camping again
and on another nicer note, me and chels went
We set off with light hearts and a boot full of camping gear. An impromptu trip taken on the spur of the moment. I thought we were heading for wallpole but the plan changed when we were in the car to pemberton, as it had mainly the same things but 1.5 hours closer. after a brief shopping foray we were on the road.
we drove all day listening to a selection of fine music and stopping off in bunbury for lunch. That's when i saw they had dolfiend cruises!!! unfortunately we had come too late in the day for the cruise, so with heavy hearts we moved on.
Almost into pemberton we came across a camping sign that pointed down a well maintained dirt track
The camp sites were one way circular tracks that came off the main track. at the beginning of every inlet there was an information point, a small hut that told you all about the area and asked you to pay $10 per tent for the upkeep of the area, I think it's a good idea, almost an honour system.
We went in and checked out the camping spots, they were small inlets right on the edge of the track, with a picnic table, a camping stove and a small clearing for a tent. Walking distance to a toilet. Way too soft for me. i like my meat red, my women wild and my camping cut off from civilisation. Chelsea once again showed me her vulnerable and sensitive side, she's such a sweetie, I love her dearly for many reasons, but definitely because she hasn't let the world harden her beyond feeling. Very cute.
We went and found a public phone so we could call home and let everyone know we had gotten down here safely. We checked out the three inlets that there was on offer, snottygobble loop, gumdrop way (or something) and then GOBLIN.
Goblin was a walk in track, 1.5 km's from the main walkway, there wasn't even a place to leave your deposit slip, this looked more like it, though really it still felt more tame than what I was used to. Though then again the bush down there wasn't like the bush up here, down there its freezing cold and jungle, the trees are a lot bigger and the ground scrub comes up over your head and is thickly packed, you'd need a machete to get through.
It was starting to get towards dusk when we headed off into the bush down GOBLIN . the walk was rather pleasant, Chelsea had suited up to keep away the cold but it was still a little sunny on the track. We walked for a while and then we came to a dip in the road around a corner, down this small valley it looked a lot darker than the sunny path we were on, it was the same road but definitely led to a darker place. Chelsea wanted to turn back, but I just wanted to have a quick look, I wanted to see what it was that was keeping us from wanting to walk down there.
We headed down the path and it immediately became colder, we crossed over a river, I stopped to have a look. The river was rather fast flowing but low for a river down south (I guess it is the middle of summer) and had a small inlet off to its side, the inlet had a slimy feeling to it, perfectly calm, like I was looking into the den of something that was just below the surface.
We moved on, and came to another camping area, only this one was more open and had obviously been abandoned for a while. There was an overgrown path leading back to a building, I wanted to go down but Chelsea didn't want me to leave her side. I understood her trepidation, as the place we had arrived at felt…haunted. The bush to the north of us reared up creating a dark impenetrable wall, you could see into it about 2 feet, but looking out from inside you could probably see a lot further. The bush to the east was much the same, but over the path, to the south we had a small clearing, tall reeds and a river. To the west we had the path, the abandoned building and more scrub.
The whole thing felt like sleepy hollow, but bone chillingly cold rather than that Halloween October warmth.
It started getting dark really fast. We didn't really want to stay there but the light level was dropping and we had to camp somewhere. I started setting up the tent while Chelsea started a fire. Then we swapped half way through. I don't know about her but I was rushing. The fire didn't shed half as much light as it should have because of the stupid bush bbq that we lit it in. it was a concrete cylinder that stood too far off the ground, creating a small pool of light that blinded more than it illuminated. It was almost pitch black and we realised that it was a new moon. The sounds of the night weren't what we were used to. As a matter of fact there was next to no sound whatsoever. We were used to wind, crickets and if no crickets then frogs. The sounds of things moving in the bush, small animals, possums, kangaroos. There was none of that. Dead still except for the occasional crash in the distance, exactly like in Blair witch.
I said not to worry about the lack of crickets, the frogs probably ate them, and umm, not to worry bout the lack of frogs because the snakes probably got them, and snakes don't make that much noise.
Chelsea mentioned that we were near a waterway and that woggles, the dreamtime snakes had made them.
We moved the tent closer to the fire because, umm, it was so cold, yea that was it. Cold. We ate dinner, talked out why we were so freaked out while shining the torch at every little sound that came out of the forest and went to bed.
