South of Perth

Rather than spend my whole week in the city, I decided to rent a car and head south. I'd read Bill Bryson's account of the coastline of the south-west corner of Australia and it sounded great. It is. First stop was Albany – a longish drive and it was dark by the time I got there. The next morning, though, was a beautiful one and very sunny. The receptionist recommended driving up to Mount Clarence where there was a monument to the ANZAC troops (the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) – this being the last bit of Australia that they would see as they left for war. The view, she said, was spectacular. I'm sure it is spectacular, but when I got to the turn off, the road to the monument was closed to allow soapbox racing. A pity, but there were a couple of places where you could stop to take pictures on the way up. Albany grew up around a fantastic natural harbour, now called Princess Royal Harbour – there is only a narrow opening to the Southern Ocean and that is within a large and already sheltered bay. It's hard to give the scale of the thing in a photograph but on the right of this picture, you can see the opening into the inner bay: Driving back into town, I was just in time for the service at the Wesley Uniting Church. There are two Uniting Churches in Albany, but today there was only one service. I know there are those who find great long announcements rather tedious in the middle of a church service, but never complain again. The service started at 10:00 and we started the first hymn just before 10:20. The sermon was a little confused. Based on the story of Jesus at the home of Simon the Pharisee, it started with a rather beautiful Celtic poem about welcoming strangers and went on to discuss the importance of forgiveness. The minister ended by repeating the Celtic poem. There was nothing controversial about the sermon, I just didn't see the link between the forgiveness and the welcoming strangers parts. Both are important, of course.

A brief stop at the tourist office produced an itinerary for the day and a bed for the night and I set off for Denmark. No, not that Denmark, the one in South-west Australia. Along the way, I took a detour along a scenic road recommended by the lady in the Albany Visitor Centre. She had neglected to mention, though, that only the first part of the route was finished and the hire car isn't allowed onto unfinished roads so I had to back-track to the main road. Again, it's hard to photograph scenery (well, I find it hard – I'm sure a photographer would do a better job), but here is a picture of part of the inlet on which Denmark stands: Another diversion took me down to the sea at Williams Bay. This is a popular place for swimming – especially in a little protected area called Green's pool: Just around the headland are the Elephant Rocks. The visitor centre lady had said that they looked just like elephants – hence the name. Well, I was a little sceptical, but she was right: The formations continue out into the ocean: What I'd really come down here to see, though, was the Valley of the Giants. The giants referred to are Tingle Trees. These trees are from the eucalyptus family and the area around Walpole is the only place in the world where they grow. Although they're thriving here, it seems that this is the only place on the planet where the combination of soil and climate are just right. Efforts have been made to cultivate them elsewhere, but so far they've failed. They're very tall trees and the national park service have created a tree-top walk which allows you to get a birds-eye perspective on part of the forest. The tree-top trail loops around the crowns of the trees for about 600m, reaching heights of up to 40m. What I hadn't expected was that it moved! The various sections of it were basically suspension bridges between very tall posts anchored firmly into the forest floor. As you walked along, the sections swayed with your footsteps – distinctly unsettling at first. The views from the walkway were stunning – though not, perhaps, for those with a fear of heights. Back on the ground, there's another walkway that winds around some of the Tingle trees – there are two types, red and yellow. There are little information boards along the way telling you about the various shrubs and plants as well as the trees themselves. Apparently a Tingle tree can be up to 75m tall and 20m round at the base – the red ones, at least, keep spreading out as they grow. They can live for up to 600 years as well, which isn't bad going, really. At one level, this is just a forest walk, and you can do those anywhere. BUT, these particular trees grow nowhere else on the planet. This short film clip tries to capture something of the atmosphere of the place - it was so peaceful there.

After the tree-top walk, I set off for Pemberton where I'd booked a bed. I was glad to get there not long after 6 so that I could relax a bit in the evening. I turned on the TV just to see what was on and there was the most recent episode of Doctor Who that I watched on iPlayer while I was in Edinburgh. After supper in the restaurant, I caught an episode of Poirot. It was nice just to relax and do nothing for a while.