Seven on Sabbatical: January 2023

Allen's sisters came to visit for only 9 days. We wanted to show them a bit more of Australia than just beaches and zoos. I took my older kids on a south coast trip 7 years ago. I never dreamed we'd be back and I'd get to take Allen and Henry, too!

The city of Mandurrah has a fun troll exhibit this year. An artist has created giant trolls from upcycled materials in different locations. We started our trip going to find some.

I loved this guy. As we entered the path to find him, we listened to a story about the aboriginal elders going to the sea to pray for relief from the drought. This enormous figure represents that request. He is made from recycled natural materials and wears a necklace of banksia seed pods.

They were so awesome at entertaining Henry on the long drive.

We were staying at an Airbnb the first night just outside Bunbury. It is ironic that The New York Times Spelling Bee for that day was this:

When you solve it you’ll know why we did not sleep peacefully.

It really was a fine place, but we got there so late at night. We had to walk up a dark staircase. I walked through spiderwebs on the way. And then hanging over our heads in the entry was a huge black spider. And then... just outside the bedroom window...

I had to hurriedly take that photo before Henry saw it. Even though it looks smaller than my phone, it was probably 4" in span. I was already annoyed the owner hadn't cleared the huge spider over the entry. I thought for sure he didn't know about this guy. I messaged him.

He was so proud of it.

We closed the curtains. Henry slept between us that night and we left quickly in the morning.

DAY TWO:

We went to the Dolphin Discovery Centre in Bunbury hoping to see dolphins. Wild ones typically come in every morning. The volunteers there sound an alarm and everyone knows to go running out to the bay. Then you can stand right in the water and the dolphins will swim in front of you. And it worked great 7 years ago when I brought my older kids. But that day the dolphins did not come. We waited 3 hours, enjoying the exhibits in the meantime.

Next stop was the Busselton Jetty. It's one mile long! The day was HOT. Fortunately there is always a cafe nearby and they had ice cream.

They had a very fun playground

I was excited to go to the Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree. It is a former forest ranger lookout tree and is the only one left that the public can climb. It's 65 meters/213 feet high! Seven years ago we went to the Diamond Tree Lookout that was only 170 feet high, but that tree is now closed. We all stood there for a bit deciding who would climb it. We naturally were looking up at the top and noticed the tree move with the wind. It makes logical sense, but you don't want to know about it.

Here you see the halfway platform. Where the sign says you need to check in with your mental self before proceeding further.

The top is so high it's hard to pick out in this photo.

Ashley decided she would not think too much and just do it too. Abby is grounded enough inside her own mind and didn't need to prove anything to herself so she obstained. Allen was not interested. I went with Ashley to scope it out for Henry, who wanted to, but wasn't sure about it.

You can see the rebar spikes spiraling the tree.

The "steps" are just long rebar spikes nailed in a spiral around the tree. They are connected to each other with wire and there is a chicken wire net around the outside, but you can easily slip through the spaces between steps. But it's just like a ladder. You just do one step at a time. There is a halfway platform to rest and evaluate if you really have the mental fortitude to go the rest of the way.

Ashley's strategy to just not think too much was smart because it only takes about 10 minutes to get to the top. Before you know what has happened, you're there!

The scene at the top is amazing! And honestly, even though this tree is almost 50 feet higher, it was easier to get to the top because the last bits are all straight ladders inside enclosed in platforms. It wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as the shorter Diamond Tree Lookout.

While I was on the way down I heard Allen and Henry coming up. I don't doubt Henry's ability to do it safely, but I was worried about his psyche. We stopped at the halfway point and decided that was a pretty great accomplishment for a 9 year old!

Such a brave moment of satisfaction for this boy!

The trees produce burls at the site of insect damage. It's basically a scab, but is still woody material. Some people knock them off and carve beautiful things from them, like bowls. This tree had burls all the way around.

Time is short so I have resisted stopping to take photos of all the scenes that I find stunningly beautiful, but this moment required a full stop.

We still had a long drive ahead of us to get to our chalet in Peaceful Bay. We pulled in around 9:30pm in the dark. And I mean the kind of dark in a small small "town" where there are no traffic lights. There aren't even street lights. The "streets" weren't even paved. Without GPS it would be impossible. And thank goodness our GPS downloaded the navigation before we arrived because there was no cell service here.

We found the street, but got confused as to which chalet to go to. I finally had to knock on the host's door. It was scary walking around with my phone flashlight in the dark. The host walked me over. When I finally got in it was rough. And then I saw a roach on the wall. Ugh. And then I saw one on the bed. NOOOOOO!

I didn't know what to do. We were in the middle of nowhere with no cell service and no wifi.

And then we found out there were no sheets. That detail had been overlooked. I went back to the host and she said she'd bring some for a fee.

I had packed food to make for dinner. Yes, we still hadn't eaten. I quickly washed a pot to cook pasta in. The water was brown. When the host arrived with sheets I asked her about that and she said, yes, you can only drink the cold water, the hot water is filtered rain water.

That wasn't in the Airbnb description.

