What a relief to be in a temperate climate again, after 5 days in the North. It was
blessedly cool and dry the evening I flew into Perth. After checking into the hostel on
William Street I headed south through downtown to the waterfront. A full moon rose over
the city. Palm trees cast black silouettes against a magenta sky. Walking back, live jazz
spilled out of an open air club. The streets were alive with crowds and music and energy. 
In the morning I picked up my car and headed to Kings Park for a spectacular overlook of the city and the harbor. There were also spectacular wildflower gardens here, the best I was to see. Western Australia is famous for it’s wildflower displays in the spring, but by mid-October I was just a wee bit too late to catch it.
I headed south out of town. A side “scenic drive” took me by an estuary and paperbark trees. And on my left, my first kangaroo. Then another. Another. A dozen. One had a large joey in the pouch, it’s hooves spilling out. They had spark. They were wild. I called to a man on the walking path, “Kangaroos!” “They’re here every evening,” he replied. We talked for a long while. All the Australians I’ve drawn into conversation are remarkably unguarded and open. We chatted for 15 minutes, about how we both hate the heat up north, about what I’ll find down the road. I regretted that I was holding my 400mm lens and was figuring out how to interrupt and go to my car and get another lens and camera. It didn’t happen, but I vowed not to let the opportunity pass again.
Later, on the water, I met a fellow collecting crabs, again, he easily fell into guileless
conversation. The light was gorgeous. His dog wondered what daddy was doing, stopping so,
as I moved him into the sinking light. I think my Australia project is
forming—portraits. At the lighthouse at Cape Naturaliste was a young woman, stranding
on her car in bare feet, photographing the moonrise. When she sat down on the hood and
turned to look at the lighthouse, she looked like a parody of Christina in the Wyeth
painting. She won’t be home to Birmingham, England for a year, so the shots will go
to “Emma’s Mum”. 
In the morning I found an achingly beautiful cove of beach and water and some species of Euclyptus tree that I hadn’t seen before. I spend several hours here, marveling at the trees and the early morning light and savoring the ache of my loneliness, imagining how much my wife Robin would love this spot. I spent the day working my way slowly through the Margaret River country. I hiked again at Cape Naturaliste at the top of the peninsula, among a strange landscape of coastal heath. I stopped at a surfing beach (there are scores of marked surfing sites here) and shot portraits of some of the surfers. And I visited a few of the wineries make this one of the most productive regions of fine Australian wines.
By
evening I was at the lighthouse at Cape Leeuwin, where the Indian and Southern Oceans
meet. After my hike out to the tip and back there was a solitary beat up old pick-up truck
in the parking lot. Were I in the States I would have carefully assessed the situation,
deciding if he was a threat or not. I’d look for a bottle, or a gunrack. Here, I felt
safer. And when I saw the binoculars, I figured he was more than harmless, he was probably
interesting. I walked over (I never would have done that in the States. The pick-up had
redneck written all over it) and inquired, “Flipper up and down like this,”
(pantomiming what I saw on the water, the lifting up of a huge flipper), “which
one?” “Humpy” he answered. (There’s two kinds of whales here, Humpback
and Right). We embarked on a long conversation winding from whales to elephants to fishing
stories to African safaris for the next 30 minutes. Old guy, in his 70’s, excited
like a kid about the natural world. He pointed out for me a Pacific Gull on the beach
below us. 
Next day, Augusta to Wapole. Slow progress, just as it should be. Overcast and raining
when I got up at 5. Drove through to Pemberton, and stopped at an attractive winery. Too
early for a tasting, the owner offered me tea. I spent a wonderful hour here, feeling fed
by the sociality. Before I left I photographed him among his grape vines. Then into the
Karri forest, a white-barked landscape of tall trees. A stop for all the tour buses is the
Glouchester tree, a fire lookout 61 meters above the forest floor. Rebar embedded into the
tree trunk formed a spiral ladder up the tree. All the bus passengers stay below, only
youthful Swiss and Germans made the climb, besides me. 