I always thought Woggles were those little gumnut things scouts used to hold their neck scarves on
Rest was hard that night, we could hear someone walking round outside, I'd looked for scat when we came to the spot and hadn't seen any which was strange because a flat abandoned area with grasses growing in it usually attracts larger grazers. I always look for droppings, kangaroos always have the nicest spots.
I stayed awake for ages waiting for the fire to die down, Chelsea kept stirring in the night talking to me in her sleep.
I finally let myself rest and dreamed of my brother being in danger because some puppets were after him. Chelsea woke me up, saying something about josh. I said “im not josh”, she then woke up saying “wtf r u on about? I was having a bad dream about my brother”. I told her I was too, it was about puppets and not wanting to scare her I told her id tell her about it in the morning. I'm sure the puppets were amassing around our tent at that time having a good chuckle.
The rest of the night kind of went like that.
We awoke in the morning to the sound of a huge swarm of bees. Chelsea stuck her head out the doorway of the tent. They were no bees, no my friends, no friendly bees, rather they were mosquitos. Hundreds of thousands of them. Luckily they weren't in a swarm mobbing our tent but rather dispersed over the country side. The morning was beautiful, when we were having breakfast (a couple of mint flavoured chocolate cookies) a group of wrens decided to pay us a visit. Beautiful little guys. There were butterflies everywhere, and the place seemed really calm. If we'd gotten there in the morning then it would've still seemed spooky but since we'd suffered through a night of torment it was lovely in comparison. Things always work that way, when you come home from a war, being shot at with a bow and arrow doesn't seem so bad.
But Chelsea wanted to leave anyway.
Speaking of leaves, when we broke camp chels noticed there were leaves all over our tent. We looked up and saw that there wasn't a tree that actually had leaves for miles around, they were all native needle dropping pines. Then thinking back we had heard leaves and the such dropping from great heights all night long, but it would've been impossible.
On the way back to the car chelseas leg brushed a plant that had seed pods all over it. The pods tinkled like dried up little bells. It was cool.
It was strange, it felt like we'd only been there maybe a couple of hours at tops, but we'd been there 15.
We left GOBLIN behind and headed for town. Driving through the Karri trees was rather amazing. They are big, the type of big that I imagine trees should be. Standing at the base of a Karri Tree you feel like a small child again. Its not so much their girth but rather their height. We got some pamphlets from a walk trail and found out that yes, a Woggle was the dreamtime snake. Everything Chelsea said about the area was in a pamphlet.
We went and climbed the Gloucester tree, 61 metres off of the ground.
There are spikes set in its side that spiral up the tree. Its weird when you are climbing, your eyes cant perceive the depth because there's so much distance between you and the horizon and nothing else to compare it with, there's foreground and background with miles in between. You go to grab a rung and your hand misses it by a good 10 cms.
Consulting the pamphlet once again we went to go canoeing. Driving up a long winding track we passed lots of things on the way. A lumpy tree, a chalet a couple of bush walking trails, we almost got to the canoeing site when chels noticed that the pamphlet said “meeting place only”. She also mentioned that some chalets were only $80 a night. We decided to check out the chalet we had seen on the way in. The Marima cottages to be precise. $120 a night or $175 for a spa room. I asked if we could check them out. We went up and I was blown away by the niceness of the place. Rammed earth walls, nice and open, kitchen, living room, tv, vcr, bbq, big bedroom all opening onto an ensuite bathroom with a spa. Right under some huge karri trees. Lovely. I kinda fell in love with the place and decided we had earned a treat.
I watched Cassablanca for the first time while Chelsea had a nap. We headed into town and got some more provisions and videos and just slothed the rest of the day away. Trying to fill the hot tub was a fiasco as the cold water didn't work properly. We watched super troopers and zoolander and ate a feast of spaghetti. Oh what a hard life. Had a spa, went to bed.
Ive come to a conclusion about spas that im sure ill present to you lot in the future, if im drunk enough.
Packing up we started the long drive home, detouring through bunbury again only this time after we had lunch, we went on a DOLFIEND CRUISE!!!!.
