In addition to the photos and videos, the text in this post needed to be edited a bit as well. Anyhow, I hope you like it better with picutures.
This one image is live from where I am online Valentine's night in Esperance (notice kid in sandbox) - more to come!
Feb13 – redefining remote, you find what you look for, Sorry Day, What’s Up?, don’t walk to the next road, walk the tree tops, natural beauty, scored with accommodation again
Well, we’re heading home. Not actually going home, but we are no longer moving farther and farther southwest. We’ve turned the corner in Margaret River and we’re headed east. As I mentioned before, when Aneta and I drove through the Denmark area in 2003, it was its remarkable level of remoteness than led to her opting out of this trip. After seeing Fitzroy Crossing, Denmark seems positively urban. Seriously. I don’t currently know (or care) how far the next gas station is (that will change in about one day). I pass cars all the time. There is a selection of food options and I don’t fear for my life if the cooler gets a little warm. That change tells me one thing – honey, it is best you missed portions of this trip.
If you ask Alex what he notices about Australia, it would be cables. It is not that Australia has an inordinate amount of cables, it is that he has an eye for them. On the Tree Top Walk, there was an outlet. He noticed. Monkey Mia’s dolphin beach? An electrical outlet and some wiring near the lighting. Some would say the world is their oyster, Alex would say the world is his power grid. Needless to say, this means that our time together involves races to see who can get to (or block) access to the latest and greatest source of voltage. I would make fun of him, but I do have a habit of referring to regions of the United States by college football conferences (as someone who lives in the Pac 10).
In order to maximize appeal, I have avoided politics best I can. I will continue to, but today was “Sorry Day” and it begs for notice. The radio, the tv, everywhere we were saturated today by Sorry Day. It was compared to the moon landing on the Australian version of NPR this morning. What is “Sorry Day” you ask? Well, it is the new Prime Minister’s first actual day to address the parliament. In the US, that moniker would mean that the press had rendered a rather unpleasant verdict on the leader’s first day. Instead, it was Kevin Rudd’s first official act to declare that Australia was sorry to the Stolen Generation. These were aboriginal children taken from their parents for several decades. Some were taken from abusive parents by well-meaning Australians, some were taken from perfectly competent parents for reasons that history is judging harshly right now. This variety of circumstances is the reason that something on the order of 40% of native-born Australians support this apology (according to a poll referenced in the same newscast). That is not to say only 40% think there should be an apology, just that 40% agree with this one. Members of the Stolen Generation outside parliament for the speech turned their backs on parliament and the PM giving the apology in part because PM Rudd has ruled out compensation, if I understand it correctly. Anyhow, it is a highly emotional issue causing some soul searching locally and one that has a bit more texture than a quick sound bite might indicate. I can’t imagine that with 24/7 coverage of the Maryland primary along with marathon roundtable discussions among those with careers in US presidential campaigns, MSNBC or CNN have time to break away for a five minute segment on this. For those Americans reading, yes, I get horse race coverage of the US election and daily updates on delegate counts, but from here I might not know if there are policy differences between Obama and Clinton.
Along those same lines, every other town in this region ends in the suffix “up” (starting with the big towns): Manjimup, Jerramungup, Gnowangerup, Nannup, Coweramup, Kojonup, Nornalup, Dumblejung (Ok, no “up”, but what a name!), Yalingup,.. (I really could go on). So it turns out that “up” means (wait for it….) “place”. It gives this place a unique set of city names and they are worthy of a line. (Of all the wineries, none has named itself Hiccup, to my knowledge - yes, my jokes are still that bad).
As you might hope, I have a thorough atlas of Australia. One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is that Australia has large tracts of land without paved roads. I mean large. When I was in Queensland in the “Friendly Heat” of Cloncurry, I could have walked south for over 2000 miles before stepping on pavement again. We have a similar setup in WA. I was looking at a page for my drive across the Nullarbor and noticed no roads above it (driving across one open page can take a good long day, something like 800-1000km). So I went to the page above it and there were no roads. I went to the page above it and on the upper edge was the road that I took across the Kimberly (places like Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing, for those following along at home). Unless I am misreading it, you could walk south from Kununurra (which is right off the Timor Sea), through the Bungle Bungle range, across the Tanami or Great Sandy Desert (you might get disoriented early on this walk), then across the Gibson Desert, then across the Great Victoria Desert step on one road, and plunge right into the Southern Ocean. Eyeballing it, this is like walking from Vancouver, B.C. (British Columbia) to Tijuana, B.C. (Baja California) without stepping on a single paved road, then walking another few hundred miles to cool down. In case you are curious, we have no plans to walk north from that one thin strip of pavement.
