Traveling Nancy

Traveling around the world as far as I can go.


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Fun Packed Day with Roos, Climbing Glouster Tree, and Traveling to Windy Harbour 10/18/16

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.

trevor-getting-marron

marron

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.

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joey-scratching

The best part was being able to hold them.

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

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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.

feeding-the-joey

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…

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

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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.

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Trip to Watermark Kilns October 17th

I started my morning with Lyn driving me to the pharmacy. Those Bull Ant bites had swelled more than the day before. The pharmacist sold me some cortisone and an antihistamine.

When we got back to Jan’s house, Lyn called me over to see a Kookaburra sitting on the fence. As I got my camera ready, it jumped down to the ground. I clicked quickly before it flew away. What a surprise to see that it had a worm in its mouth.

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We went back to the Sea Garden for a great breakfast. Jan and I shared the Mediterranean breakfast.

We were on our way to Pemberton and decided to stop at Brown Hill Winery. It was certainly a much more understated winery than the others we visited.

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It is hard to believe that I was tasting wine at 11:00 am.

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Rose and I each bought a bottle of wine for our evening times together. Lyn and Jan have been providing all the wine we have been consuming up to now.

We stopped along the road to take a short walk and go orchid hunting again. We only saw a couple of orchids that were the same as ones we had seen before. I did take a photo of this Kicking Cow.   We thought it was an orchid, but it is not.  It is really much smaller than it looks – maybe about 3 cm.

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We were passing a lot of Tea-trees.

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The oil from the tea-tree is used as an antiseptic and anesthetic.

The town of Nannup where we stopped to walk around and have lunch was very cute. I took a photo of the small Uniting Church just to remind me that several of the people in our Monk’s and Mystic’s Dance Workshop were members of that church.  It is a combination of Methodist, Presbyterian, and United Church of Christ.

uniting-church-in-nannup

Jan told us that she thinks that towns which end in …up mean something about being near water.

We went into the little store called, “A Taste of Nannup and Beyond” where I bought Kangaroo Salami for us to share at dinner time.

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We walked through town to the Old Railroad Bridge, which goes over the Blackwood River.

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This was a sculpture we saw on the way.

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Just before the bridge we saw this beautiful Scarlet Robin.

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This tree, which is below the bridge, has been marked with the level of water each time the river flooded. Look high up to see the flood from 1910.

tree-with-water-markings

On our short hike Jan showed me a plant called Sundew. It is a carnivorous plant and a couple of them had small ants on them.

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She also showed me a grass tree that had a flower growing out of the top.

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We had lunch in the little café next to the Taste of Nannup.

On the way to Pemberton we drove through beautiful Kari tree forests and lush rolling hills with cows and kangaroos grazing on them. I didn’t get good photographs.

We stopped at a gallery in Pemberton. Lyn found a print that she probably wants to buy so we will return there.

We then drove through Northcliffe on our way to Watermark Kilns which is the rustic place we are going to spend the next two nights.

We took a walk on the Bibbulmun Track and found the shelter where people who walk this track sleep for the night. It is a 3 sided shelter. This one is called Shafer Hut

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There is a nice lake near the hut.

lake-near-shafer-hut

When we were leaving Shafer hut, we heard a Kookaburra laughing. We didn’t see it, but it was great to be able to hear it.

I am glad we are staying inside at Watermark Kilns. Jan cooked a delicious dinner of roasted vegetables and we all tried the Kangaroo Salami. I think I was the one who liked it the most.

dinner-at-watermark-kilns

There was a beautiful full moon tonight to end another great day in W.A.

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