Reptilia!!!

4th December 2009

We left Margaret River today and headed south towards Pemberton. First stop though was Lake Cave, one of over 100 caves in the region. After paying an extortionate $19 to enter the caves, they then told you that there were over 300 steps before you even got into it! So we prepared ourselves for the experience by doing the Cave Crawl – a genuine caving experience!! Not really sure if its supposed to be done in a skirt and gold sandals but you know me, once I’ve seen someone else do something I’m never prepared to be outdone!!

As we headed over 60 feet down into the caves they did then also point out that the only real life forms in the caves were two different types of spider! Seriously, it was just as well that they’d already taken our money!

One of the most famous of the formations in the cave was the ‘Hanging Table’ – 5 tonnes (the equivalent of three small cars apparently!) of limestone suspended from the ceiling!

After emerging into the daylight we then headed further south to the Leeuwin lighthouse, just outside Augusta. It is the tallest lighthouse in Australia with its beam visible from 45km away and flashing every 7.5 seconds, apparently a signal unique to it in the whole of Australia. The other interesting fact is that it’s the only place in Australia where you can see the meeting of the Southern and Indian Oceans!

Whilst this was all fascinating and the views amazing from the top including being able to see dolphins, the highlight of our visit was when the lighthouse keeper told us to watch out for snakes on the way to the lighthouse – so we obviously thought that he was just winding up the English girls until we saw two eyes in the undergrowth and the most enormous scaled head! However, even Australian snakes don’t have legs and we suddenly realised that what was staring at us was actually a bobtail skink lizard!! So after laughing about the fact that we’d all jumped at the sight of it we didn’t happen to notice, until we nearly stepped on it, a huge brown snake crossing the pathway! Check out the pictures below!!

We then carried on to Pemberton – 130km through the Blackwood Forest of unchanging landscape!

Opposite our accommodation we decided to take a little detour to see the ‘Cascades’, rapids which make up part of the Gloucester National Park. This threw Kz into paroxysms of panic as she a) wasn’t sure if we should be taking a hire car onto an un-made up road b) didn’t have enclosed footwear in case of snakes c) realised that we hadn’t actually purchased a ticket for the national park d) brought her ‘Bushman’ bug spray with her and e) hadn’t mentally prepared herself to enter a hazardous environment today!!

So we left Kz having a not so quiet hyperventilating attack by the side of the rapids as Zanna and I went to explore! Amazingly, we all escaped unscathed and it made a pleasant end to the day, before we headed to our accommodation for the evening where we had a homemade hamper awaiting for us containing dinner, a view over the fields of the sunset and a couple of tame kookaburras to provide the entertainment…

Ps! Did I mention that we also saw a dead emu today – hoping for an alive one tomorrow!!