Apr 13/11 8:28pm
We are in chilly Denmark today. Probably not the Denmark you know and love but a city of a few thousand on the southwestern corner of Australia. But the good news is that just a few campsites away from us are about 11 kangaroos grazing on the lawn. They are such fascinating creatures and it's too bad it took this long to spot some! We saw a few just before we got dinner going and then when we returned to the van they were almost right beside it but slowly moved further as we made more noise.
We ventured into a town called Augusta yesterday, hoping for some surf and maybe a dolphin sighting. But the only water the surfboard has seen is more rain and we didn't see a dolphin but did see some stingrays and octopus from the edge of the river. Unfortunately we are finding the holiday parks to be well below the New Zealand standards we're used to. Finally tonight though they have an enclosed kitchen area which includes a fridge/freezer (the van comes with a mid-range esky that doesn't have much room for ice once our food is in it so we need the freezer to make some slim ice blocks in water bottles - and haven't had a park with a freezer for a few nights.) At least the one last night was in a nice location. I am having lots of trouble getting myself interested in all the tourist spots along the way. Also, we got too used to New Zealand parks and walks. Here we've already run into a few places where they charge admission just to: walk onto a jetty (and we're not talking a Santa Monica pier here, it's just a jetty), walk around the grounds of a lighthouse (and if you want to actually go in it you pay more than double), and to go into caves. Unless I have selective memory, I don't recall paying to enter a park in NZ or to go on any of the local walks. So this morning Dustin went on a cave tour and I tried to nap in the van. Man is it handy having the bed and curtains!
We also paid up to check out the "Tree Top Walk" where they've built a platform walkway about 600m long in a forest. At the highest point it's about 40m off the ground! And it's much shakier than I thought it would be! So all of ten minutes of entertainment for $20. Dustin is feeling like he might have a cold coming on so I drove the last leg of the trip today. I guess I did learn how to drive standard even within the confines of the retirement village parking lots. But I still am not that comfortable and as Dustin said I'm "too lazy" to drive standard. I just don't see the point in constantly changing gears if I'm just going back to the one I was in. But at least it gives him a break here and there. However, in any measure of traffic I'm not too keen. We were exiting the visitor centre and someone was behind me so I was too afraid to roll back and hit them to leave so Dustin had to coach me. He keeps talking about getting a manual when we get back to BC and I'm not quite sold on it.
The birds down here are so colourful that even when one looks boring, if you look closer it's got something interesting about it. Aside from magpies which are just black and white. I've been finding more and more nerdy things about me such as the fact that I like birdwatching. Not high energy enough for Dustin though. Even though he was the only one to spot this bright red bird today when I was at the wheel!
Today was one of the longer stretches of travel at about 4 hours drive time to our destination of Denmark. We stopped for lunch in Pemberton and checked out a freshwater crayfish farm - to see just what they were going to be cultivating down in Kaikoura at the farm we stayed at. Unfortunately they could only sell live crays where we stopped and since we wanted to keep moving we didn't want to stop and cook them up on the side of the road. He showed us some that were electric blue! He said they taste the same but since they don't cook up bright red, a lot of restaurants aren't interested. Funny how we become accustomed to something like the colour of foodstuff and anything else scares us. Cheese is a good point - I still have to look up why Canada adds the orange food dye! But that's not to say we've been afraid to try new cheeses haha. In fact, this area again has lots of local food producers. Since we were coming into town around 5pm they were closed or nearly closed so we might backtrack a little for a toffee factory and possibly a cheesemaker and a brewhouse. We'll see. We were also testing the limits of the gas gauge without planning to and I didn't want to stop and start even one extra time in case we didn't make it.
podcasts and internet has been pricey around anywhere we've checked (mostly $6-10/hour!) so I have to ration the 4 Hamish and Andy shows we have left at the moment. Since we're in Australia, if we have radio reception we might actually be able to listen to their show live this Friday! To put into perspective why we might not have radio reception only mere hours from the major city: Western Australia takes up about 1/3 of the continent. It has about 2 million people and approximately 1.8 million live around the Perth area. So that leaves a population less than Surrey to spread out through the rest of the mass of land. I think we've been through a couple areas with about 30,000 or maybe 60,000 closer to Perth. Margaret River is only about 10,000 and that's quite a popular area. I think Albany might be around 30,000 if I recall correctly. So, services and towns and all that are few and far between once you're past the city limits. Hence why we weren't the most keen to drive the 1800kms to Exmouth. Most of that would have been empty space.
So, I've pushed through a few bad days and hope to have enough interest left in me to try to enjoy the rest of the trip. Poor Dustin has been putting up with a tired and cranky wife the last few days. There is still rain in the forecast but hopefully tomorrow will be the lat of it. We both were wearing jeans and hoodies today so I think a proper beach day will be out of the question but some sun would still be nice. We've read little snippets here and there in the paper and heard on the news different stats on the rainfall. One stat said that a 25mm rainfall recently was the most the particular region had since August 2010! We just couldn't fathom that considering that's roughly when we left - how crazy it would have been to have had weather that dry since then! And Perth had gone 62 days without a drop, but that certainly doesn't mean it rained much prior to their rain last week. Some locals said it had been about 5 months without any real rain. As most of you readers are in the Vancouver area, I imagine you share the shock at that thought!
Well I am going to check out if the kangas are still nearby and watch them. Good night!
