove at or above the speed limit, to reach Pemberton and the tram with 8 minutes to spare. Two days earlier I wouldn't have imagined I could handle this vehicle do adeptly. Now look it me rocketing along! It helped that practically no one else was on these roads in daylight, just as there hadn't been anyone on them during the previous night. I don't know how to interpret this. Perhaps this is an empty land, perhaps traffic prefers heavily travels roads instead of these scenic byways, and perhaps its just off-season and people are not traveling, period.
Along the way we saw our first kangaroo, loping across the road at a safe distance. It was of moderate size. Our second kangaroo of the day came later. It was road-kill by the time we happened upon it, the poor hapless hopper.
The tram ride was very educational. It took us through the same forest we had just driven through. The driver had a wealth of information to impart and I enjoyed it immensely. Razelle, not so much. She wasn't dressed as warmly as she should have been, the topic was not as fascinating to her as it was to me, and when we stopped to see a set of rapids (called a cataract here) or a tree hollowed out by lightening, Razelle couldn't safely negotiate the trail. The tram returned the same way it had come so there was no narration. I took this opportunity to talk with the driver all the way back about all kinds of scientific topics. He was as knowledgeable -- if not more so -- as the woman I'd spoken to yesterday. From these two sources of knowledge I have gained a more complete understanding of what I see here on this strange continent than I might have otherwise if I had had to look it up myself.
We left Pemberton and headed for Walpole. We saw more trees of superlative size. After the tram ride I appreciated them even more. While we drove toward Walpole it started to rain again, though not torrentially this time. Ahead of us we saw the base of a very intense rainbow. It was worth taking a picture of. As we rounded a corner, the other half of the rainbow came into view. Then farther up the road we saw a double rainbow. I've never before experienced what came next. The base of the inner and more intense of the double rainbows was right on the road ahead as we rounded a curve. It remained right there as we approached it and as we literally drove right through its curtain of colors. I expected it to dissipate as we approached but it remained exactly as it was as we drove through it. I had to remark to Razelle that this was where the pot of gold should have been. We should have bumped into it and knocked it over, but alas, it was not there.
We drove through Walpole and headed for the Valley of the Giants. In this forest there is a tree-top walk that everyone we know who'd been here ahead of us told us was an experience NOT to be missed. Once again we found ourselves competing with the clock. Our literature said that we had until 4:15 PM to see this today. Razelle wanted to save it for tomorrow, but I insisted that it was worth driving to today, just to see what it was about, even if we had to come back tomorrow.
We got there with a half hour to spare, we thought, but we were told that 4:15 PM was the latest admission time; however, 4:45 PM was when the concession actually closed. We had a full hour to experience it and we had the park almost exclusively to ourselves. We toured it and enjoyed it very much.
Dusk was falling as we left. We stopped at the first caravan park we came to right outside the park, but now we were picky. We didn't like the layout and we didn't like the price so we moved on. The next one we came to was so much more appealing AND cheaper because the van rental company has a deal with this group AND they threw in a free cap with their name on it for me to wear. Can't argue about that deal!
We got a site then went into Walpole for food. Razelle was keen on having a nice fresh salad. It was passed 6:00 PM and pitch dark by now and nothing seemed to be open. We found two grocery stores. The omnipresent IGA was dark inside, but its independent competitor was still open. "I stay open late, until 7" the gentle giant proprietor told us. We bought a fistfull of snow peas and a couple of tomatoes and some tartar sauce packets. (He also threw in a freebee – yesterday's newspaper. Razelle was starving for news.) Back at our campsite these ingredients (not the newspaper) went together with a can of tuna to make a salad Razelle enjoyed throwing together herself, almost as much as if she'd been served one in a restaurant. The snow peas were a delightfully sweet and crunchy touch. They really were a treat to have. Little things like that make "roughing it" interesting.
We went through the nighty night routine more efficiently than previously. Camping ain't so bad.
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