Road, road and more road - how a fly drove us 200km

 
December 4th & 5th

We had stayed the night in Pemberton – the only people at the Karri Forest Motel, which also had the only restaurant open for dinner. We ate as soon as we arrived – it was 6.50pm and the kitchen was about to close – in an empty dining room decked out for Christmas. I insisted on having my photo taken with the snowman lamp and tiny Christmas tree bluetacked to the windowsill, destroying it in the process. The maitre’d got her own back by serving up an unidentifiable dish that had been cooked several months before.

Thinking it wise to breakfast elsewhere, we head to the Millhouse Café – if you ever find yourself in Pemberton, just look for the giant red marron holding a cup of coffee, outside. Breakfast would have been fine except for the flies. The flies in Australia deserve a blog entry of their own. There are lots of them. Think of as many flies as you possibly can, then multiply that by 1000. Having spent the last 10 days getting to know them intimately, it’s easy to see how the hat with corks hanging off it came about. The Aussie fly looks like small English house fly, but instead of heading for food, like normal flies, they made a beeline for your face. They are everywhere. If you go for a walk, expect at least six flies to buzz around your face, land on your nose and zip behind your sunglasses, while six of their mates hitch a ride on your back – more if you make the mistake of wearing a dark shirt. Everywhere you go, you see people shaking their heads, flapping their hands round their faces and making “phh, phh, phh” spitting sounds.

We were the only people breakfasting on the café terrace, and the entire fly population of Pemberton sought us out. Robin resorted to covering his mouth and nose with his hands – it was time to go, and fast. Two hours later we arrive in Walpole – where I realise I’ve left my handbag at the café. I blame the flies. We turn the car around and drive back. To pass the time on the journey, I count the other road users – 33 cars in 104km, plus a dead kangaroo...

They say every cloud has a silver lining – this one was rose coloured. Having retrieved my bag it was time for lunch, so we had to sample the famous red marron - a delicately, flavoured freshwater crayfish found in the rivers of tall tree country. Then it’s back to Walpole, again. And more trees – this used to be the heart of the logging industry after all.

While everyone else is gearing up for Christmas with rousing renditions of jingle bells, we discover a new festive tree – the tinglewood. It’s found only in one forest – between Walpole and Denmark – along the Great Southern coast. The locals are so proud of their tinglewood trees, they’ve built a 40m high walkway to admire them. You’re about two thirds of the height of the trees at 40m. Despite their great height, tinglewoods have shallow roots, and seem to develop huge vertical gouges in their trunks, or even complete man-size holes through the base of the tree as they age. And the root spread is so vast that when they finally fall over, the base is twice as high as me. But the special thing about this forest and the others we visit is the birdsong. Walking around you are immersed in these unfamiliar calls – but apart from parrots, hardly ever see the birds making them.

We tear ourselves away from the trees to take look at the strange elephant rocks by the Southern Ocean in William Bay - another beautiful cove in the setting sun - before arriving in Denmark to stay with Robin’s house exchangees. As well as a waterside property here, Angus and Lacey also own the house where we stayed in Perth, and in return will be using Robin’s flat on their visit to London next year. They have travelled the world in this way, and happily welcome complete strangers – like us – into their home and feed them delicious roast lamb dinners. They also have words of advice for our return journey to Perth – get back before dark to avoid the kangaroos. Apparently our near miss the other day wasn’t uncommon. They have had at least four kangaroo crashes, and Angus had to chop the head off an ostrich that broke both legs running straight into their stationary car. After checking that they didn’t want it themselves, the guys in the car behind took it home for dinner!

The following morning, before facing the kangaroo infested highway, we take a look round Albany. Albany has a well protected natural harbour, which made it the primary stopping point for the early settlers before Fremantle and Perth took over. Today, apart from a large concrete factory on the shoreline, it relishes in its small, sleepy town status, with well-preserved buildings reminding visitors of its pioneering past, and a Saturday market in the churchyard making it feel very English indeed.

There are no kangaroos on our journey back to Perth. But the road, which runs through the wheatbelt is dull beyond belief. We stop at one of only three towns on the road to boast a café. It’s closed. But the local hotel – a bar that doubles as a betting shop – is open, and as an added bonus, is hosting a speed sheep shearing competition. Forget the namby pamby wine region, and those tall forests now the loggers have gone – this is the real Australia. And the shearers still have the mullets to prove it. Watching several rounds of the competition even we can see there’s a technique to keeping your sheep still enough to shear. But the fastest man – 33 seconds – is disqualified. No doubt he missed a bit. Next time you spot a raggedy sheep in a field, you’ll know it’s been in a shearing competition.