The drive today was through dense karri and tingle forests. Pretty, good smell, short visibility, and the caravans (campers) around here do not recognize any norm of pulling over when they have created a line up of cars that cannot pass. In short, it was beautiful country again.
The Tree Top Walk was the first real highlight of the day and a wonderful go-around the first time. Alex loved it and asked to go around a second time. I would not carry him because he wiggles and at 60 meters that is bad. He cried because he did not want to go up (can’t go backwards, really) and he cried because he did not want to go down (couldn’t I tell those were cries of joy?) The photos are from the first round and I told myself the second round did not happen. They also have a forest walk and I carried him for that as he calmed down tremendously. You can see the Tingle trees up close. The photos tell the story (once they upload) – it is a must see and a really memorable time (in the good sense).
We went to Denmark, where Aneta asked the tourist info folks for a hotel with a lobby and people. The woman who responded “Darling, this isn’t New York” still works there (or someone who looks like she could deliver that line with the proper level of weariness) but we didn’t say “hey”. Denmark is a pretty little town, but we had plenty of time and we continued on the Albany. I am glad we did.
We scored a room at a great hotel (more on that later) and the receptionist recommended that we skip the main street and head straight for the peninsula where there is a Wind Farm, a Gap and Natural Bridge, and Frenchman Bay. The windmills are huge and well-positioned to make use of the breeze coming off the Southern Ocean. The Gap and Natural Bridge are cliffs shorn from Antarctica (when it split off Australia). Anyhow, just a beautiful, natural setting. Photos will tell the story again. 
One does not need to have a death wish to enter the water at Middleton Beach in Albany, but it does help. Today was unmercifully windy in Albany - a good day to visit the wind farm and nearly get blown over at the Natural Bridge. The waves at Middleton Beach looked like San Francisco’s Ocean Beach sometimes looks (in short: violent & turbulent), but it had surfers, kite surfers and maybe even some swimmers in it. I hope everyone got out alright.
We scored big time tonight with respect to our hotel. The Best Western has availability (apparently the town is near capacity for no good reason), a nice room, great rate, very impressive service, a good restaurant, and free wireless internet (first of the trip). The photos don’t upload, I can live with it.
Tomorrow: off to Esperance, by way of Jerramungup
Feb13 – redefining remote, you find what you look for, Sorry Day, What’s Up?, don’t walk to the next road, walk the tree tops, natural beauty, scored with accommodation again
Well, we’re heading home. Not actually going home, but we are no longer moving farther and farther southwest. We’ve turned the corner in Margaret River and we’re headed east. As I mentioned before, when Aneta and I drove through the Denmark area in 2003, it was its remarkable level of remoteness than led to her opting out of this trip. After seeing Fitzroy Crossing, Denmark seems positively urban. Seriously. I don’t currently know (or care) how far the next gas station is (that will change in about one day). I pass cars all the time. There is a selection of food options and I don’t fear for my life if the cooler gets a little warm. That change tells me one thing – honey, it is best you missed portions of this trip.
If you ask Alex what he notices about Australia, it would be cables. It is not that Australia has an inordinate amount of cables, it is that he has an eye for them. On the Tree Top Walk, there was an outlet. He noticed. Monkey Mia’s dolphin beach? An electrical outlet and some wiring near the lighting. Some would say the world is their oyster, Alex would say the world is his power grid. Needless to say, this means that our time together involves races to see who can get to (or block) access to the latest and greatest source of voltage. I would make fun of him, but I do have a habit of referring to regions of the United States by college football conferences (as someone who lives in the Pac 10).
In order to maximize appeal, I have avoided politics best I can. I will continue to, but today was “Sorry Day” and it begs for notice. The radio, the tv, everywhere we were saturated today by Sorry Day. It was compared to the moon landing on the Australian version of NPR this morning. What is “Sorry Day” you ask? Well, it is the new Prime Minister’s first actual day to address the parliament. In the US, that moniker would mean that the press had rendered a rather unpleasant verdict on the leader’s first day. Instead, it was Kevin Rudd’s first official act to declare that Australia was sorry to the Stolen Generation. These were aboriginal children taken from their parents for several decades. Some were taken from abusive parents by well-meaning Australians, some were taken from perfectly competent parents for reasons that history is judging harshly right now. This variety of circumstances is the reason that something on the order of 40% of native-born Australians support this apology (according to a poll referenced in the same newscast). That is not to say only 40% think there should be an apology, just that 40% agree with this one. Members of the Stolen Generation outside parliament for the speech turned their backs on parliament and the PM giving the apology in part because PM Rudd has ruled out compensation, if I understand it correctly. Anyhow, it is a highly emotional issue causing some soul searching locally and one that has a bit more texture than a quick sound bite might indicate. I can’t imagine that with 24/7 coverage of the Maryland primary along with marathon roundtable discussions among those with careers in US presidential campaigns, MSNBC or CNN have time to break away for a five minute segment on this. For those Americans reading, yes, I get horse race coverage of the US election and daily updates on delegate counts, but from here I might not know if there are policy differences between Obama and Clinton.
