Around Pemberton

I was in the tourist info place this morning, getting a local map( the tourist info places here are really excellent. Very helpful and friendly people and lots of good local info and maps) and a voice said:

“ are you riding that postie bike?” 

“ Yes I am” 

“ bloody hell, I met somebody a few days ago in Perth who’d spoken to you on the road. Somewhere down in Esperance I think. You’re getting around a bit”.

“ Yep, well that’s the whole idea. See as much as I can see while pottering along at a stately pace”

“ your name’s not Belle is it?”

“ maybe”

“ Ha ha. I met the walking woman yesterday and she said she’d met you too. Must be crazy women week.”

Charming. And from a man riding a pushbike across WA for his holidays!

But I guess it's not that small a world really when you consider although bloody Australia is bloody massive, and there are actually very few people out here, those of us who wander, tend to wander along the same routes, primarily because there are so few alternatives.

Anyway, after the usual chat, I went for a ride through the karri forest, and had a proper look at those massively tall trees. Every trunk is dead straight and about 40m or more high. And because they’re gums the foliage is at the top so there is quite a lot of light low down. But it is a bit like riding through broccoli; all stalk and rounded green stuff at the top.

I took a second trip down the old Vasse highway too, unloaded this time, and met the same grader again, coming the other way. It was even more dusty today but a lighter ride and less slidey without the panniers.

An older French couple stayed in the YHA with me last night. Lovely people from near Nice. They left this morning heading towards Perth via a couple of places I told them about.

Highlight of the day though was finding the Yeagarup dunes. They’re the largest inland dunes in the southern hemisphere and they’re creeping inland at a rate of about 4 m per year.

I had been told they are only accessible by 4WD but as I read that in tourist bumph, I didn’t really believe it because they want you to do their tours. So I trawled through the net, eventually finding a thing by somebody who reckoned he’d walked there from  a nearby lake, after driving down dirt tracks in the bush. So I followed his instructions and it was easy; the lake was where he said it was, and the track leading to the dunes was right by it. 

But I rode Gerty up there a bit until the sand became a bit too soft giving no grip on the slopes, and parked her up on one side.

Then I walked for about 600m on the sand, turned a corner, and there was a massive great wall of sand. Right there in the bush. Massively massive; white sand just rising up from track level, piled 40 m above the tree line. 

It was an incredible sight, and I climbed up  to the top and the sand stretched away as far as the eye could see. It was like a snow field, only warmer, complete with poles marking the road, and road signs.

I did wonder though, what lay buried under all of it. There must be trees and rocks and lakes under there, all swallowed up as the sand encroaches. 

I stayed up there for about an hour, gawping and taking pictures. It was a desert but in the middle of a thriving green forest. Very weird.

So tomorrow, I’m back off up north towards Busselton, where I am going to see the physio again just to sort out these back tweaks. Then after that, it’s Perth.