It was a fond farewell to Craig, Denise, Jessica & Melanie.  It is such a shame we live so far from each other. We left Shoalwater at 7.15am & made our way to the Kwinana Freeway, then towards Bunbury.  The Kwinana Freeway is a very nice new four lane divided flat road that really allowed us to cruise along very comfortably. Canberra should have employed the Western Australia’s artist for sculpture at the side of the freeway (it must have cost a small fortune). Maybe we had to settle for someone cheaper, after all we haven’t all the big mines, we only have the politicians.

After Bunbury we turned off onto the South Western Highway & into old dairy farming country.  The fields are so green & there is water everywhere, the dams are full & the creeks are running.  It really does look great.  We seemed to be passing through another small town every 10km or so, totally different than our experiences up in the Kimberley & Pilbara regions, which is so sparsely settled.  The farmland started turning to apple orchards as we passed through Donnybrook, the place where the Granny Smith apple originated.  The fruit trees were only just starting to flower on most orchards. After the large town of Manjinup the land started to be used less for farming & we started to see some hardwood tree plantations.  This turned into forest & we were driving up & down hill through twisty mountain roads with massive forest giants crowding the road.  It did look very special, even though we had some light rain at times, the sight of these big trees so close to the road, so tall & so straight.  Vastly different than the deserts we have been experiencing the last month.  As we got closer to Denmark & the coast we started to see more wildflowers appearing as the rainforest gave way to coastal trees & shrubs.

We arrived in Denmark & stopped at the visitor centre where the gardens have some beautiful wildflowers.  This visitor centre is very special in that it has a barometer museum inside it, a special water barometer that is 35 feet tall takes pride of place.  We climbed the tower & read the stories of the invention of the barometer as well as the story of this water barometer & how it came to be in Denmark.  The water barometer was made by a Dutchman who migrated to Denmark & he brought it with him then donated it to the town.  It is special seeing how it works & particularly seeing water boil under air pressure at 20 degrees Celsius.  It’s amazing how accurate the water barometer is.  It won the Guinness Book of Records for being the tallest barometer.

The Big 4 caravan park we booked into at the mouth of Wilson Inlet hardly has any people staying, apparently it is out of season as it is too cold, however, the wildflowers are a real treat even though they are a couple of weeks late this year. There is both the south western form & the Port Lincoln form of the ringneck parrot feeding in the grounds, alongside families of wood ducks, lots of kangaroos & wallabies.  The magpies also look strange with the white back of the Western form that we don’t see in Eastern Australia.  We went for a walk in the bush next to the caravan park & discovered a lot more beautiful wildflowers out in bloom plus lots of tiny honeyeaters & wrens darting amongst the bushes.  The views of the inlet & the ocean are great, though it was pretty cold when exposed to the wind.  The inlet is blocked from the sea by a sandbar at the entrance so the water levels are fairly high, it’s quite strange seeing bench seats sitting in a foot of water with pelicans gliding serenely past & spoonbills feeding next to the seats.

Dinner was late after a late lunch & Tereza looked after us very well (no red tonight). The standards are falling, it’s no fun drinking alone (Tereza is a teetotaller).