Wednesday 19 September – It was nine o’clock before we managed to get away today, so not the earliest start of the trip!  And today we clocked up about 360 km.  After getting some petrol and programming Zola, we travelled down the South Western Highway for a fair chunk of the drive.  Today we encountered dozens of places (many via signposts) with names ending in ‘UP’, which means ‘place of’ in many aboriginal dialects.  We passed through Donnybrook and Bridgetown before coming to Manjimup.  The countryside is beautiful – lush green paddocks with lovely dams and healthy looking cattle were everywhere.  It was very hilly, so we didn’t make rapid progress, but it was very scenic.  And as we drove further south we found ourselves surrounded by the tall tree forests of karri and jarrah trees almost forming an avenue as we wound around and over the hills.

A few kilometres south of Manjimup we took a short turn-off to have a look at the Diamond tree lookout.  This lookout is at the top of a 51 metre karri tree, and is the only wooden treetop tower in the world. It is still in use as an important part of the fire management and spotting programme. You are allowed to climb the tree, but you’d have to be pretty game to do it.  The ‘ladder’ you climb is actually metal rods embedded into the tree forming a spiral stairway to near the top where there is a final vertical climb to reach the lookout platform.  And the rods are a long way apart – much further apart than the rungs of a ladder.  I got up two steps and stopped (and that was only for show!!).  I reckon you would have to be stupid to tackle it! 

The scary ‘ladder’ up the 51 mtr tree.

But the surprise at this stop was the lady there who is a wildlife carer.  She was sitting beside her van with a couple of travellers who had just turned up there like we did, and they were both nursing baby joeys that had been orphaned when their mothers were killed on the road.  There was a third joey in the back of the van.  They were each snuggled a little polar fleece pouch, and one was being fed with a bottle.  There were other bottles there for the others to be fed.  They were very cute, and we realised as we were about to leave that the lady probably chose this place to feed them, as she had a donation box there, and a tour bus was pulling in.  I’m sure there would be lots of contributions to her cause.

One of the joeys has his tucker.

There were some lovely wildflowers there, too – some wild wisteria, clematis and a pretty yellow one which I can’t identify.

Wild wisteria.

Our next stop along the drive was at Walpole where we had lunch and a pitstop before the last leg of the drive through Denmark to Albany.  Zola managed to get us to our destination – the Albany Gardens Holiday Resort – a flash name for a caravan park, where we are currently installed.

The day was a mixed bag today, lovely sunshine, cloudy spells, a few showers, but not cold and tonight there are stars galore.  With some good maps given to us by the lady in the office here, and some suggestions for interesting things to do, we should have a pretty full day tomorrow, which sounds good.

Oh yes!  First thing this morning Grant rang his doctor  with his warfarin reading, only to find that his doctor has gone away on holidays for four weeks, so the duty doctor would ring back.  The call eventually came at about 4.30, and the dosage adjustments have again been made, with no further blood test until we get home.