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Happiness Is The Road
The blue sky had gone again. It was cloudy and overcast when we woke up. Whilst having brekky a duck and her little ducklings waddled past us. They were so cute. We had another short drive today into the great forests of the Walpole area. We drove to Nornalup first and had a look at the inlet before heading over to the Valley of the Giants where the treetop walk is. I had come here back in November and I wanted to come back with Jay. It was well worth a second visit. The road there took us past loads of majestic towering trees, some of them incredibly tall. The weather forecast wasn't good and the clouds were threatening a downpour but the rain held off. When we got to the car park we were greeted by a couple of mean looking ravens. They didn't looked pleased that we were there and seemed intent on causing trouble for us. They had an evil glint in their eyes! After our 'Hitchcock' bird problems at Mount Barker we decided to give these birds a wide berth and parked up nearer to the entrance to avoid them. We then started on the walk which took us onto the metal walkway that climbed gently to a height of forty metres up through the canopy of the beautiful old tingle trees. The walkway is an incredible feat of construction. It consists of six 60-metre lightweight bridge spans on seven pylons. The spans were especially designed to sway slightly as you walk and they were indeed swaying today. The metal decking was see through and this enforced the sensation of being high up in the forest canopy. It was very high and exhilarating. The giant tingles gave off a great energy and we felt veryl happy and tingly in the tingles! We got some great photos and did two circuits of the walkway. After this we went on the Ancient Empire walk where some of the plants have origins that can be traced back 65 million years to the super continent Gondwana when Australia was joined with what is now Africa, India, Antarctica and South America. We looked up at the amazing tree canopy ranging between 30 and 80 metres in height. The trees consisted of the red tingle, yellow tingle, marri and karri. The biggest tree was the splendid, all knowing and very wise grandma red tingle tree. The burls and gnarled bark gave her an almost human character. She had eyes, nose and mouth and was most definitely observing everyone in the forest. She is estimated to be more than 400 years old. Eventually we left the Ancient Empire with all it's secrets and had some lunch in the camper van. We then drove to Walpole to find somewhere to stay for the night. On the way through Nornalup we saw a sign at the side of the road advertising the 'Pig Poo Lady'. She was selling pure, organic, aged piggy poo. The sign exclaimed ' Does your garden need some loving tender compost? Order your **** load today'!!! Brilliant. I didn't much like the caravan park I had stopped at when last in Walpole so we went to find the other caravan park, Rest Point Holiday Village, situated on the Walpole Inlet. We liked the look of the place when we pulled up. The site was right on the inlet and there were loads of pelicans hanging out at the water's edge. We got a spot right by the water with a gorgeous view over the inlet, the pelicans and there were lots of kookaburras flying about. It was great here for a while and we chilled out and soaked up the view, one of the best views we have had from a camping spot, but soon it all went t*** up! It started raining, some k*** somewhere started loudly playing the most hideously awful country and western music, we had a 'gob on a stick' nearby and a load of 'annoyances' with their PA system volumes turned to maximum rocked up right next to us (when there was plenty of room to space out) setting up swag tents. By nightfall the rain had become set in and extremely heavy. The camper van was becoming surrounded by giant puddles and our trip to the loo before bed was a bit of a mud fest. The rain was relentlessly heavy through the night, there was wind blowing the camper van about with some force and thunder and lightning rumbled for ages. It was a restless night. Jay summed things up perfectly on her Facebook page entry which read as follows:- 'Come to Australia he said! Warm and sunny he said! Get a tan he said! Quarter to four in the morning and it's torrential rain and wind with extreme thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure! Good job I don't need the loo! ... Damn it now I need the loo!!!'
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