SWAA: Mini-Putt, Lots of Trees, and The Cove

After an allergy-filled sleep at the Karri Valley Resort we had a buffet breakfast in a nice dining room overlooking the lake.  It was your typical breakfast but Ryan discovered these  delicious croissants that were so warm and squishy that we stole one for lunch (which of course would again be a picnic on the side of the road, so we also stole butter, an apple, and peanut butter).  I spotted a banana from across the room and made a beeline for it because they're so expensive here (down from $18/kg to $12/kg!), but turns out it was plastic.  Yet another disappointment at that hotel. 

Sorry, enough about the food.  Before we left we decided to play a quick round of mini-putt at the resort.  As a side note, no one calls it mini-putt here and they're thoroughly confused when I call it that.  I can't remember what they do call it though…  ANYWAYS without going into to too many details, Ryan kicked my butt but we were both very over par.  There was one hole that was a par 3 and I got it in two shots (picture victory dance) but then Ryan got a hole in one! (picture him not gloating and me pouting...and maybe hitting my club on things and stomping around like a child) 

When we were picking up our clubs from the "fun shack" or whatever it was called, there was randomly a tiny black lamb wandering around and being all cute following people.  As if that wasn't funny enough, when we went to return our clubs there was an 18 month old Western Grey kangaroo in a harness (without the leash) hopping around the shop!  Only in Australia can you have a kangaroo for a pet, but I still can't explain the lamb.

After our morning of fun we decided to head to Beedelup Falls, which supposedly had a suspension bridge over top of it.  We knew it was close to the resort, but when we showed up we could actually see the hotel from the lookout.  Turns out the falls were feeding into the lake we were staying on...oops.  Serves us right for being too lazy to do the short walk to the falls that the resort advertised!  Actually, it was kind of lame in the end.  The falls were really small but the suspension bridge was sort of fun.  They have random radio stations that you can tune into for a narration of the park you're in, and we should have listened when the guy said "some people from other countries can't believe we find these falls so exciting because they're used to much bigger falls…"  Seriously, it was like 3m high.

  

Now on to more exciting things, like the Giant Tingle Tree!  We went on a nice quiet walk through a tingle tree forest in Walpole-Nornalup National Park (which randomly had lots of info boards about dinosaurs) and saw these absolutely massive trees.  They're interesting because all of their important growing mechanisms are located in the outer layer of the tree, so when there's a forest fire they burn through the middle first and end up hollow but can still keep on living.

Moving right along, our last stop for the day was the Tree Top Walk.  Basically this was equivalent to climbing a giant tree, but it was wheelchair accessible.   This walk was very well done and absolutely beautiful, so Ryan and I took our time and decided to bird watch.  It was really cool because the walk took you up a slow incline, allowing you to see the trees and birds at all of the different levels.  At the top there was a long pathway 40m above the ground which was also really neat, and arguably much better than the 75m tree I climbed.  It was certainly more relaxing!

Throughout the day we had patchy cell reception, so we were a bit frustrated trying to find a place to stay that night.  We ended up calling this place in Denmark called The Cove that sounded nice in the tourist pamphlet we had.  They had one cabin left, which the owner explained on the phone was usually reserved for groups.  He suggested that we look at it before we committed but was willing to give us the single room rate.  Thinking he just meant it was for families, we were not phased at all and decided to stay there.  Upon arrival, however, we were warned again that maybe we should look at it.  The drive in was so beautiful and it was located in a very secluded forest, so stubbornly we again declined to look at it first.  Then the owner brought us to this:

Yes, that was the "A-Frame" we were staying in.  All by ourselves.  And the inside looked like this:

(pause for effect)

Yes, the table seated 25 and if you look carefully you can see some cots lined up on the right of the picture.  There were 19 beds in the cabin.  What  you can't see are the amazing sky lights all above the table, and how massive that fireplace is.  It was absolutely beautiful (and built by the owner and his family), so needless to say we stayed two nights instead of one!  We pulled two couches up to the fire, grabbed some blankets, and drank wine and played Ghost Stories (my favourite board game) all night.  And by all night I mean until like 9:30 when I passed out.  From being tired.  Not from the wine.