We awoke at Cosy Corner to another rainy, miserable day. When we told the Boo and Meg that we were packing up to head off they got a little upset because l had been promising them the whole time we were in Albany to go to the library to do school. Can you believe it, upset because they couldnt do school in a library, not becuase they were missing out on anything else, total crack up really. So because we had to stock up and Marty needed to do some job hunting beofre heading off into internet free country, l took the girls to the library for a couple of hours to attack some school work. The girls loved it, grabbing books out to look at but needing to be consistently told to be quite. For one, they are my daughters and two, they arent used to being in condined spaces to do theyre school work. Pretty funny really. Have decided we must utilise the local libraries a bit more often, seeing the girls have so much fun.
After the morning of school work we went to check out the Brit Amity Ship, a replica of the founding ship of Albany. We were sort of pressed for time and it was going to be $10 to do for only a ten minute look, so we decided not to go on board. Instead, we headed back to camp to hitch up and set off, having a quick lunch before embarking on our arvo drive. The Cronan's had decided to stay for a little while longer and leave late arvo, agreeing to meet at Shannon National Park later in the day. Also, Ton and Cam were going to head to there too so we were really looking forward to the next stop. We hadnt been able to spend much time with the 'HardFirms'.....
The drive thru Denmark to Walpole was beautiful. Dense, lush forest with enormous road hugging trees. We arrived at Walpole, another small country town, and stopped off at the Giant Tree Top walk site. Marty didnt want to do it so stayed in the car while l took the girls out to explore. Decided that seeing we were only stopping quickly to check things out, was probably not best to leave Marty int he car too long, so didnt do the actual tree top walk. Instead, l took the girls around the small ancient tree walk, which was free too. The trees were hundreds of years old adn had hollow parts int he middle which the boardwalk passed thru, the girls loved exploring and walking thru these small tree tunnels. It reminded me of a fairytale forest and l was completely spellbound. While l was trying to take some artistic shots of the girls on the Nikon l noticed that the auto focus wasnt focusing. Completly stuffed!! So peeved, but luckinly the manual focus still worked, was just hard to get those spontaneous action shots which all ended up blurry :(
We arrived at Shannon National Park mid arvo to find Ton and Cam already set up and chilling out. They saved us a spot next to them which was in prime location, a small hop, step and a jump to the "flushing" toilets and shower block. Obviously l was really excited by not having another long drop toilet!!! The rain had settled off, clouds still present, bit chilly, but this just added to the atmosphere of the tall pine tree forest. The campsite was $20 p.n which was pretty reasonable seeing there were good facilities which also included a pot belly fired water heater for the showers. Marty wasnt having too much luck with the set up of the caravan, this time not being able to get it level. It wasnt rolling off hte wheel chucks at least, but l reckon Cam was silently rolling around in fits of laughter watching us going in and out ending up in the same spot over and over again. In the end, slap happy Marty had had enough and we endded up on a slight lean... The rest of the day ended up with bouts of misty rain which only added to this awesome forest atmosphere. The smell of hte pines along with the rian was quite pleasant to the senses. The only downfall was the it was a bit cool and campfires where prohibited :( There goes the marshmellow roasting, we wouldnt even risk it because the fine for being caught with an open campfire at htis time of year was over $500! Was so nice to jsut sit around with Ton and Cam and have a yarn while the kids went off explorting the bush. The day soon got away and due to the coldness, we ended up snuggling under the doonas early enough to keep warm. Cant believe this weather in WA. Since we crossed the boarder its only been cold, windy and rainy with very few good days of sunshine. We even planned the trip for this time of year as it was meant to be sublime weather!
Day 2 we awoke to similar weather, but l was determined to keep building up my running. So off l went to tackle a track for C25K. Didnt enjoy the bloody hills along the track, really need to find some flat ground, was puffing franticly for most of the way. Still lm getting longer in running without needing to walk, so all in all, progress happening. When l got back the kids were fed and dressed and ready for school. We decided to let Boo, Meg, Jordyn and Riley all do school together and it worked really well. Ended up getting alot accomplished which meant after lunch we could go and explore some 4X4 tracks around the national park. Boys were very excited!
So after lunch we fired up the Navman with our Hema maps on it and set off to find some adventure. After 2 hours we were all left disappointed with only finding dirt roads that led thru some dense forest, no difficult climbs or ruts to do. We did pull up to a fallen tree in the middle of the track and the boys contemplated getting the winch going to clear the track. Unfortunalty, this was undoable so we turned around and headed back to camp. A very disappointing arvo, think Ton and l had more fun taking the piss out of the fellas over the radio....lol. Back at camp we had a lazy arvo while the boys set up a tree swing for the kids. Ton and l nearly wet ourselves laughing watching the men throwing this rope up in the air to hook obver the brnch, took forever, glad we married co-ordinated blokes!!! Eventually, it was done nad the kids had a blast swinging each other.
As we sat around we were starting to get a bit worried about the Cronans as they hadnt turned up yet. We had tried leaving messages when we were out and about and had reception, but no reply. Hoped nothing bad had happened.... By the end of hte day l was sick of the cold so the boys lite the pot belly oven for the water heater and l enjoyed a fantastically warm shower. Great way to end another day of this travelling life.
The last day of our stop in Shannon NP was spent very lazily trying to get more school done, lie around reading books, having cuppas with Ton and Cam and researching more brochures for the next leg of our WA adventure. We were going to be parting way with Ton and Cam tomorrow as they were heading to another free camp just up the road that had internet reception and power. We had decided that tomorrow we would set off to Margaret River country. We have loved the last few days to have nothing to do and catch up on school work, the pine forest was a nice change from the storming rugged coast line with strong ocean breezes. It might still have been cold weather but at least the scenery still and peaceful....
Bell Xxx