Denmark- Sunday 14th December 2008
Car Kilometres: 190,343
Distance Travelled: 758 km
Total Distance Travelled: 22,092km

After our various sightseeing stops this morning in Esperance and along the Great Ocean Drive (it's fancy but fairly deserving name for the gorgeous coastline that we drove along on the way), we complete a fairly lengthy drive to Denmark.
We pull in at a small, grassy riverside site, owned by a couple who emigrated from London about 15 years ago for the quiet life. The proprietor is friendlier than a Labrador at feeding time, and has bright white teeth to rival any Californian, with surfer looks and outfit to match. He's pretty ingenuitive too, knocking up a new land drain for a bit of ground that flooded last week as casually as most people would make a sandwich.
We settle in and after bonding with the local ducks over a piece of bread and eavesdropping on the kids next door taking part in some kind of highly amusing Star Wars/Battlestar Galactica/Spaceballs hybrid roleplay around our tent, get our heads down early... we're starting to feel like the end is in sight (in both a good and a bad way), and we've decided to treat these few days in Denmark as a 'holiday' (yeah, I know we're already on a very lengthy holiday indeed, but humour us).
The following day, after a mooch around the town of 4,000 souls, many of whom appear to be committed hippies with only a hint of a commercial streak, we decide to visit Denmark's star attraction: the Bert Bolle Barometer, which is reputed to be the world's largest. It's housed in a tower in the visitor centre, and we happily pay our gold coin donation to see what all the fuss is about.
The barometer is pretty cool: it's comprised of (in layman's terms, sorry), a glass, vacuum pressured water tank at the bottom, with a slightly-wider-than-drainpipe-diameter glass tube connected to the top of it, which heads skywards into the specially constructed tower for almost two stories. At the top, there is a scaled measure, so that the air pressure can be read. There are also various modern gadgets at the top and bottom which confirm the accuracy of the readout.
Every ten minutes or so, the water in the tall tube whooshes back into the tank at the base, and then slowly climbs back up again, reaching a boil once it gets back near the top, even though the temperature is low, due to the pressure. We thud up the staircase in pursuit of the water level, and are pleased to see the reading on this simple device is very similar to that on the numerous fancy instruments surrounding it.
Not being quite sure how we can possibly top our trip to the barometer with anything else, we mosey back to camp and rustle up some tasty treat or another on the one-ring stove, enjoying our newly replenished stock of Milo with a biscuit before bed.
The following few days follow much the same pattern: nothing as thrilling as a visit to a barometer I'm afraid, but a few more trips into town, drives around the surrounding coastline, a visit to a nearby cheese maker (it would have been downright rude not to buy some cheese off him once we were done), various forays to the unusual rock formations that are dotted around the area (most notable of these was Elephant Rocks, which really did look like a troupe of elephants had been turned into stone a few metres from the beach); and as a special treat, we lurked in the car park of the council offices at sunset and were rewarded with the sight of a whole mob of kangaroos (maybe 40 or 50 of them), some of whom were attempting to punch each others' lights out.
On our penultimate day here, we realise that although the campsite is booked and paid for, we've kind of exhausted the local options for daytime entertainment. Somewhat daftly, we end up driving west to Walpole, almost in Pemberton, to try out their tree top walk in the Valley of the Giants - it's a gently swaying platform strung up around some of the majestically tall tingle trees that fill the local forests. We had expected it to be fairly tame (it does market itself as being very family friendly), and it is - although the platform swings just a wee bit more than you expect, especially when some very enthusiastic Irish kids are running and jumping around on it ahead of you. We show no fear though, and nonchalantly walk on to the ground level part of the attraction - this is where a lot of the trees have naturally hollowed out at the base, some now big enough to park a car inside, and certainly to stand in for a few photos. Once again, Mother Nature makes us feel very, very small.
On the way back to Denmark, we drive through the smoke from some controlled bush fires; we've come across them before, and even though we know that someone is thoroughly in charge of them (as far as they can be), they're still intimidating and scary. Writing this after the bushfires have ravaged Victoria, we can't even begin to imagine what it feels like to have an out of control, raging, deadly version heading straight for your house and the people you love the most. Australia can be a savage country indeed.
Feeling rested, but also a little restless, we move on for Pemberton...