I was the one that had booked this place and felt awful. But I was trying my best to be calm. What else could we do?

To save time, I will now include the review I ultimately left for the Airbnb:

The thing you need to know is that the description does not accurately portray what you’ll be walking in to. It was nearly impossible to find in the dark. I had to walk around with a torch [flashlight]—not safe. When I walked into the place it was much more rough and old than the pictures suggest. There were roaches—on the beds. The bathroom had a sign up with pictures of spiders and snakes we needed to lookout for [that FREAKED Henry out]. The description does not tell you about that. It also does not state that you can only drink out of the cold tap in the kitchen. It was a scary place to be, but also scary to leave in the dark to search for somewhere else to stay without cell coverage or wifi to look for something safer.

We ate. And then Allen made the decision that we were leaving. I was scared. No cell service. No wifi. How were we to find anything else? But sleeping in the car was going to be better than this.

We left. Allen said a prayer thanking God for the privilege to even take this trip, to have a place to sleep, and to have resources to find something better. And asked for a miracle so we could do that.

We took off driving in what we remembered was the direction for the next closest town we had already passed through. Miraculously, my phone got a signal just in time to get a call in to the Treetop Walk Motel as we were driving in front of it. They closed at 9pm. It was 10pm. And they answered! They said they had two rooms for us. We pulled in just at that moment and within minutes we had keys. The couple that runs the motel had just gotten in to bed when I called. BLESS THEM for answering. The cost was the same as the horrible "chalet," but it had sheets, wifi, clean water, a nearby restaurant, outdoor pool, and NO ROACHES.

We really did consider it an answer to prayer.

And before I woke up in the morning I had received a full refund from Airbnb.

DAY THREE

The Valley of the Giants Treetop Walk was what inspired our first trip to Perth and the south coast in 2015.

The tingle trees have large tubes that channel water up the tree at a fast pace. The water can move so quickly that high pressure is created and the water can actually vaporize. If you were to listen with a stethoscope you could hear popping sounds! But the large tubes get crushed easily with things like cars from tourists. So the walk was built in 1996 to protect the trees from the damage caused by tourists driving their cars over their vast but delicate root systems.

Compared to the Dave Evan's Tree, he's smiling because he's *only* 30 meters above ground here.

This is a better picture of a tree burl.

The Tingle trees can become infected with insect or disease. Occasional fires come through and burn out the infections, hollowing out the tree. The vat root systems remain alive, leaving the outer layers intact to continue to grow.

The large rocks at Greens Pool protect the beach from the strong surf making it really peaceful. Henry loved jumping off some rocks into the water. I enjoyed exploring Elephant Rocks on the other side of the bay.

I found these large black lizards lurching under the rocks that I was walking on to get over to Elephant Rocks

On the way back, we saw a road sign that boasted the largest ice cream cone in Denmark. So we stopped. They also had some sweet potato fries with a delicious sweet chili cream sauce. And a peacock.

We went to see Conspicuous Cliffs at the end of our scenery trip. The waves there are so loud and powerful you can hardly hear anything else. Abby suggested I yell and scream into the waves to "complete the stress cycle" of the Peaceful Bay Chalet experience--and the arachnid scare from the night prior.

Henry took time to build a dam for the fresh water spring entering the ocean.

As we headed back, we made time to stop at the Majestic Merino wool shop so Abby could buy some authentic Australian made wool. It turned out to be at the home of a woman who used to have her own flock of sheep. The only sheep she has left has only 3 legs. But she still has the same sheep dog. She greeted us at the gate. Her name is Tuppance.

The woman and her husband had just recently returned from a 3 month trip around Australia in their RV. She was having trouble getting the lights in the room to turn on and stay on, and calmly figured that some creature had taken up lodging in the attic while they'd been away and messed with the wiring. I suppose those are the costs of living in such a rural place. But the trade is that she gets this view of the Frankland River from her front porch!

She makes her own multi media scenery kits. They use fabric, embroidery, and paint to create beautiful scenes from the local area.

Abby has a friend that's going to knit her a dinosaur sweater from this Australian Wool. Abby has GOOD friends.

With beaches surrounding the entire area, I thought it was weird that a motel even bothers to install a pool. Henry thought it was a blast. He swam until the sunset. We had to hurry and get to the restaurant for dinner before they closed for the night. Everything else was already closed.

DAY FOUR

The original plan was for us to drive to Albany today. Our Airbnb was going to be a unique rural stay at a sustainable farm. It even says in the description that we need to be aware of wildlife in the area. We'd had two unsettling experiences with our previous Airbnbs that burned all our emotional energy. We opted to head back home. It would give us the chance to be in Perth for Australia Day and for Ashley and Abby to spend their last two days in civilization instead of rural Australia.

I was drawn in by the name of this gallery. It had a variety of high quality artwork from local artists.

This tiny assortment of shells was so captivating.

This one had a collection of US license plates for sale. I bought an airplant instead.

We made time to visit Circular Pools before leaving town. Ashley got made it safely across to the other side of the river bed on the rocks. But the return trip didn't go as well.