Our first stop for the day was the Manjimup Timber and Heritage Park. The boys were super happy when they saw the size of the giant slide and the flying foxes. Michael couldn't help himself so he had a turn too.
Then it was onto the Diamond Tree. The Diamond Tree is one of a few trees in the area that used to used for fire survelliance. They stopped using it in 1974 when they started using spotter planes instead. There was no way that I was even going to attempt climbing the tree as all you had to hold onto were metal pegs coming out of the tree and no cage or anything around you. Mitch made it about a quarter of the way and got a bit scared, I was glad to see him back on the ground.
Michael made it the whole way to the top at 52 meters high. His legs were burning when he reached the ground.
The next stop for the day was The Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk in The Tingle State Forest. The highest section of the walk is 40m above ground level and the kids and I felt more comfortable being on this. Onec we completed the tree top walk we walked thru the forest amongst giant Tingle Trees. The kids enjoyed hiding in the trunks of the trees.
We then drove thru Denmark and onto Albany. We couldn't find a free camp in Albany so we started to drive to the Stirling Ranges where we were going to climb Bluff Knoll the next morning. We found a free camp on the side of the road which had 2 other caravans in it, we haven't had a night in a free camp on our own yet!! We arrived with just enough time for the boys to cook dinner on the BBQ before it started getting dark.
The next morning we drove up to the Stirling Ranges which took around an hour. We had a great view of the ranges on the drive in and the clouds were covering the summit of Bluff Knoll. We couldn't tow our caravan to the parking area so we left it at the Eco Retreat down the road while we did the walk. The Bluff Knoll walk up was definately the steepest walk that we have been on. It was 3.1 klms to the summit and all up hill. Mitch nearly stepped on a snake on the way up, which freaked him out. It took us 2 hours to get to the summit and on the way we walked thru clouds that were freezing cold and wet and then we pop up above them into blue sky. It was amazing to be above the clouds. The wind was rushing over the summit and we could touch the clouds that were coming over the top.
About 500m from the top walking back down I fell over and thought I was going to fall off the side of the mountain and I twisted my ankle badly. I just wanted to get down as quickly as possible but it still took us over an hour to get back to the car. Once I took my shoe off the pain was really bad. We went back and picked up the caravan and drove into Albany. I sat in the back with Mitch while I iced my ankle. We stayed at the Big 4 at Middleton Beach and my ankle didn't stop me from having my daily drink. I just had to have it lying down.
I didn't want the boys to waste any time with me resting my ankle, so we drove to The Gap lookout, The Anzac lookout and the boat called The Amity and the boys had a look while I sat in the car and rested my ankle. We had a nice quiet night.
The next day my ankle was feeling alot better so we went to the Whaling Station and did the tour. It was raining on and off during the morning but most of the tour was inside so it was ok. The tour was really informative and the kids loved looking at the whale bones that where on display.
The boys took me back to The Gap for a look. It was very impressive as the surf below was really rough and you can look straight thru the path at the surf.
The next stop was the Albany wind farm. We walked up to the lookout and were really amazed at how big and noisy they were.
After some food shopping we visited the Dog Rock which looks like a dogs head with a collar.
That afternoon we found the Tangled Head Brewery which was in the heart of town, so we decided to have a relaxing afternoon and a few drinks.
It was back to the caravan for dinner, blogging and some washing before we hit the road again in the morning.
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