Good shade, good food and good company

Tall shady forests of karri and tingle trees were a major highlight as we cycled east from Margaret River. In some ways it felt like we were on the final stretch – finally heading east towards home – and we had to remind ourselves there are still things to see and do along the way, not to mention crossing that big empty patch in the middle of the country.

Heatwaves rolled through the south west over Christmas and in the new year, bringing temperatures in the low 40s and memories of cycling through northern WA. Unlike the north though, around Pemberton we were treated to amazing forests of towering white trees and abundant shade, which felt surreal after having seen so much open land. We were in awe. Sometimes the karri forests grew right to the edge of the road, creating a shade tunnel as we wound around and up and down, travelling east.

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We’d heard about karris being used as fire lookouts back in the settlement and logging days, so we pedalled through Warren National Park to check out the ‘Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree’. Though not the oldest fire lookout tree in the Pemberton area, it is the tallest of the remaining three lookouts, reaching 75m into the sky. They don’t come much taller than that.

Having never even seen photos of fire lookout trees before, we were curious as to how we’d climb to the top. All was revealed on arrival, and luckily everyone else was still in bed because it was scary enough with only two of us at the top! There were 130 pegs hammered horizontally into the tree’s trunk and surrounded by dodgy-looking chicken wire. The pegs spiralled around the trunk almost all the way to the top, where a lookout tower had been fashioned with four levels and ladders between. There wasn’t a breath of wind that day but when it gets gusty the 2-tonne tower sways up to 5 metres in each direction! A few of the pegs felt wobbly under our feet but luckily none came completely loose, apart from in my overactive imagination. The 360-degree view was impressive, looking over the national park to farmland and hills beyond. I wonder how much longer we’ll be allowed to do things like that?

Further along, the Walpole-Nornalup National Park is practically the only place in the world where giant tingle trees can be found. These trees can grow to over 400 years old, and are often characteristically hollow due to fires burning out the heartwood. Parking your car inside the hollow of a particularly enormous tingle used to be a classic holiday snap in the area. However, despite their size the trees actually have a very shallow and fragile root system, and eventually the poor abused tree keeled over and died. We checked out the now largest tingle tree, which happens to be the largest known living eucalypt in the world with a girth of 24m.

Sadly the forests didn’t continue all the way to Esperance, or even to Albany, and we found ourselves back out in the open with the March flies. Clouds of them!

Local produce was varied and we sampled whenever we could – mead, honey, cider, marron and grappa – and took away pannier-friendly treats for on the road. This part of Western Australia feels so far removed from the rest of the state!

Denmark was a funny little alternative town with a disproportionately large number of cafes, and a fun place to spend my birthday. The bakery there was painfully amazing – how are you supposed to decide what to get when everything takes your fancy? –and Christian made a very yummy rice pudding birthday cake on our little camp stove at our campsite with ocean views

Next stop was Oranje Tractor Wine in Albany, an organic winery where we spent a little over a week WWOOFing. We learnt lots from Pam and Murray about growing grapes organically and making wine, and loved staying there. The wine was so good we had to send a carton home. Cumquats were also in over-abundance, and we had fun coming up with new and exciting cumquat recipes with plenty of willing guinea pigs around. Hopefully one day we can give our own WWOOFers such a memorable experience, as we were definitely sad to leave Oranje Tractor.

Pam and Murray put us in touch with their friends in Porongurup, our next stop, who also had a winery. Barry and Shelley welcomed us into their home and we had yet another great experience, leaving complete strangers as friends. Their property, Jingalla, had the Porongurup National Park as a dramatic backdrop, and while there we did a couple of walks up through the park. Nancy’s Peak was the best, with views to the ocean in one direction and to the impressive Stirling Range, our next destination, in the other. Barry also took us on our first ever beach fishing adventure, and it was even successful!

Our ride out to the Stirling Range was not far from Jingalla, but it was a very hot sweaty day. For some reason we followed the cycle up with a steep rocky hike to the summit of Mt Toolbranup, the second highest peak in the range (1052m). From the summit we were treated to spectacular 360-degree views, this time over the Stirling Range to the surrounding plains. The Stirling Range is interesting as it rises suddenly, as a chain of green pimples, out of the surrounding flat brown farmland. This also means it is visible in all directions from quite a distance.

After another week of mallee scrub and crossing river valleys (do you know that song remixed from the old Arnie aerobics videos? Down, up, down, up…more energy! We sang that pretty often) we arrived in Esperance on Australia Day. About 20kms out of Esperance we found we had phone reception…and could listen to Triple J’s Hottest 100 countdown online! It lifted our spirits (and our speed) feeling part of the Australia Day celebrations while cycling in the heat, with Esperance creeping into view, grooving along to new music we mostly hadn’t heard before. Then the battery died, but by that time we’d practically reached Tina and Winton’s place, where we’d be Help-Xing for the next couple of weeks. Their own celebrations were in full swing, and we happily demolished the rest of the BBQ lunch and cracked a beer. What a welcome!