We are in chilly Denmark today. Probably not the Denmark you know and love but a city of a few thousand on the southwestern corner of Australia. But the good news is that just a few campsites away from us are about 11 kangaroos grazing on the lawn. They are such fascinating creatures and it's too bad it took this long to spot some! We saw a few just before we got dinner going and then when we returned to the van they were almost right beside it but slowly moved further as we made more noise.
We ventured into a town called Augusta yesterday, hoping for some surf and maybe a dolphin sighting. But the only water the surfboard has seen is more rain and we didn't see a dolphin but did see some stingrays and octopus from the edge of the river. Unfortunately we are finding the holiday parks to be well below the New Zealand standards we're used to. Finally tonight though they have an enclosed kitchen area which includes a fridge/freezer (the van comes with a mid-range esky that doesn't have much room for ice once our food is in it so we need the freezer to make some slim ice blocks in water bottles - and haven't had a park with a freezer for a few nights.) At least the one last night was in a nice location. I am having lots of trouble getting myself interested in all the tourist spots along the way. Also, we got too used to New Zealand parks and walks. Here we've already run into a few places where they charge admission just to: walk onto a jetty (and we're not talking a Santa Monica pier here, it's just a jetty), walk around the grounds of a lighthouse (and if you want to actually go in it you pay more than double), and to go into caves. Unless I have selective memory, I don't recall paying to enter a park in NZ or to go on any of the local walks. So this morning Dustin went on a cave tour and I tried to nap in the van. Man is it handy having the bed and curtains!
We also paid up to check out the "Tree Top Walk" where they've built a platform walkway about 600m long in a forest. At the highest point it's about 40m off the ground! And it's much shakier than I thought it would be! So all of ten minutes of entertainment for $20. Dustin is feeling like he might have a cold coming on so I drove the last leg of the trip today. I guess I did learn how to drive standard even within the confines of the retirement village parking lots. But I still am not that comfortable and as Dustin said I'm "too lazy" to drive standard. I just don't see the point in constantly changing gears if I'm just going back to the one I was in. But at least it gives him a break here and there. However, in any measure of traffic I'm not too keen. We were exiting the visitor centre and someone was behind me so I was too afraid to roll back and hit them to leave so Dustin had to coach me. He keeps talking about getting a manual when we get back to BC and I'm not quite sold on it.
The birds down here are so colourful that even when one looks boring, if you look closer it's got something interesting about it. Aside from magpies which are just black and white. I've been finding more and more nerdy things about me such as the fact that I like birdwatching. Not high energy enough for Dustin though. Even though he was the only one to spot this bright red bird today when I was at the wheel!
Today was one of the longer stretches of travel at about 4 hours drive time to our destination of Denmark. We stopped for lunch in Pemberton and checked out a freshwater crayfish farm - to see just what they were going to be cultivating down in Kaikoura at the farm we stayed at. Unfortunately they could only sell live crays where we stopped and since we wanted to keep moving we didn't want to stop and cook them up on the side of the road. He showed us some that were electric blue! He said they taste the same but since they don't cook up bright red, a lot of restaurants aren't interested. Funny how we become accustomed to something like the colour of foodstuff and anything else scares us. Cheese is a good point - I still have to look up why Canada adds the orange food dye! But that's not to say we've been afraid to try new cheeses haha. In fact, this area again has lots of local food producers. Since we were coming into town around 5pm they were closed or nearly closed so we might backtrack a little for a toffee factory and possibly a cheesemaker and a brewhouse. We'll see. We were also testing the limits of the gas gauge without planning to and I didn't want to stop and start even one extra time in case we didn't make it.
podcasts and internet has been pricey around anywhere we've checked (mostly $6-10/hour!) so I have to ration the 4 Hamish and Andy shows we have left at the moment. Since we're in Australia, if we have radio reception we might actually be able to listen to their show live this Friday! To put into perspective why we might not have radio reception only mere hours from the major city: Western Australia takes up about 1/3 of the continent. It has about 2 million people and approximately 1.8 million live around the Perth area. So that leaves a population less than Surrey to spread out through the rest of the mass of land. I think we've been through a couple areas with about 30,000 or maybe 60,000 closer to Perth. Margaret River is only about 10,000 and that's quite a popular area. I think Albany might be around 30,000 if I recall correctly. So, services and towns and all that are few and far between once you're past the city limits. Hence why we weren't the most keen to drive the 1800kms to Exmouth. Most of that would have been empty space.
So, I've pushed through a few bad days and hope to have enough interest left in me to try to enjoy the rest of the trip. Poor Dustin has been putting up with a tired and cranky wife the last few days. There is still rain in the forecast but hopefully tomorrow will be the lat of it. We both were wearing jeans and hoodies today so I think a proper beach day will be out of the question but some sun would still be nice. We've read little snippets here and there in the paper and heard on the news different stats on the rainfall. One stat said that a 25mm rainfall recently was the most the particular region had since August 2010! We just couldn't fathom that considering that's roughly when we left - how crazy it would have been to have had weather that dry since then! And Perth had gone 62 days without a drop, but that certainly doesn't mean it rained much prior to their rain last week. Some locals said it had been about 5 months without any real rain. As most of you readers are in the Vancouver area, I imagine you share the shock at that thought!
Well I am going to check out if the kangas are still nearby and watch them. Good night!
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