We waited round the dolphin edutainment centre for a while, watched a video on dolphins (apparently they procreate by a group of males abducting a female and raping her, man those things rock)
There were only 4 of us, instead of the usual 20-30. We went out into the dolphin rest area, the salty breeze blowing in my hair, stirring the old feelings of flying fast on the bow of a boat. That's when we saw the first dolphin!! There was a pod of about 20 females out with 2 claves, apparently the males hadn't come in to mate, maybe because of the tsunami, maybe because of all the fuckwits with jet skis. Really fuckers, keep away from the dolphins, we don't care to watch you showing off and neither do those dolphins. It'd be like some dickhead coming through your living room on a dirt bike. The dolphins were drowsy, turning off half of their brains to save energy till they had to hunt. Probably also to get away from the sewing machine intense noises in their head that all those 2 stroke motors were gouging into their heads.
The dolphins have beautiful markings on their dorsal fins, some reminded me of a watery pattern I had seen elsewhere, engraves into flesh. Unfortunately Chelsea camera wasn't fast enough to catch what I was seeing.
The fish came out and the dolphins picked up, they didn't mind out throbbing diesel engine so much and seemed to recognise the boat, they got a little more playful and right at the end as the boat gunned its engine they started racing us, there was one right below me and Chelsea, looking up at us and easily keeping up with the boat. It was the greatest feeling in the world, I looked up and Chelseas smile was beaming just as large as the one on my face. At that moment I felt truly happy. Everything was perfect, I felt nothing but the moment and the moment was bliss.
Leaving Bunbury behind (or dolfiend town as I shall now call it), we did some more rock and sheep spotting. It was a long drive home but I was still enjoying the company of my little love. Strange, I usually get sick of people when I spend time with no one but them in a couple of days, but not her.
About half way home from dolfiend town we noticed a strange cloud formation, it looked like a huge cloud mass had gathered over the hills and was pouring down onto the earth, then we realised it was smoke. Driving further the haze covered the sky and the sun was a malevolent red circle in the sky.
We got back to Chelseas at about 5:00
Played some fable
Hunted the fire to take a good picture of the smoke mass and had dinner
sitting there, having dinner in civilised surroundings i had the vague feeling like we hadn't made it out of the forest that first night. that where i was now was all just an illusion, some delusion i was convincing myself was real because my mind had snapped at the horrors that i was now witnessing in the real world. The soft lighting seemed to turn to darkness, i could see the cardboard cut-out, the 2 dimensionality that was so cunningly painted that it made me believe the people in front of me were part of the real world, but standing against the darkness their falseness glared.
What a hard weekend;)
We set off with light hearts and a boot full of camping gear. An impromptu trip taken on the spur of the moment. I thought we were heading for wallpole but the plan changed when we were in the car to pemberton, as it had mainly the same things but 1.5 hours closer. after a brief shopping foray we were on the road.
we drove all day listening to a selection of fine music and stopping off in bunbury for lunch. That's when i saw they had dolfiend cruises!!! unfortunately we had come too late in the day for the cruise, so with heavy hearts we moved on.
Almost into pemberton we came across a camping sign that pointed down a well maintained dirt track
The camp sites were one way circular tracks that came off the main track. at the beginning of every inlet there was an information point, a small hut that told you all about the area and asked you to pay $10 per tent for the upkeep of the area, I think it's a good idea, almost an honour system.
We went in and checked out the camping spots, they were small inlets right on the edge of the track, with a picnic table, a camping stove and a small clearing for a tent. Walking distance to a toilet. Way too soft for me. i like my meat red, my women wild and my camping cut off from civilisation. Chelsea once again showed me her vulnerable and sensitive side, she's such a sweetie, I love her dearly for many reasons, but definitely because she hasn't let the world harden her beyond feeling. Very cute.
We went and found a public phone so we could call home and let everyone know we had gotten down here safely. We checked out the three inlets that there was on offer, snottygobble loop, gumdrop way (or something) and then GOBLIN.
Goblin was a walk in track, 1.5 km's from the main walkway, there wasn't even a place to leave your deposit slip, this looked more like it, though really it still felt more tame than what I was used to. Though then again the bush down there wasn't like the bush up here, down there its freezing cold and jungle, the trees are a lot bigger and the ground scrub comes up over your head and is thickly packed, you'd need a machete to get through.
It was starting to get towards dusk when we headed off into the bush down GOBLIN . the walk was rather pleasant, Chelsea had suited up to keep away the cold but it was still a little sunny on the track. We walked for a while and then we came to a dip in the road around a corner, down this small valley it looked a lot darker than the sunny path we were on, it was the same road but definitely led to a darker place. Chelsea wanted to turn back, but I just wanted to have a quick look, I wanted to see what it was that was keeping us from wanting to walk down there.
