Zelma’s Trip

In the morning I set out in my trusty red Hyundai and headed out into the countryside.  My first stop was a lake where you could see Stromatolites, allegedly kind of living rock formations which lived in the lake.  When I arrived there was an older couple I met who asked me what I thought they looked like and said that they had seen some foam which they thought may have been indicative of them.  Unperturbed I set about walking around the perimeter of the lake.  I saw some scummy foam and managed to film a couple of moany videos whilst giving myself swampy hair in the wind.  Although there were no Stromatolites in sight the lake was beautiful and the views around the surrounding nothingness of the bush were pretty amazing.  I got back to my car, past a few rowdy builder types who were apparently repairing a path and headed off.  I then visited the pinnacles desert which is a uniwue geological formation within Namburg National Park.  There were thousands of limestone pillars dotted everywhere.  To my delight there was a sand track around the entire area and you could zip between pinnacles in your car and get out at various points to take photos.  It was a truly amazing sight and there were photo opportunities everywhere, even to the extent where I got a great shot of my car nestled between two pinnacles.

When I left the pinnacles desert I headed to hangover bay (notably without the suggested hangover) and sat for a while on the beach appreciating the miles of coastline and clear blue see.  I then headed to a lookout point which I think may have been preceeded in name by an Australian animal, kangaroo point, koala look-out, duck-billed platypus point….okay so now I’m just being silly.  Anyway, I got up this hill and had the most amazing view of, well I guess the best way to describe it would be everything and nothing.  As far as the eye could see there was just bush, one road and nothing else in sight.  It was breath-taking.  I stopped off at a couple of other places, including a few I didn’t really mean to.  Well actually I did mean to, as in I took turnings for exciting sounding places along the lines of owl heights (or something) only to find they ended near bins with a couple of picnic benches.  The majority of look-out places and beaches were truly stunning though.  When I got back to the hostel a group had arrived and they conveniently had too much vegetarian lasagne which they kindly offered me.  I sat watching television, wrote a few postcards and headed to bed. 

The following day I headed back towards Perth and stopped at the Armadale centre to get a few bits of shopping and a couple of presents to thank Iris and Jim for their hospitality and also Mike and Carol.  Actually I’d like to thank them here in case they read my blog.  Iris was amazing and gave me the warmest welcome I could have asked for as well as seriously great food and Jim was brilliant, funny and friendly.  Carol and Mike were also lovely in welcoming me into their home and Carol was a chauffeur extraodinaire. 

After getting my shopping in Armadale I somewhow managed to get lost on the way back to Iris’ house.  This was something of a feat, even for me, given the pathetic distance between the two.  I did eventually get back though and, after dropping the car off, had another lovely relaxed evening with Iris and Jim.  Tuesday nights were especially good as this is when a show called, “Wipeout” is aired.  We had watched this the previous week inadvertently and got really into it.  Basically if you think of the Japanese type game shows with comedy, almost impossible obstacles, and lots of weirdly willing contestants and then add Americans into the mix you won’t go far wrong.