I can’t seem to sleep much in the van, despite retiring late with a movie and a book. I was still up at the crack of dawn, doing my exercises and talking a good long walk outside before heading to the showers. I chewed up an hour and a half on these things, but Pam was still not terribly happy at being woken at six-thirty; can’t say that I blame her for that. We had a light breakfast and rolled out about seven-thirty, just enough time to get to the Dome in Margaret River for a Skype call to Jon and Nic in Canada.

They weren’t home, but Jon was savvy enough to put call forwarding on Skype so we could track him down at Nic’s parents’ place. We had a lovely visit with them and Ben and Abi, who were delighted to “see” us and blew endless kisses at the monitor. Their cheery manner and happy faces have been with us the entire day.

We headed back to the Caves Road through the awesome Karri forest that lines the road and made a detour into Hamelin Bay to see the ruins of jetty that once loaded these enormous trees for shipping to London, England to build the stately mansions and stores of the 19th century. The relic in the sign above refers to the jetty, not yours truly, although after this trip it is likely to be true of me as well!

We also made a trip to Cape Leeuwin, the most south-westerly point of Australia where two Oceans, the Indian and the Southern meet. The drive across to Pemberly was uneventful and uninteresting, but the forests around Pemberly were a different matter. We had a lovely tour of the Warren Forest, filled with old growth Karri trees, some that were clearly more than 500 years old. After an unsuccessful and ill-advised attempt to take the van down a virtually impassable road to the river, we back-tracked to a much more civilized road that had a sweet little tea house where we could sit on the patio and watch the breeze move these magnificent trees in a gentle and endlessly varied dance.

Pam’s patience and watchfulness was rewarded with our first sighting of a mother kangaroo, her joey clearly visible in the pouch beneath her front paws, slowly making her way across the back field. They remind you of deer in their alert grazing, but their tails give them a clear advantage in providing both balance and locomotion, freeing their front paws to assist in the feeding process. We returned to our campsite and had a nice steak dinner and did a load of laundry. We settled into an evening of reading and blogging, quite happy with our lot in life and very grateful for the technology that allows us to visit with our children and grandchildren from the other side of the world.