We headed down the path and it immediately became colder, we crossed over a river, I stopped to have a look. The river was rather fast flowing but low for a river down south (I guess it is the middle of summer) and had a small inlet off to its side, the inlet had a slimy feeling to it, perfectly calm, like I was looking into the den of something that was just below the surface.
We moved on, and came to another camping area, only this one was more open and had obviously been abandoned for a while. There was an overgrown path leading back to a building, I wanted to go down but Chelsea didn't want me to leave her side. I understood her trepidation, as the place we had arrived at felt…haunted. The bush to the north of us reared up creating a dark impenetrable wall, you could see into it about 2 feet, but looking out from inside you could probably see a lot further. The bush to the east was much the same, but over the path, to the south we had a small clearing, tall reeds and a river. To the west we had the path, the abandoned building and more scrub.
The whole thing felt like sleepy hollow, but bone chillingly cold rather than that Halloween October warmth.
It started getting dark really fast. We didn't really want to stay there but the light level was dropping and we had to camp somewhere. I started setting up the tent while Chelsea started a fire. Then we swapped half way through. I don't know about her but I was rushing. The fire didn't shed half as much light as it should have because of the stupid bush bbq that we lit it in. it was a concrete cylinder that stood too far off the ground, creating a small pool of light that blinded more than it illuminated. It was almost pitch black and we realised that it was a new moon. The sounds of the night weren't what we were used to. As a matter of fact there was next to no sound whatsoever. We were used to wind, crickets and if no crickets then frogs. The sounds of things moving in the bush, small animals, possums, kangaroos. There was none of that. Dead still except for the occasional crash in the distance, exactly like in Blair witch.
I said not to worry about the lack of crickets, the frogs probably ate them, and umm, not to worry bout the lack of frogs because the snakes probably got them, and snakes don't make that much noise.
Chelsea mentioned that we were near a waterway and that woggles, the dreamtime snakes had made them.
We moved the tent closer to the fire because, umm, it was so cold, yea that was it. Cold. We ate dinner, talked out why we were so freaked out while shining the torch at every little sound that came out of the forest and went to bed.
I always thought Woggles were those little gumnut things scouts used to hold their neck scarves on
Rest was hard that night, we could hear someone walking round outside, I'd looked for scat when we came to the spot and hadn't seen any which was strange because a flat abandoned area with grasses growing in it usually attracts larger grazers. I always look for droppings, kangaroos always have the nicest spots.
I stayed awake for ages waiting for the fire to die down, Chelsea kept stirring in the night talking to me in her sleep.
I finally let myself rest and dreamed of my brother being in danger because some puppets were after him. Chelsea woke me up, saying something about josh. I said “im not josh”, she then woke up saying “wtf r u on about? I was having a bad dream about my brother”. I told her I was too, it was about puppets and not wanting to scare her I told her id tell her about it in the morning. I'm sure the puppets were amassing around our tent at that time having a good chuckle.
The rest of the night kind of went like that.
We awoke in the morning to the sound of a huge swarm of bees. Chelsea stuck her head out the doorway of the tent. They were no bees, no my friends, no friendly bees, rather they were mosquitos. Hundreds of thousands of them. Luckily they weren't in a swarm mobbing our tent but rather dispersed over the country side. The morning was beautiful, when we were having breakfast (a couple of mint flavoured chocolate cookies) a group of wrens decided to pay us a visit. Beautiful little guys. There were butterflies everywhere, and the place seemed really calm. If we'd gotten there in the morning then it would've still seemed spooky but since we'd suffered through a night of torment it was lovely in comparison. Things always work that way, when you come home from a war, being shot at with a bow and arrow doesn't seem so bad.
But Chelsea wanted to leave anyway.
Speaking of leaves, when we broke camp chels noticed there were leaves all over our tent. We looked up and saw that there wasn't a tree that actually had leaves for miles around, they were all native needle dropping pines. Then thinking back we had heard leaves and the such dropping from great heights all night long, but it would've been impossible.
On the way back to the car chelseas leg brushed a plant that had seed pods all over it. The pods tinkled like dried up little bells. It was cool.
It was strange, it felt like we'd only been there maybe a couple of hours at tops, but we'd been there 15.
