Well, it’s been a fairly eventful week and a half. I’ve been making pretty quick progress and seeing a lot of beautiful places, so if you usually just read these in email format I would recommend going to the actual website to see all the pictures in this one. I started off according to plan, going back down the Albany highway for some hiking. My first stop was in the forest along the way, to stroll through a portion of the famous Bibbulmun track, which is a long backpacking route from somewhere to somewhere else. I think maybe Perth to Albany? Anyway, for these purposes it’s enough to know that it includes a beautiful stretch of forest where I had a lovely walk, with highlights that included a bunch of tiny psychedelic looking spiders and some black cockatoos, which I love.

Next I continued down to Stirling Range National Park. This park is a weird rectangle of “mountains” (they’re hills, really) that rises up out of what is completely flat farmland as far as the eye can see all around. It’s beautiful though, all untouched desert scrub forest stuff, and there are really a pretty large number of different peaks. The first day I hiked a couple of the less frequented ones in the western side of the park—Mounts Maggog and Toolbrunup. It was a great chance to destroy my out-of-shape quads, get some solid views, and enjoy the scenic drive through the park. I don’t know what it is about this area but every day as the sun gets low the whole Stirling range seems to get shrouded in mist/fog/dust, and I couldn’t get enough of the jumble of misty peaks fading into the distance.

I decided that I needed a bit of a break the next day so I headed down to Albany for a relaxed day in town. I followed the classic van life circuit, shower—coffee shop—library, and generally just recharged. Then I headed back up to Stirling Range to be ready for a semi-early start on Bluff Knoll the next day. Bluff Knoll is by far the most popular hike in the park, with the huge parking lot and stretch of boardwalk to prove it. I was excited for the standard hike, but extra excited because there is the option of continuing along a ridge trail that goes east along the rest of the Stirling Range to the edge of the park. It’s over 20km point to point, so given that I would have to hope to hitchhike back from a barely used trailhead (and, honestly, that I’m in terrible shape) I made the wise decision to just hike out as far as I could handle and then turn and head back. It was a bummer looking at the ridge stretching out ahead of me so invitingly and having to turn around, but it was definitely the right move that day. And I still had an awesome time on the hike.

After that… it was time to go! I was headed back into the absolute middle of nowhere and, frankly, quite happy about it. Hanging around more populated places seems to drag me from good habits to bad, and doesn’t bring me that much joy. In the middle of nowhere there’s really no reason to stay up late, (hopefully) no service for me to anesthetize myself staring at my phone, and untouched landscapes of almost every kind bring me a lot of happiness and wonder. The only “major” “metropolis” for the next 1,000+ kilometers would be Esperance, population just under 14,000.

East of Esperance the famous Nullarbor begins, and the official Nullarbor Conservation Area starts just across the border in the southwest corner of South Australia. Every single person here I’ve told that I’m doing a lap around the country has pretty quickly gone “Oh, you’re going to have to cross the Nullarbor!”. I didn’t know too much of what to expect, besides the fact that it’s flat, largely barren, and there is a stretch called the 90 mile straight, self-explanatorily.

Well, I absolutely loved the Nullarbor. It certainly is flat, and the road is straight for long stretches, but it’s not nearly as barren as I’d been led to believe. It’s what I’ve come to feel is pretty classic Australian desert scrub bushland, and as the kilometers roll by you can see subtle shifts in the size and density of the bushes. There is a specific area called the treeless plain (again, descriptive if artless naming), but otherwise there are a decent mix of trees, huge bushes, and small shrubs. On the Western Australia side the road follows the coast to the south with a bluff rising up in the desert to the north. Right before the South Australia border the road climbs that bluff, which pretty suddenly turns into a couple hundred kilometers of cliffs being pounded by the surf of the Great Australian Bight, turquoise where it meets the land and darkening to a deep navy blue towards the horizon.

It is an absolutely spectacular landscape. The skies are gigantic. The wind howls constantly. The ocean is beautiful and forbidding, whipped into whitecaps, crashing into the cliffs. Rugged is the perfect description of this area, and camping out by the cliffs, van shaking in the wind, that ruggedness is transmitted faithfully into your bones in the best, most awe-inspiring way that only nature can. Obviously the people who’d felt the need to warn me about this and the 90 mile straight have never driven through Kansas…

After crossing over from WA I spent the night just on the other side of the border in SA, out by the cliffs. I bundled up against the (welcome, after so much roasting in WA) chill and drank tea out by the edge of the cliffs, soaking it all in. The next day I woke up to just the perfect weather for the area—partly cloudy, patches of blue sky here and there, and a couple of narrow columns of rain with the occasional lightning bolt cascading down dotted throughout the massive landscape. I made slow progress east, pulling in to every clifftop viewpoint I could find, appreciating the rumble of the thunder, and generally just having a great day.

