A taste of Western Australia

I wasn't really planning on spending a great deal of time in Western Australia, but while we were in Sydney we decided to do our trip backwards than originally planned, and got a flight from Sydney to Perth. I've done some very interesting day tours from Perth, however, they have all been very long days in which I got to see alot of the landscape.

I started off with a tour to a place called Wave Rock in Hyden, west of Perth. We drove through the Darling Ranges through the Avon Valley and stopped in a quiet little town called York. It looked like I was transported to England. The buildings were very British. As we continued east, we travelled through the wheat belt plains, which are the equivalent to the prairies of Alberta. They even grow canola out here! We stopped to view a rock formation called the Hippo's Yawn which was formally used as a woman's quarters by the aboriginals. It was mainly used as a place where the women gave birth, and the men were not allowed anywhere near it. A few kilometers down the road was the beautiful tiger striped Wave Rock. This was used as a meeting point for the aboriginal men. The rock has been estimated as being over 2700 million years old. From there we travelled down to Mulka's Cave where we got to see aboriginal cave paintings. According to legend, Mulka was the illegitimate son of an aboriginal couple that were not allowed to be married. They married anyway and as a result their child was born cross-eyed. Despite his disability, Mulka grew to be quite big and strong but was unable to properly hunt with a spear because of his vision. Therefore, Mulka began to hunt and eat children instead. He was driven out by his tribe and found haven in a cave. His mother went after him and in a fit of rage, Mulka killed her. The men of the tribe hunted him down and speared him to death and fed him to the ants because they did not believe that he was worthy of a proper burial. The moral of this legend is a warning to those that break tribal laws.

I got to see some awesome wildlife on this trip as well. I saw a couple of love birds, which were gray and had pink breasts as well as wild kangaroos hopping through the bushes on our way back home.

On another day trip, we headed down to The Valley of the Giants in Warpole. We travelled through Donnybrook, which is famous for its apple and stone fruit orchards. We stopped at a cafe and I grabbed a homemade apple pastry, which was very delicious. We continued our journey through the Blackwood River Valley, which consists of rolling farmland with an increasing number of trees. We arrived at the Diamond Tree for lunch. This giant Karri tree (51 m) had rungs built onto it like a ladder, spirally all the way to its top. Instead of eating lunch I decided to climb it. It was a long way up but I finally made it in record time. It was very beautiful at the top where I could see above the Karri trees for miles and miles. Finally reaching the Valley of the Giants, we walked along an elevated walkway constructed within the canopy of the trees. It was amazing to see the trees at that level. We were also allowed to walk along the base of the trees as well. Lots of them were hollowed out by bush fires so we could walk through the middle of them. These trees are famous for originating millions of years ago, when Australia was connected to Africa as Gondwana Land, when the continents were in a different orientation than they are today. After our little adventure with some local people within these trees, we made our way down to Williams Bay, where I finally got a glimpse of the Indian Ocean. We stopped at a visitors center in Kodja where we had a home cooked meal made for us and then a tour of the museum from a local aboriginal man named Jack. He was a very personable man who was so funny.

Sorry, pictures will have to wait until a computer decides to cooperate with me. Talk to you all soon.