June from Albany, Australia

Cheers all,

With a bit of travelling and sightseeing for several consecutive weekends, it has been busy, busy, busy down here in south west Australia.  This past weekend - our “ weekend off”  - started out quite nicely with wonderful winter weather.  Many people were back to shorts.  We puttered about town going to the food markets, caught up on some chores (not enough of them) and went hiking with friends out to Bald Head.  To top the day off they invited us to a delicious supper at their house overlooking Goode Beach and the Southern Ocean.  The pink sunset was stunning as was the supper.

On Sunday we scampered down to the opening day of a new market in the community boat shed on the waterfront in search of fresh fish for Nancy but alas it was all sold out!  It turned out that our neighbour, knowing that Nancy was an avid fish eater, dropped over later with some freshly caught herring and whiting fillets.  Then the cold front that was forecast to hit did.....with a fury.  The temperature dropped, winds gusted to 100 km/h and, of course, it poured.  The rain was coming down just like it does in the movies, sweeping sideways.  We braved this to go to an Eric Bogle concert, and were glad we did – it was a great show.  Afterwards we foolishly decided to go to the coast to watch the ocean; but once we got there the waves were being blown inland over the parking lot which was set back at least 100 metres and 25-30 metres above sea level!  We didn’t dare leave the car as literally buckets of water were cascading over the car.  (One Canadian has died at this location already this year.)  When I put the car in neutral and disengaged the hand brake the wind simply blew it inland across the parking lot.

Earlier this month, on the June long weekend, we stayed in a quaint, small cottage in a forest retreat 26 kms south east of Manjimup in the forests of southwest Australia.  From there we climbed the Diamond Tree fire lookout (61 metres)and the Gloucester Tree fire lookout (50 metres) (both are still active fire station trees), fed parrots, went on scenic  forest drives, ate at a quaint cafe in the middle of a forest and generally played tourist around Manjimup and Pemberton.  It was beautiful there.

The following weekend we met fellow exchange teachers and spouses in the Wellington Forest National Park near Bunbury.  Accommodations consisted of a very rustic logging cabin built in the 1930s. With a few heaters we all managed to survive the cool nightly temperatures (4o C).  It was located at the Wellington Park Discovery Forest seemingly in the middle of nowhere............at least that is the way it appeared as we bounced about small gravel country roads under the cloak of absolute darkness trying vainly to find the place.  After an hour we finally stopped at a cottage and asked directions.  It turned out to be the place we were looking for!  It was a nice weekend meeting a few new people, going on a ranger guided forest walk, having a Canadian style campfire, going to Gnomesville to place another gnome (the exchange league adds one each year), and dropping in at a winery, a lavender farm, and a micro-brewery.  We were not alone at our cabin.  At both dawn and dusk there were tons and tons of very inquisitive kangaroos who had no qualms about the presence of people and some were bold enough to wander into the cabin.  Kangaroos are either seen as a pest or are just so common place that they couldn’t hold the attention of a 3 year old Aussie.  However, to us black-bear-brainwashed Canadians this bouncy marsupial is a pretty neat animal.

All in all life is going well. Our upload speed is slow but we’ll be trying to upload some pictures in the next few days.

Cheers from down under.