South now, on the way to Wapole and the coast again. I picked up 2 hitchhikers, a young
Australian couple with long, unwashed hair. They had just come from the Rainbow Festival
up in Nannup, a New Age gathering of contemporary hippiedom. I said, “I went to one
of those 20 years ago.” “They had them 20 years ago?” they said in
amazement. “It was your parents who started all that, alright?” They were
largely uncommunicative and none too aware, knew zip of the natural history of the area,
except that there were “big trees” by Wapole. They were more suprised than I was
at the emus in the field that I stopped to photograph. With my sullen youth, I drove
straight to Wapole, a shabby little town where I stayed in an unheated dreary hostel room.
But what surrounds Wapole are Tingle Trees. Big, massive things, as big as our Douglas Firs here in the Northwest. The biggest ones commonly have hollow bases, like buttressed cathedral naves. At the Valley of the Giants the park has built a treetop suspension bridge that allows one to experience the canopy of the forest. But more impressive is walking underneath the giant trees. It’s as good as our ancient forests back home.
It was cloudy all day, making for poor photography once I left the forest. There’s
some spectacular rocky coastal areas around Albany, but I didn’t linger because the
light was so poor. I decided to head inland, across the Stirling Range and into the
Wheatbelt. 
I passed through a flat landscape of wheatfields interspersed with isolated gum trees
and pink lakes. Wide open country. I was prepared to camp, but heck, it was really windy,
so I stayed in Lake Grace at a gas station/motel. A powerful storm blew in at 3am. I'm so
glad I wasn’t out in it, without a tent. Out at 6, on the road north. Without
realizing it I was on the way to Wave Rock. First in the lot at 7:15, well ahead of any
tour buses. It’s an interesting, eroded granite form, with rain stains making pretty
colors. It’s a famous attraction, but the landscape here is crowded with granite
formations and caves that get lots less traffic and attention. I came across a cave that
had dozens of aboriginal hand prints on the inside. 
By 10am the sun was high and flat. The landscape looked even less interesting than before. Down the road. Fast. 140 kph. No good reason I could see not to. There’s practically no one else on the road, I would go half an hour without seeing another car. They conserve on pavement here, they only pave a single lane in the middle. You’re expected to plant one wheel on the shoulder for an oncoming car. It doesn’t appear that playing chicken is part of the cultural baggage here.
Boring, boring landscape. First time I’ve felt that. Lots of flies. Then there was
Corrigin. 
It’s claim to fame in the guidebooks is a dog cemetery. I was following a sign for
the Loch Ness Monster when I stumbled upon the Corrigin Ladies Lawn Bowling Association
and the morning social. 20 white uniformed matrons, rolling balls across an Astroturf
lawn. I lurched to a stop, walked up with my cameras on me and asked, “What is
this!?” “You don’t have this in the States?” I took a lot of pictures,
mostly b/w. Every old lady who came up said the same thing “You don’t have this
in the States?” Six times I got asked that. I was told the current champion is a 17
year old girl. “So you see, there are some young people who do it.” 
From there straight through to York, where I had an excellent Cannonelli and my first good coffee in Western Australia. Quickly off to Toodnay. I’m following a flower tour brochure map here. The guide at the info center wasn’t hopeful, but gave me a route for my best shot. As I left town there was a hitchhiker, saw it was female, and stopped. In the back of my mind I pondered why I stopped for a woman and might not have for a man. She’s a local, not riding her bike because they just regraveled the road. I took her all the way into her place, a back-to-the-land homestead with chickens, a couple of cats, a tiny trailer, chicken wire fence, and an outdoor bathtub/shower. She and her husband had raised 2 kids here, now grown. She was a marvelously open woman, there was absolutely no change in her in front of the camera. She invited me in for tea. I declined, it was 4pm now and I decided I didn’t want to get into Perth in the dark.
I think that Western Australia was my favorite part of the trip. It’s open,
uncrowded, with tremendous variety of landscape. I could have tripled the amount of time I
spent doing this route and still not have felt it was enough.
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