Page 194 - Mit dem Wohnwagen durch Australien 2

Further inland we visited the only Monastic town in Australia, New Norcia near Perth. It was built in the 19th century
by Spanish monks. While strolling along their main road you really get the impression of being in rural Spain. They
produce their own food, veggies and wine. They sell some of their produce. Their bread and olive oil is exceptionally
good. Today about 8 Monks and 120 employees are running the large agricultural estate, which results in a good
profit. The very well kept churches, houses and grounds speak for themselves.
Presently brown and dry because this part of W.A. is one of the only parts of Australia which has not benefitted from
the massive rainfalls elsewhere.

PERTH
We are presently in Perth, our next Service Station: Doctors check-up (all ok), Caravan service (well done), and
tyres for the Troopy. The Tyre saga will now come to its conclusion. We have a voucher from the tyre place in
Melbourne for the two tyres we blew at the beginning of our travels, which they are happy to extend to one of their
sister companies here in Perth. We can get the two original tyres replaced which are worn by now. All’s well, that
ends well.

Perth supplies us also with much needed culture. We finally get to see the movie “The Kings Speech”, and then we
visit a sculpted Art exhibition on Cottesloe Beach. The Western Australia Aquarium lets us experience the whole
coast from Broom down to Esperance again with its many live exhibits from the different coasts. Most impressive
are the huge sharks and stingrays which swim all around us in the long glass tunnel. Finally we enjoy a classic
concert with music by Sibelius and Rachmaninov, (just great) with our friends Shirley and Trevor, whom we first met
at our first Christmas in Australia in now flooded Crestwick. Slowly the circle starts to close.

SOUTH W.A.
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We have travelled 6 months in the hot and humid North. If you live north of the 28 latitude you are considered in the
far North in W.A. and are entitled to some special deals like paid travel to the next big hospital etc.. This is very
important, because all the large specialised hospitals are in Perth thousands of kms away from the patients. W.A. is
the largest state in Australia and encompasses the whole western coast of Australia, but everything is centred south
on Perth. The administration has not a very good reputation up north because sometimes they are a bit off the mark.
Like when Colin Barnett, the Premier of W.A. negated the need of air conditioning in the hot north with the remark,
that his house (down south) also has no aircondo!!! It did not go down well with the population battling with Cyclones,
heavy storms, 38 C and a humidity of up to 98 %, even at night. Health is poorer up North. The survival rate with any
serious illness like cancer etc. is far below that in the South or any other Australian State. This really is a shame for
the wealthiest state of Australia with all its large mines and oil wells.

Rockingham a bit South of Perth lures us with the tiny Penguin Island. It is breeding ground for the smallest of the
Penguins, the Little-, Fairy- or Blue-Penguin. These Water birds weigh around 1 kg. In order to keep that weight up,
they have to forage for fish in ocean the whole day. After sunset they come ashore in large groups. One second they
swim, the next, they are upright on their two duck like feet. As agile as they are in the water, as clumsy they appear
on land. They waddle up the sandy shores to their burrows to rest, or feed their young.

The island is also home to a large colony of Pelicans. The majestic birds are nesting high on a cliff and some of
them fly gracefully off to the water below. They are very shy and we cannot get any closer, but admire them from
afar.
Other than that, the coast resembles the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Terribly overcrowded and over built. You
can hardly see the beach through all the grand houses. A lot of them are empty. Housing prices in Australia are sky
high. Here in W.A. they top everything. It is just not our favourite habitat.

We are draw to Pemberton by its promise of one of the largest trees on earth, the Karri a Eucalypt variety. Pemberton
has an old lugging tradition and only few of the huge trees have survived. The good news is that in the last 70 years
they have grown back. Some of them have been designated as fire watchtowers like the Gloucester Tree which is
62 m high

The rangers have spiked it with metal rods in an upward spiral on which you can climb all the way to the top. I did not
quite manage it all the way. We took the Pemberton tram, a little train, to explore the Karri Forest and its large trees
further.