Hi, everyone! I hope you are all doing well. This week, I went to John Forrest National Park with my friend Jason, and it was really cool.
John Forrest National Park is the oldest national park in Western Australia, which I only just learned about a moment ago when I was researching something else. How cool is that! I didn’t know anything about it, other than the fact that echidnas can sometimes be found there. After seeing an echidna near the side of the road on the trip to Kalbarri, I looked up different spots that echidnas tend to hang out at, and John Forrest was one of them. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any echidna this time haha.
Jason picked me up at 8am and we drove 40 minutes to the national park. I was surprised to see the park was surrounded by lots of tall trees. Oftentimes, when hiking in Australia (at least in my experience so far), there aren’t many tall trees. Lots of shrubbery and various flora, but not too many trees.
Our intention was to hike the loop trail which went around the national park, but that didn’t really work out as you’ll read later.
The first stop along the way was the National Park Falls. Waterfalls! Oh, how I love them. But alas, dry season has begun in Western Australia, and there wasn’t a waterfall to be seen. However, we were able to walk atop the rocky outcrops where the water usually flows. The rocks were incredibly red – redder than the picture I’ve attached makes them appear. Jason reckons the rich hue comes from the iron in the rock… perhaps exposed from the constant flow of water eroding the rock in the winter months.
We continued along, observing birds and hoping to see some other interesting wildlife. There were some birds that were really cute and SO teeny tiny!
Next, we went to check out the Swan View Tunnel. It was really cool to see this old tunnel, constructed over 100 years ago. It goes straight through, so you can see the other side of the tunnel peeping through. My intention was never to go through to the other side – I was afraid there would be giant centipedes and huntsman spiders in there… but Jason made the decision for the both of us.
His phone’s flashlight hardly lit up the tunnel at all, once we’d gotten past the entrance. The guiding light was truly the light at the end of the tunnel. Jason led the way, and I had my hands over my mouth the whole time, following his footsteps and afraid of creatures that may lurk in the dark. At certain points, there were small puddles along the center of the tunnel – no doubt created by gathering condensation on the tops of the tunnel walls.
While I probably never would have been inclined to go through the tunnel, I’m glad we did. Within minutes of exiting through the other side, we were able to see a bobtail lizard up close. I had seen one a couple weeks prior the day I went to Omeo Wreck with Kory, but it ran away before I could get near it and see the details of its body. The defining characteristic of the bobtails is that their tails look similar to the shape of their heads – perhaps an evolutionary advantage?
Jason would have probably stepped on the lizard had I not noticed it. It was well camouflaged under the shade of a tree. We were able to observe it for a moment as it rested – allowing me to snap a few pictures. It then crawled away, wagging its strange tail and eating something off the ground before retreating into the bush.
Funnily enough, we saw another bobtail not even ten minutes later. The colors were much more vibrant, and this guy was taking a nap.
We also saw a really cool moth – I have never seen one that looked like this before in real life! It flew over and landed right next to my shoe. I stopped walking and it just sat there for a moment. When I lifted my foot again, it flew off immediately. Very cool!
We continued along our hike, but at this point had gotten ourselves lost. The trail took us briefly out of the national park, and when we re-entered, we thought we had continued on the “loop,” but we had not. Deciding it best not to go further in without a well-marked trail, we started to backtrack and took a different trail that seemed to head uphill. Before long, we had made our way up near the Swan View Tunnel again, and went back the way we came.
John Forrest – the man the park was named after – was an explorer who led expeditions around Western Australia. I really enjoyed checking out his national park!
After we left the park, Jason took me through Swan Valley to stop and check out the chocolate shops around there. Swan Valley is a region primarily known for its wineries, but they also have lots of chocolate shops and places to try cheese. Since I had work later that day, we only hung out for a minute, but it was cool to finally check out the area a little bit and to see the wine orchards along the way.
Jason bought some chocolate and let me try some – it was, as my mom would say, divine. He noted that the chocolate just tastes different than commercially manufactured chocolates, and he was right. It’s creamier, seems to melt in your mouth. Very yummy!
Art of the Week
Well, I did it! I drew something. I’m trying to go for a type of Rorschach situation, but I didn’t love this first attempt. Symmetry has always been hard for me. Hoping in the coming days, I can come up with something I’m quite happy with, because I think it will be a cool concept. We’ll see!
Reflections
Full on = extra (as in, “Steven is so full on”)
Yakking = vomiting
Spewing = vomiting (alternatively, if someone is spewing they could be bitching about something)
Some other notable moments of the week…
I went to dinner at the casino called The Crown the other day with Kory and our friends Yen, Candice, and Blair. It was funny to be at this huge place with slot machines and all that jazz – and to not have it filled with cigarette smoke! I was surprised to find smoking isn’t allowed inside the venue. A vast difference from Las Vegas. It was a fun time with friends.
While at work one day, our boat went down to Fremantle to pick up our passengers from there. When that happens, we have an empty vessel and my coworkers and I get to just hang out on the boat and enjoy the scenery from Perth to Freo. Along the way, I saw a few dolphins in the water which was such a nice treat.
Last night, I was on a charter boat (again, for work) and near the end of the evening, there were fireworks going off in Elizabeth Quay. It was so cool to see and made the work shift so much more enjoyable. The fireworks seemed somehow different from the ones in the states – some of them, I had never seen before.
That’s it for this week! I work tonight but am off tomorrow and I am going to – you guessed it – go snorkeling. It’s going to be 93 Fahrenheit here, so I’ll be putting on my sunscreen all day and hopefully finding a great spot to check out the fishies.
My work schedule for the rest of the month is looking pretty good. I have Christmas Eve through Boxing Day off, and then have some random days and New Year’s Day off as well – so I’m looking forward to a combo of relaxation & exploring during that time.
I can’t believe the year is almost over. What an interesting year it has been. I was speaking with Jason about this the other day – but it feels like my year has been split into three sections. The first section was counting down the days until I could finish work in Chicago / purging all of my belongings in anticipation of my trip. The second section was spending cherished moments with my loved ones before leaving for Australia (as I had a month and a half of not working between leaving Chicago and moving to Perth). The third and final section of the year… moving to Australia, and everything I’ve been experiencing out here so far! I’m excited to see what 2023 has in store for me. No doubt lots of wildlife, fun experiences, and plenty of adventure.
Sending you all my love! Special shoutout to my aunt Kiki – thinking of you!
P.S. This is random, but a quick vent. I have a pretty nice camera (Canon 7D – a DSLR) that I use to take pictures of wildlife when I go on adventures. I’ve had it for, geez, ten years at this point and it takes some incredible pictures. That said, the Auto Focus is awful and for years, I’ve stuck to Manual Focus. Even though it takes more time, and sometimes I get blurry photos when there is a quick action (i.e. whale breaching out of the water that I can’t focus on in time), it generally is super trustworthy. Lately, I’ve wanted to try doing Auto Focus again because allegedly it is SUPPOSED TO WORK! I’m calling that quits, because when I took pics of the bobtail lizard, I was incredibly close to it, and the Auto Focus still didn’t know what to focus on for majority of the pictures I took lol. In addition, I wanted to mention that some of my pics are taken from my phone and some are taken from my camera. Usually, I’ll do underwater video/pics with my GoPro that my dear friends Joey and Rob got me as a gift last year, landscapes on my phone, and wildlife pics with my cam – just because the zoom on my camera is so excellent for wildlife photography vs my phone that starts to get blurry/pixelated with a simple zoom. Anyway – that’s all!