G'Day Australia

Pastoral SW Australia

Arriving in Perth after 5 months in Indonesia came as a shock. Not only are the roads incredibly good, there is no litter, the supermarkets are loaded with western goods, with especially good meat, and wine, and the weather is cool - in fact at times cold. Spring is just arriving and the weather has just turned from cold and wet to more Spring like resulting in the spring flowers being at their best. While waiting for the container to arrive we hired a car and have spent a couple of weeks exploring the south west corner of Australia, which in places looks just like the UK - rolling green hills where sheep graze, with small woodlands, and further inland large areas of wheat and a very rural feel.

Kangaroos grazing

It is only when you look closely at the trees and realise they are mainly eucalypts of some sort, and when kangaroos hop across in front of you, or graze in the evening light in the fields that you realise this is Australia. The weather has been fantastic, warm sunny days and cool nights - we even had a frost! September is the beginning of the whale migration along the coast so we have spent several days walking the coastal areas along empty sandy beaches and through colourful coastal scrub keeping an eye out for the tell tale whale blow, or splash when one has breached.

Whales

Lookout Tree

We were fortunate to see one a couple of hundred metres off the headland where we were chatting to volunteers who perform an annual whale migration census. This SW corner of Australia was once covered in eucalyptus forest much of which has been cleared to plant wheat, but large areas have been kept in National Parks where some of the huge 400 year old trees can still be seen. We passed on the opportunity to climb 65 metres up metal spikes driven into a tree to reach a fire lookout, and instead walked round the valley of giants where particularly large trees are more abundant.

Tulips in Botanic Garden

A week ago we returned to Perth as the container arrived and we wanted to be on hand, however customs randomly selected our container for X-Ray so it was delayed on the wharf by 4 working days, and we have spent the time using the excellent public transport system to visit some of the sights in and around Perth and Freemantle, including the botanic gardens, which had fine displays of tulips and banksia trees in flower. Last Friday the container was eventually released and has been cleared by Customs, so we are now waiting for an appointment with Quarantine inspectors so we can unpack it and they can inspect for cleanliness - hopefully today or tomorrow. They frequently request additional cleaning before it is released and we can take it for its roadworthiness inspection. So we will likely have to spend another week in or around Perth.


 

Banksia Flower

SW Coast

Emu