But of course all good things must come to an end, and as the saying goes, after cliffs, farmland. So much farmland. Agriculture is a big deal in SA, and, yeah. The next few days were mostly spent trying to stay awake and focused as field upon field rolled by. This was what people should’ve warned me about. One night camped next to a field I at least got treated to a truly spectacular sunset.

I’ve spent the past few days driving around the outside of the Eyre Peninsula, which is basically just farmland in the middle and a string of cute beach vacation towns with massive grain silos along the coast. It’s pretty and sleepy and that’s about it. One highlight was going to Coffin Bay National Park, where I went for a beautiful couple hour stroll and saw lots of emus, including one with a gaggle of babies following it.

That brings us roughly to the present day. I’ll get to the end of the Eyre Peninsula either today or tomorrow, and then I’ll be quite close to Adelaide. I’m juggling the timing to get an oil change once auto shops hopefully reopen next week while also exploring around here and leaving town to check out a few places in Victoria before I get to Melbourne. We’ll see how it all shakes out. You can find videos for this post here—turn on your sound for howling wind and silly commentary.

After another little while in Perth not doing much it was time to head out for another quick trip. This time I set my sights on a loop down to Walpole, across through Denmark to Albany (these are the real names of the towns), and then back up to Perth. Walpole is famously a place to see giant trees—tingle, jarrah, karri, and marri, among others. They’re all different varieties of eucalyptus, maybe except the marri, and they make for beautiful forests of tall bare trunks with spreading canopies up above. On the first day I went for a lovely stroll through the forest to a spot where they’ve made boardwalks around a couple of especially big tingle trees. The giant trees here are similar to the sequoias back in the states in that fire is an important part of their lifecycle, clearing the underbrush and triggering their seed pods to open. They’re also similar in that the adult trees are very fire resistant, and you often see live trees where the base of the trunk is hollow and burnt out. There used to be a tree that any visitor could come drive their car into, but they eventually (after that tree fell down, I think) realized that the trees have shallow roots and trampling them hurts the trees, much less driving over them. I also hiked Mount Frankland, a nice chill walk through beautiful forest and up onto a granite summit.

The next day I checked out the treetop walk, where they’ve built a sequence of walkways that slowly bring you up to the level of the canopy, topping out 40m/130ft above the forest floor. It’s a cool way to get a different perspective on the forest, and I had a nice time lingering, hoping for a bird or two to pose for me in the treetops. After that I went to see Elephant Rocks, a beautiful beach where huge granite boulders rise out of the crystal clear water. I had a nice little ocean shower and then headed up to Mount Lindesay where I camped out in the forest. The next day I had a nice hike up Mount Lindesay, and then went over to the beach next to Denmark, where I finally got a nice surf in. It had been forever and I was frankly getting pretty frustrated with the whole idea of surfing as a hobby, but finally the swell, wind, and crowds all lined up, and I had a fun time and even caught a few waves.

The next day, after a very slow and relaxed morning, I went over to Albany to hike Bald Head. This hike came very highly recommended and it absolutely lived up to the hype. The trail follows a ridge over granite hills out to the end of a narrow peninsula. There are lots of different viewpoints of a variety of beaches with incredible blue water, and the views out across the bay and of Albany itself are also magnificent. It’s just hard enough to give you a sense of accomplishment, but easy enough not to leave you feeling ragged. And, after wondering where they’ve been during my whole year in Australia, I saw two snakes! The second one made for quite the panorama, basking in the middle of the trail, and it immediately jumped out of the landscape when I came over a rise, even several twists and turns down the trial. Don’t ask me what type they were, I don’t have a clue, but I know that they both glistened pretty menacingly in the sun.

After some hurried research I found Porongurup and Stirling Range National Parks, both a bit north of Albany and home to some cool hikes. I swung through Albany just long enough to grab groceries and be surprised at how big and cute it was. Most of the towns along the coast are sort of little nothing vacation towns, but Albany obviously had some sort of actual industry going on, as evidenced by the big refinery-looking buildings along the water and also the size and age of the town. I was only there for 30 minutes or so, about 25 of which I spent in a grocery store, but it was enough for me to want to check out the town a bit more when I go back.