Along those same lines, every other town in this region ends in the suffix “up” (starting with the big towns): Manjimup, Jerramungup, Gnowangerup, Nannup, Coweramup, Kojonup, Nornalup, Dumblejung (Ok, no “up”, but what a name!), Yalingup,.. (I really could go on). So it turns out that “up” means (wait for it….) “place”. It gives this place a unique set of city names and they are worthy of a line. (Of all the wineries, none has named itself Hiccup, to my knowledge - yes, my jokes are still that bad).
As you might hope, I have a thorough atlas of Australia. One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is that Australia has large tracts of land without paved roads. I mean large. When I was in Queensland in the “Friendly Heat” of Cloncurry, I could have walked south for over 2000 miles before stepping on pavement again. We have a similar setup in WA. I was looking at a page for my drive across the Nullarbor and noticed no roads above it (driving across one open page can take a good long day, something like 800-1000km). So I went to the page above it and there were no roads. I went to the page above it and on the upper edge was the road that I took across the Kimberly (places like Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing, for those following along at home). Unless I am misreading it, you could walk south from Kununurra (which is right off the Timor Sea), through the Bungle Bungle range, across the Tanami or Great Sandy Desert (you might get disoriented early on this walk), then across the Gibson Desert, then across the Great Victoria Desert step on one road, and plunge right into the Southern Ocean. Eyeballing it, this is like walking from Vancouver, B.C. (British Columbia) to Tijuana, B.C. (Baja California) without stepping on a single paved road, then walking another few hundred miles to cool down. In case you are curious, we have no plans to walk north from that one thin strip of pavement.
The drive today was through dense karri and tingle forests. Pretty, good smell, short visibility, and the caravans (campers) around here do not recognize any norm of pulling over when they have created a line up of cars that cannot pass. In short, it was beautiful country again.
The Tree Top Walk was the first real highlight of the day and a wonderful go-around the first time. Alex loved it and asked to go around a second time. I would not carry him because he wiggles and at 60 meters that is bad. He cried because he did not want to go up (can’t go backwards, really) and he cried because he did not want to go down (couldn’t I tell those were cries of joy?) The photos are from the first round and I told myself the second round did not happen. They also have a forest walk and I carried him for that as he calmed down tremendously. You can see the Tingle trees up close. The photos tell the story (once they upload) – it is a must see and a really memorable time (in the good sense).We went to Denmark, where Aneta asked the tourist info folks for a hotel with a lobby and people. The woman who responded “Darling, this isn’t New York” still works there (or someone who looks like she could deliver that line with the proper level of weariness) but we didn’t say “hey”. Denmark is a pretty little town, but we had plenty of time and we continued on the Albany. I am glad we did.
We scored a room at a great hotel (more on that later) and the receptionist recommended that we skip the main street and head straight for the peninsula where there is a Wind Farm, a Gap and Natural Bridge, and Frenchman Bay. The windmills are huge and well-positioned to make use of the breeze coming off the Southern Ocean. The Gap and Natural Bridge are cliffs shorn from Antarctica (when it split off Australia). Anyhow, just a beautiful, natural setting. Photos will tell the story again. 
One does not need to have a death wish to enter the water at Middleton Beach in Albany, but it does help. Today was unmercifully windy in Albany - a good day to visit the wind farm and nearly get blown over at the Natural Bridge. The waves at Middleton Beach looked like San Francisco’s Ocean Beach sometimes looks (in short: violent & turbulent), but it had surfers, kite surfers and maybe even some swimmers in it. I hope everyone got out alright.
We scored big time tonight with respect to our hotel. The Best Western has availability (apparently the town is near capacity for no good reason), a nice room, great rate, very impressive service, a good restaurant, and free wireless internet (first of the trip). The photos don’t upload, I can live with it.
Tomorrow: off to Esperance, by way of Jerramungup
4 comments:
listing a text message from Russ I got on my phone:
"If laughter IS the best aphrodisiac, . . . then that would explain why I feel like having sex with your husband! - I am dying reading this blog"
this is the second message to this end from him (the last one started with "You know I like the ladies, but..." ) - hm,..., just in case, I told him to watch it...
I can not wait to see you guys - at this moment being with you, even on the most remote corner of the world, sounds like a great thing
Me want pictures!!! This last post (in addition to being as excellent as usual) was like a teaser trailer from a movie... "Next summer, watch the most exciting thing to hit the big screen since 'Ishtar'... 'Willow'!!!"
Love the pictures - so beautiful!
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