Fee, Fie, Foe, Fum -- Time with the Giants --- DAY 17

I totally overdid it today.  9 hours driving almost nonstop is even too much for me.  I set off from Perth at an early hour to try and reach Denmark, Western Australia as quickly as I could.  For the first 180 kms it was a four lane separated highway.  The scenery was green and brown ground with short trees.  Then when I got to Bunbury (where I would be staying for two nights), the road turned into a two lane  highway and the trees were taller and the forest greener. 

There were many interesting sites along the road.  Also some parts looked like East Texas with huge green pastures with cattle and horses.  Then south of Manjimup (yes, that’s it’s name -- “Man up” :) love it), it became a national forest with huge massive trees for about 100 kms.  

On the way down there, I thought the road was quite bendy and curvy, but for some reason on the way back, I just stayed behind a little Mazda and the road wasn’t that bad.  

This South West Coast Road got me to Walpole, where I got gas and got a nice hand gesture from some bogan who slammed on his brakes in the middle of the road.  There are idiots everywhere.  Why flip me off when you were the one who almost caused the accident. 

Check out the rainbow -- 

The Valley of the Giants Treetop Walk is not for those faint of heart, ie my friends with vertigo couldn’t do half of this area.  There was a walkway made of metal that swayed and moved under the walkers.  (um, not good)  It was at a incline and a few different levels getting you right to the tops of these massive trees -- I think they are Tingle Trees.   It was a very interesting perspective to be this high up, but even I got a little off when I looked down.  

There is another part of the walk that anyone could do.  It’s more like being in the redwoods of California.  I always think of my brother when I think of the redwoods.  Because I was with him when I first explored them.  We took all the silly pictures inside the trees.  No one was taking silly pictures inside trees here.

The weather was great until I hit the Giants area and then it got a little misty.  After a 5 hour trip to get there, I stayed about an hour and half then turned around and headed back from where I came to Bunbury.  On the way, I stopped at the Fruit Barn for some $15 bananas :) and other fruit.  Check out the pumpkin? squash?  -- FYI that is an ICE holder like you see at a convenience store to give you perspective of how big that thing was. 

On the road there were heaps of signs about don’t drive tired, but one surprised me -- Free coffee for driver.  There were other interesting signs too.  

In Bunbury, I lucked out with the hotel pick.  I got a great online deal on the Lord Forrest Hotel.  When I arrived it looked like an Embassy Suites with an indoor pool -- sweet.  How do I always end up in a nice hotel?  I guess I have decent hotel karma.  When I was unloading my car (yes, with my “too much” stuff) this man took the cart down there and helped me and then took it to my room -- he was the manager of the hotel, what’s up with that?  Very nice staff or maybe he just wanted me to move my offensive yellow car as quickly as I could to the parking garage. 

The restaurants and main drag was quite close to the hotel so I went to the Rex Cafe for dinner (yes those are fries with the lasagna) and then Josephine’s for dessert.  

Now to see if I can slum it in this hotel and recover from my long drive. 

I AM GOING TO THE BIG HOUSE -- DAY 16

Loving this breakfast buffet.  I better enjoy it, as I am sure this is not going to be at every hotel I go to. There were more people here this morning than yesterday.  I won’t need lunch. 

I got very lost on the road this morning.  The bloody GPS didn’t work and I didn’t have a good map (remember I didn’t take the phone book they tried to give me).   The only reason I ended up at my destination is due to my directional abilities and luck (and the local maps of Swan Valley).  

My destination was Caversham Wildlife Park, located in Whiteman Park.  There were quite a few people there -- a busload of tourists and various families with their children still out of school on holidays.  As I am not a huge fan of zoos, I just wanted to see what they had to offer -- small numbers of animals in cages.  

The animals were beautiful, but it was much more exciting to “hunt” down a cassowary vs seeing one in a cage.  Also the same with koalas, stopping your car on the side of the road vs seeing one in a cage and getting to touch it’s back.  I did see a beautiful black swan.  There were some areas of this park that stunk to the high heavens --- flying foxes are not a sweet smelling animals. 

After I petted a kangaroo, and observed all the pooh on the ground, I traveled on.  Made my way to the Perth airport -- which is not marked properly for return of rental vehicles.  I ended up on the butt end of no where to take back my GPS.  They were nice about it and just credited my account.  I hope I can find my way around without one.   Aussies do not get good grades for signage -- their street signs are very unobtrusive if they exist at all.  

I found my way to Fremantle all on my own.   They have a prison here that was decommissioned in the early 90’s and had a bad riot in the 80’s.  My first tour guide with a big group was Andrew.  He was a hoot but a little hard to understand.  He took us around on the “Doing Time” tour.  There was a Kiwi Corrections Officer on the tour with us.  (He said per capita that there are more child molesters in New Zealand than any other country -- spooky - don’t take kids to NZ.)

Andrew took us around all the male inmate facilities -- in the beginning it was a dormitory for the prisoners to just have a place to stay as they relocated here.  Then it changed to a prison facility.  Some of the cells had paintings - for therapeutic measures (how nuts could they have been?).  They had corporal punishment here where they used to flog people.  Number 6 and 16 were not liked here because they symbolized the hangman's noose. 

Paul, who we correctly guessed was a former corrections officer here, was our next tour guide.  Our group was smaller and he was extremely informative -- the “Great Escapes Tour” -- these guards were taught in an escape to shoot to maim, what’s up with that?  We got to see the printing workshop, tailor and cobbler schools too.  They gave them professions. He sent us up to the guard's lonely lookout tower.  Additionally we saw the women’s side of the prison (much nicer than the men’s side) and death row (they abolished capital punishment here in the 80’s).  

There was a nice couple from Adelaide on the tour with me, who took the train from Adelaide to Perth (might have been better than my defective plane).  Also a couple of locals and a nice man from Cognac, France.  It made for interesting questions. 

There were a few places in the prison, you just got cold shivers at -- it must be haunted and I am glad we got out before dark.  It was fascinating to see.  I can’t believe such an old facility was used into the 90’s.  You could definitely feel the bad energy. 

   

After battling rush hour traffic, I made it back to my room and to a local grocery store.  Got some supplies for my road trip and turned in early.  I know there were parties going everywhere for the royal wedding and I know my friends all over the world were watching (and my Kiwi, Aussie, Brit friends were probably at the parties), but I did not.  I watched a George Clooney movie instead :)