Location: AlmaMay’s internet café (try the Rocky Road! Delicious!), Albany, Western Australia
Kms so far: 8341
So around about an hour into the climb up Bluff Knoll in the Sterling Ranges National Park, about an hour north of Albany in the south west of Western Australia, it occurred to me that I hate climbing mountains. Let me say that I love mountain climbing. I’ve climbed Mt Bogong several times, Mt Hotham (not in a car… on foot you putz), Cradle Mountain; I’ve even had a crack at Jbel Toubkal, the highest mountain in North Africa at 4100 odd metres. Every time I do something like this it seems like such a great idea… until I start climbing.
Now I’m not 180kg couch potato. I’m in pretty good shape, eating well, riding to work (back in my working days!) and generally limiting myself to one Kabab a week. But I’m not Sir Edmund Hillary, a significant fact that I overlook each time I coin the idea of a wonder up the nearest mountain. And at the hour mark, around a kilometre and a half along (and 500 metres up this 700 metre climb), I begin to wonder whether my Victorian Ambulance Service membership is valid in the back country of Western Australia. I also tend to wonder how they’d land a helicopter on a 50° slope. My mind wonders across the topic of heart transplant waiting lists in public hospitals…
Lucky for me (and the Albany Search and Rescue service) not long after this the track started to level out, the tree cover broke and the summit emerged, 1095 metres above sea level. The combination of the endorphins and the views across the Sterling Ranges, rising like some kind of green tinted mass Pavlova plonked directly in the middle of flat and uninteresting farming plains took away what little of my breath I had left.
I guess it’s a metaphor for anything worthwhile in life. Truly great things require masses of effort, often leading you to the edge of your capabilities where you teeter on the brink, unsure if your next step will be one further along your chosen path or will have you plunging down the chasm of failure. If you muster the courage to plunder on and make it to your chosen destination, the feeling that it brings is true euphoria.
…Except when some jammy bastard strides past, nodding a cheery ‘Hello’ and looking as though they’ve done nothing more arduous than wonder down the street for a paper. Looks like I need to start jogging.
View Larger Map
P.S. I've uploaded the first lot of photos of the trip to date to my Flickr page. You can view 'em down the bottom in my new Flickr gadget, or by going to Flickr.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Life's a beach
Location – Cape Arid National Park, Western Australia
Kms so far: 6737
As much as Cape Arid National Park is accurately named in some respects, it may not be the most appropriate name for the place. Admittedly, the countryside that forms the majority of the park initially appears to be quite arid- kilometre after kilometre of low scrub, the only interest being the ‘Kanagroo tails’ that poke into the air every couple of metres. Kanagroo Tails are a small bush that grows a flower that is tall and narrow, standing to about one and a half metres tall. The flower itself is a dark red/brown colour. When viewed from a distance, they look a lot like a Kangaroo’s tail sticking straight up out of the scrub… hence the name.
However, Cape Arid could have equally been called Cape White Sandy Beaches and Turquoise Blue Ocean. I guess that name didn’t fit on the map so well, so that’s why they settled for Cape Arid. The beaches here are textbook- headlands formed of exposed granite that rises out of the unbelievably blue sea on a 45 degree angle, hosting a butter knife smooth spread of perfectly white sand. The beaches are also quite sheltered due to the nature of the coast around here, yet the relatively small surf still churns deep troughs and hides a significant undertow. So not quite paradise… Looks like my search for the perfect beach continues. It’s a hard life!
Anyways, enough about the beaches- time to bring you up to date on what’s happened over the last couple of weeks. We left Melbourne (for the second time!) on the 26th of January and picked up the Great Ocean Road at Lorne. We stopped the first night in Skenes Creek, then Johanna before heading for the Lower Glenelg national park. The ocean road is, as always, amazing. However places like Lorne and Apollo Bay really feel a bit over developed now- too many cafés and fine dining experiences to accurately fit my impressions of a sleepy costal town.
The lower Glenelg national park was a welcome change of pace. We knew this when the well fed, hairy and shirtless caretaker rode up on his four wheeler to collect the 15 buck camping fees… definitely no chance of a skinny mac here. The park was full of gum forrest along the banks of the Glenelg river, which is much of the focus of the park. You can actually hire canoes and paddle up the river for days as there is about five campsites only accessable in this way. We considered it, but decided the money would be better spent on adventures in other states.
We then headed for Mt Gambier, which apart from the blue lake held little interest for us. It was then on to the Coorong National Park where we crossed onto the Younghusband Peninsula over the salt flats. There was a lot of water about considering the drought that we’ve been experiencing.
I’m now running out of internet time, so a short summary of stops over the last week should bring you up to date:
Adelaide (checked out the Hieghs chocolate factory… mmmm…)
Barossa valley for wine tastings
Innes National park to swim!
Coffin bay national park
Lincon National Park
Nullabor (or is that Nulla- bored?)
Cape Le Grand national park (more swimming!)
More laters… off to Stokes National park now.
Kms so far: 6737
As much as Cape Arid National Park is accurately named in some respects, it may not be the most appropriate name for the place. Admittedly, the countryside that forms the majority of the park initially appears to be quite arid- kilometre after kilometre of low scrub, the only interest being the ‘Kanagroo tails’ that poke into the air every couple of metres. Kanagroo Tails are a small bush that grows a flower that is tall and narrow, standing to about one and a half metres tall. The flower itself is a dark red/brown colour. When viewed from a distance, they look a lot like a Kangaroo’s tail sticking straight up out of the scrub… hence the name.
However, Cape Arid could have equally been called Cape White Sandy Beaches and Turquoise Blue Ocean. I guess that name didn’t fit on the map so well, so that’s why they settled for Cape Arid. The beaches here are textbook- headlands formed of exposed granite that rises out of the unbelievably blue sea on a 45 degree angle, hosting a butter knife smooth spread of perfectly white sand. The beaches are also quite sheltered due to the nature of the coast around here, yet the relatively small surf still churns deep troughs and hides a significant undertow. So not quite paradise… Looks like my search for the perfect beach continues. It’s a hard life!
Anyways, enough about the beaches- time to bring you up to date on what’s happened over the last couple of weeks. We left Melbourne (for the second time!) on the 26th of January and picked up the Great Ocean Road at Lorne. We stopped the first night in Skenes Creek, then Johanna before heading for the Lower Glenelg national park. The ocean road is, as always, amazing. However places like Lorne and Apollo Bay really feel a bit over developed now- too many cafés and fine dining experiences to accurately fit my impressions of a sleepy costal town.
The lower Glenelg national park was a welcome change of pace. We knew this when the well fed, hairy and shirtless caretaker rode up on his four wheeler to collect the 15 buck camping fees… definitely no chance of a skinny mac here. The park was full of gum forrest along the banks of the Glenelg river, which is much of the focus of the park. You can actually hire canoes and paddle up the river for days as there is about five campsites only accessable in this way. We considered it, but decided the money would be better spent on adventures in other states.
We then headed for Mt Gambier, which apart from the blue lake held little interest for us. It was then on to the Coorong National Park where we crossed onto the Younghusband Peninsula over the salt flats. There was a lot of water about considering the drought that we’ve been experiencing.
I’m now running out of internet time, so a short summary of stops over the last week should bring you up to date:
Adelaide (checked out the Hieghs chocolate factory… mmmm…)
Barossa valley for wine tastings
Innes National park to swim!
Coffin bay national park
Lincon National Park
Nullabor (or is that Nulla- bored?)
Cape Le Grand national park (more swimming!)
More laters… off to Stokes National park now.
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