We left GOBLIN behind and headed for town. Driving through the Karri trees was rather amazing. They are big, the type of big that I imagine trees should be. Standing at the base of a Karri Tree you feel like a small child again. Its not so much their girth but rather their height. We got some pamphlets from a walk trail and found out that yes, a Woggle was the dreamtime snake. Everything Chelsea said about the area was in a pamphlet.
We went and climbed the Gloucester tree, 61 metres off of the ground.
There are spikes set in its side that spiral up the tree. Its weird when you are climbing, your eyes cant perceive the depth because there's so much distance between you and the horizon and nothing else to compare it with, there's foreground and background with miles in between. You go to grab a rung and your hand misses it by a good 10 cms.
Consulting the pamphlet once again we went to go canoeing. Driving up a long winding track we passed lots of things on the way. A lumpy tree, a chalet a couple of bush walking trails, we almost got to the canoeing site when chels noticed that the pamphlet said “meeting place only”. She also mentioned that some chalets were only $80 a night. We decided to check out the chalet we had seen on the way in. The Marima cottages to be precise. $120 a night or $175 for a spa room. I asked if we could check them out. We went up and I was blown away by the niceness of the place. Rammed earth walls, nice and open, kitchen, living room, tv, vcr, bbq, big bedroom all opening onto an ensuite bathroom with a spa. Right under some huge karri trees. Lovely. I kinda fell in love with the place and decided we had earned a treat.
I watched Cassablanca for the first time while Chelsea had a nap. We headed into town and got some more provisions and videos and just slothed the rest of the day away. Trying to fill the hot tub was a fiasco as the cold water didn't work properly. We watched super troopers and zoolander and ate a feast of spaghetti. Oh what a hard life. Had a spa, went to bed.
Ive come to a conclusion about spas that im sure ill present to you lot in the future, if im drunk enough.
Packing up we started the long drive home, detouring through bunbury again only this time after we had lunch, we went on a DOLFIEND CRUISE!!!!.
We waited round the dolphin edutainment centre for a while, watched a video on dolphins (apparently they procreate by a group of males abducting a female and raping her, man those things rock)
There were only 4 of us, instead of the usual 20-30. We went out into the dolphin rest area, the salty breeze blowing in my hair, stirring the old feelings of flying fast on the bow of a boat. That's when we saw the first dolphin!! There was a pod of about 20 females out with 2 claves, apparently the males hadn't come in to mate, maybe because of the tsunami, maybe because of all the fuckwits with jet skis. Really fuckers, keep away from the dolphins, we don't care to watch you showing off and neither do those dolphins. It'd be like some dickhead coming through your living room on a dirt bike. The dolphins were drowsy, turning off half of their brains to save energy till they had to hunt. Probably also to get away from the sewing machine intense noises in their head that all those 2 stroke motors were gouging into their heads.
The dolphins have beautiful markings on their dorsal fins, some reminded me of a watery pattern I had seen elsewhere, engraves into flesh. Unfortunately Chelsea camera wasn't fast enough to catch what I was seeing.
The fish came out and the dolphins picked up, they didn't mind out throbbing diesel engine so much and seemed to recognise the boat, they got a little more playful and right at the end as the boat gunned its engine they started racing us, there was one right below me and Chelsea, looking up at us and easily keeping up with the boat. It was the greatest feeling in the world, I looked up and Chelseas smile was beaming just as large as the one on my face. At that moment I felt truly happy. Everything was perfect, I felt nothing but the moment and the moment was bliss.
Leaving Bunbury behind (or dolfiend town as I shall now call it), we did some more rock and sheep spotting. It was a long drive home but I was still enjoying the company of my little love. Strange, I usually get sick of people when I spend time with no one but them in a couple of days, but not her.
About half way home from dolfiend town we noticed a strange cloud formation, it looked like a huge cloud mass had gathered over the hills and was pouring down onto the earth, then we realised it was smoke. Driving further the haze covered the sky and the sun was a malevolent red circle in the sky.
We got back to Chelseas at about 5:00
Played some fable
Hunted the fire to take a good picture of the smoke mass and had dinner
sitting there, having dinner in civilised surroundings i had the vague feeling like we hadn't made it out of the forest that first night. that where i was now was all just an illusion, some delusion i was convincing myself was real because my mind had snapped at the horrors that i was now witnessing in the real world. The soft lighting seemed to turn to darkness, i could see the cardboard cut-out, the 2 dimensionality that was so cunningly painted that it made me believe the people in front of me were part of the real world, but standing against the darkness their falseness glared.
What a hard weekend;)