Wanderung 33

Drive Southward from Margaret River

Having explored the northern strip between Margaret River and the Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse, we decided to spend a day exploring southward down to the town of Augusta and the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse, which marks the boundary between the Indian Ocean to the West of Australia and the Southern Ocean to the South of Australia.

But we certainly wanted to take the scenic routes to get around if at all possible, so we first drove westward to rejoin the Caves Road that essentially runs North-South from the vicinity of one lighthouse to the other. As I had hoped, we were again driving through fields, vineyards, and forests on a pleasant 2-lane country road, which is the type of driving that I enjoy the most. The `Cape To Cape Walk Track` runs from one lighthouse to the other, and it follows directly along the coast for much of its length, but this was a car tour rather than a hiking or biking tour. Still, I was intrigued by the fact that there were several coastal villages along the length of that walk, which opened the possibility of a walk that would proceed in stages from one village to the next each day, with a comfortable bed and shower at the end of each day`s trek, and that is pretty close to my idea of Heaven.

Another odd feature of this extreme southwest corner of Australia was almost a chain of caves along the Caves Road, some of which were accessible to tourists. Each cave seemed to offer something a little different, but we finally settled on Mammoth Cave as it promised fossil remnants of extinct animals in it! If we had more time I would have purchased the `4-cave ticket` and walked through as many of these caves as I could.

Mammoth cave, like all the others along Caves Road, was formed during the Ice Ages when sea levels were so low that the shoreline of old reefs and shells and sand was exposed and the prevailing winds piled that debris high up in inland dunes. Well, all that material solidified into a form of limestone, and with rain percolating down through the soil and acidifying, the caves were gradually carved out of the karst limestone area, and stalactites and stalagmites starting forming inside.

It was wonderfully cool, almost cold, inside Mammoth Cave as we started into the first couple of rather large chambers past a front entrance that looked rather like a shark`s mouth full of teeth. As this was a self-guided kind of tour, we were equipped with a pre-recorded set of descriptions of the formations and history of the cave a several points inside.

True to the advertising, we found a nice exhibit of some of the fossils that had been excavated from the cave, as well as one jawbone that had been left intact inside the stalagmite that had formed around it. I was amazed that there were now-extinct huge kangaroos in the mix of fossils, a super large wombat-shaped type of marsupial grazer (Zygomaturus Trilobus, pictured below), and even a marsupial version of a saber-toothed tiger to prey on the vegetarian marsupials! We had seen recreated statues of those animals at the ticket office, but didn't really know what they were at the time.

We continued to wind our way back into the mountain, following the small stream that is in fact still eating away at the floor of the cave and ever so slowly enlarging it. Water was also dripping from the ceiling in places, mostly along walls of flow-stone, which made it really glisten in the lights installed in the cave.

I kept expecting we would hit the end of the cave and turn around to go out again, but that never happened. Instead we followed that stream back until we came to a huge sinkhole, where we climbed a lot of stairs to get back up to ground level. It turned out we had gone maybe 1/4 of a mile underground, just far enough to have crossed underneath Caves Road!

So carefully recrossing the road, we took the 700 meter Long Walk back to the ticket office, and that was great because they had turned it into a Nature Trail with plaques along the side explaining various plants. And trust me, those plants were all new to us! We crossed the stream that created Mammoth Cave one last time on a set of large stepping stones, except that they were made out of some kind of local wood. When we got back to the ticket office we turned in our headsets and continued on.

Since it was almost noontime, we decided to seek a place to eat in Augusta, at the far end of Caves Road. But along the way we had the most magical experience--we drove through a Forrest of Karri trees. How can I explain a Karri tree? Well imagine a perfectly smooth white to pinkish white trunk that towers 150-300 feet above the forest floor. Then imagine a whole valley filled with these unnaturally tall, smooth trunks with absolutely no sign of branches until the very topmost layer of forest canopy, and you have an idea of what we saw. The Karri forest was so different from any forest that I have seen that words really do fail me and I hope you can get an idea from the pictures. We wanted to drive a side road deeper into the Karri forest, but that was unpaved and we were not supposed to take unpaved roads with our rental car, so we had to pass on that opportunity. Pity.

Augusta turned out to be quite a small town with no fast food chains of any kind. That was just as well, because we found the Augusta Bakery and Cafe that served us a quite nice pasta dish for lunch. For dessert we had `Willy Worms` which were meringues shaped like big fat worms and covered with rainbow sprinkles, and that was a specialty of the house, so to speak.

Re-energized by a pleasant lunch, we drove further southward to the lighthouse at the end of the Cape Leeuwin. Once again we signed up for a tour of the lighthouse, partly because that is the only way you get to climb the stairs to the top and look out from the circular walkway at the very top.

But the tour also comes with a live guide, and the ability to ask questions is a nice plus. I found out this light assembly is also floating in a vat of liquid Mercury, but the flashes for the signal are two flashes 7.5 seconds apart, for a total cycle time of 15 seconds. Our guide also said that they consider a certain rock a short distance offshore to be the real dividing line between the Indian Ocean to the northwest and the Southern Ocean to the southeast, because they can often see waves from both oceans crashing on the opposing sides of the island. On the day we were there, however, the waves came basically from the direction of the Indian Ocean.

Climbing 6 sets of steps was a bit of an effort, but the view from the walkway at the top was well worth it The view along the coast to each of two great oceans, the Indian Ocean to the West and the Southern Ocean to the East, was spectacular, and it was unique to see one ocean on each side of the narrow isthmus of land upon which the lighthouse sits.

Once back on the ground, we walked the paths surrounding the lighthouse, listening to the pre-recorded commentary at each of the numbered stops. That filled in more information about the life of the lighthouse keepers. They explained that this lighthouse was so isolated that the 3 identical houses for the lighthouse keepers were necessary to have redundant keepers available. At some of the stops the wild flowers of the low shrubs on the peninsula were blooming, which was very pretty.

For returning to Margaret River, I had planned out an alternate, back-country route, but in the end we were able to do only a part of that rural loop because some of the roads were just dirt roads and those were prohibited under our rental contract. Nuts. Still, the part that we did get to see from the Alexandra Bridge over the Blackwood River, up to Warner Glen, was very pastoral, with numerous fields of sheep and cows, plus some hayfields that appeared to have been recently harvested and baled, and a couple of vineyards.

Once back in Margaret River, we stopped back at Woolworth for another dozen eggs, and Monika picked up some Cheeky Monkey beer that is surprisingly brewed just down the road from Margaret River--I believe in buying local wherever possible. We had some of the eggs for dinner, plus some Vegemite on toast for me, and then read a book and relaxed with puzzles and games for the rest of the evening.