I am finally someplace where I can post the last couple of days.  It was really cold night before last. It took a long time for me to finally get warm enough under the covers, but the air going into my CPAP machine was constantly chilling my face. I sure missed the electric mattress covers we had the last couple of nights.  I finally figured out that putting my whole head under the covers would work. The first thing I did in the morning was to take a hot shower.

Trevor, one of the owners of Watermark Kilns, took us to see how he farms Marrons.

Jeanette, the other owner, is going to cook Marrons for our dinner tonight.

I learned that the reason this place is called Watermark Kilns is because it used to be a tobacco farm and the house where we are staying was used as a kiln to dry the tobacco. It is now a Heritage Site.

We drove into Northcliffe and stopped off at the visitor center.   We met Leslie Harrison who has been taking care of joeys who have been found in the wild alone. Sometimes it is because the mother kangaroo has been killed. She has been doing this for about 32 years and has raised over 250 Joeys.

It was really so much fun watching the Joeys play with each other.

The best part was being able to hold them.

 

Here is a photo of Leslie, Jan, and me.

Leslie is known as “Kangaroo Lady.” She feeds these joeys every 4 hours / 24 hours a day. That is a lot of feedings over 32 years.

We had such an absolutely wonderful time.

We drove to Pemberton and Lyn purchased her print.

Then we went to see the Glouster Tree, which is a giant Karri Tree in the Glouster National Park.  It is 72 meters in height. It is the world’s second tallest fire-lookout tree and visitors can climb up to the top. Only 20 percent of the visitors climb to the top of the tree and most make it only part of the way before turning around.

I had to try to climb it. I made it up to about less than 1/3 of the way…

…. and thought it would take too long. So I came back down. Rose took this photo of me from the bottom.

Lyn, Rose, Jan, and I started to take a walk in the bush. I said that I wished I had climbed to top and Jan encouraged me to go back and do it. I knew I would kick myself if I didn’t go to the top. So they went on their walk and I went back to the tree.

There were people at the bottom of the encouraged me to go for it.  It was exhilarating.  I made it. The views from the top were spectacular. There was a father and son from Malaysia up there with me.

I loved seeing this tree top in the distance from the top.

It was time to come down.   The first section was not too bad because there was a ladder.  Then I came to the spot where I had to step off onto the spikes.  I knew I could do it, but it was a bit scary to start. This photo is of two of the man’s other children when they started down on the spikes.

The father took a photo of me starting out.   The only scary part was the first backwards step.

As I was going down, I felt more confident about taking my camera out of my pocket so I took some photos of the spikes that we used. to climb.

There were 153 spikes that spiral the tree.

When I was about 1/2 of the way down, I stopped and took a photo of Jan, Rose, and Lyn having lunch below me.

The Malaysian people cheered for me when I reached the bottom. They were taking a group shot and included me in their photo.

I am so thrilled  that I climbed this tree.

After our picnic lunch, we drove to Mount Chadalup. It is a significant landmark within the wild and isolated D’Entrecasteaux National Park. The rocks at Mount Chudalup formed when two continents collided around 1345 million years ago. Mount Chudalup is 187 meters above sea level. Geologists have dated rocks at Mount Chudalup and estimate that the magma began to crystallize and form granite about 1177 million years ago.

Some of the things on our hike looked like they should be in a painting.

A piece of bark on the trail

A branch was broken off of a grass tree.

This moss was around a rock on the trail.

These are just a few of the flowers we saw along the way.

Rose, Jan, and I made it over the rocks to the top.

As we were walking back down, Rose spotted a Bull Ant.

Jan suggested that I take a photo near her shoe to show the actual size of the menace that bit me 6 times.  It looks really small, but it sure had a powerful bite.

I am still a bit swelled but getting better.

We continued driving in D’Entrecasteaux National Park. Rose took us to see the cabin that she and her sister used to own in Windy Harbour. It is a small settlement situated on Crown reserve and is surrounded by the National Park. There are no stores. 219 cottages have been built there since 1900s, most of the after the Great Depression, when inexpensive camping holidays on the south cost were favored by many local timber workers. Fishing has always been a major part of life at Windy Harbor and one of the main reasons for its establishment. We drove to a couple of the cliffs to view the Southern Ocean.

Jan took a photo of Rose and me.

We saw these Cormorants out on a little island.

Rose and I wanted to walk down to the beach.

We didn’t have time to stay for the sunset because our marron dinner was being prepared back at Watermark Kilns. The sun shining on the water was stunning.

Rose was driving very slowly and there was a Bob Tail Lizard asleep on the road in front of us.

On our way back some kangaroos bounded across the road in front of us. I only got a photo of one of them, but it was so much fun to watch them.

Jan had to drive very carefully because it was the time of the day when kangaroos could be crossing the road.  We saw several of them.

Janette delivered out dinner about 30 minutes after we returned back to our place.

Our Marron dinner tonight was absolutely fabulous.

In addition to the Marron we had a wonderful salad, freshly baked bread, corn fritters with chili sauce, and stick date pudding for dessert. This was the best dinner I have had so far.

This has been an absolutely amazing day.