The next day I got up early and hiked the Nancy Peak circuit in Porongurup National Park. It was a really pleasant hike with a little bit of elevation (a true rarity in Australia) and some sweet views of the surrounding farmland with the Stirling range rising up out of it. There isn’t much hiking culture in Australia so I had the trail to myself and really enjoyed the solitude. After quickly snarfing a PB&J I headed over to another part of Porongurup to check out the granite skywalk. This is a shorter, easier trail to a boulder pile where the parks department has built a ladder up to an observation platform. It was, accordingly, way busier, so I was dodging families the whole time and had to wait a solid while at the end for people ahead of me to make their excruciatingly slow way up or down the ladder. It was still a nice walk and a nice view, but I have to say I prefer my hiking trails a lot less busy and manicured.

And that was it for that little trip. That afternoon I headed back up to Perth, where I am now, catching up with a couple of friends I made up here before leaving forever. I got a chance to play one more soccer game, which was great, and otherwise am just taking care of a couple of errands before I go. The plan from here is to head back down to Albany with a couple of hikes on the way, notably Bluff Knoll. After that it’ll be time to head east, and quick! I have to get to Melbourne, which is apparently a 40ish hour drive, by January 12th to meet my dad and his girlfriend, and to watch the Australian Open. So I’ll be trying to find some nice places to stop here and there, but mostly on the road. You can find a couple of videos for this post here—watch with the sound on.

Well, as is always the case, an extended period without much to do has resulted in me slacking on the blog. I spent another few days kicking around Perth, not doing much, but did manage to get my tire situation sorted. Then it was time to head south. SCUBA at the Busselton jetty was really, really fun. It was a bit of a production renting the gear, getting our waivers sorted, and getting out to the dive spot, but the dive itself was just beautiful. It’s delightfully simple, just swimming out and back around and between the supports of this jetty. The pillars are covered in all kinds of incredibly colorful coral, which was a nice change of pace from the less colorful hard corals that I’d seen up around Exmouth. We also saw some fun critters, including an octopus and a couple of cuttlefish.

The next day I kept moving south, down to the Margaret River area. Margaret River is famous for two things—surfing and wine. While these are both things I enjoy, unfortunately in this case things worked out such that I didn’t partake in either. While the surf is world famous in Margaret River that doesn’t mean that it’s especially accessible to a mediocre-at-best surfer like me. There was pretty much no swell when I was there, which meant that the spots that I could conceivably have tried to surf were flat, and the spots that had waves were either overrun with hordes of much better surfers than me, breaking in two inch deep water over sharp reef, or both. So I drove around peeking at all the pretty beaches and cursing the frustration of being a casual surfer. As for the wine, going tasting is fun in a group but not especially fun or practical by yourself, so I skipped it.

I was very tired from a couple nights of short sleep, perfectly primed to get cranky. Which is exactly what happened as I started to realize I wasn’t going to be able to surf, and on top of that found out that, like all touristy places, Margaret River is pretty aggressive about squeezing out every last dollar and not letting you float around and free camp and whatnot. So I was in a bit of a foul mood when I mercifully found a national park campground (still more expensive than the standard ones, annoyingly) nestled in a beautiful area of Karri forest. Karris are a type of eucalyptus found around the southwest that grow very tall. After so much time in desert and scrubland it felt amazing to wander into real, bonafide forest. So after a good night’s sleep I kicked the crankiness and spent a couple of nice days relaxing and checking out the forest. I also discovered that this area has a huge network of caves, two of which I toured. They were spectacular!

After that I came back up to Perth to have someone investigate the intermittent check engine light I’ve been seeing on the van, which turned out to be nothing serious. On the way up I stopped in Bunbury to check out the dolphin discovery center, where you can stand in a shallow bay and the resident dolphins may or may not swim right up to you. As you can see in the videos the visibility was unfortunately terrible, but you could clearly see them above the surface, and it was a cool experience.

For this second stint in Perth I finally looked for a pickup soccer game, and have now gotten to play a couple of times. I have to say, it feels absolutely incredible. For weeks, if not months, I’ve been thinking about how much I miss playing sports. Getting back out there for the first time was honestly just bliss. I’ve tried to figure out what it is about playing ball sports that I love so much, even when I’m doing other fun things. My guess is that it’s the flow state combined with pushing myself to physical exhaustion. I love the feeling of running as fast as I can, stretching as far as I can, jumping as high as I can. And I love the total concentration that sports require, absolutely all of my attention focused on the movement of the players, where the ball is, “watch that run!”, no space for thinking about anything else.

So that’s pretty much where we’re at. I’ve made a couple of friends in Perth so I’m hanging around for a bit. I may do another little mini-trip to check out some of the other nice places further south and then come back, or I may just stay here another week and then start the full on eastward journey. You can find videos for this post here.