We took the long way to Albany today, based on the recommendations of the Pemberton Visitors Centre, who advised us to go via Northcliffe and stop off to see an Art and Nature Trail called Understory. It started out as a community art trail championed by two people, the resulted in a 1.2 km trail being created through the Karri forest by volunteers along with many sculptures from a variety of artists are located.
What started as a protest over logging old growth forests and a decline in the local dairy industry, what has been created is quite amazing and is now a significant tourist attraction. It is a bit like a treasure hunt as the art is not labelled, but you wander along with a printed guide map giving you hints at where the art is along the trail. Some of it is obvious, and some needs a keen eye to find it.
Whilst there is a very strong environmental activist theme to much of the art, that is to be expected, and does not detract from the works and their themes.
The first thing you see is the quokka statues, which are clever and found in different areas through the walk.
The artists range from locals to well known artists from further afield, and some of the works are created by school students.
What was particularly striking was the inclusion of faces of local elders into burnt trees along the path. Some were obvious to see and others appeared if you looked hard. Here are a few examples.
A couple of pieces had a strong environmental messages.
This one called "treecycle" used recycled books, timber and screws
This one I thought was very clever. Called "Nurture" by the artist. The artwork was built using 20,000 pages of mostly unread government reports, returned to the forest.
There were two works that local school children were heavily involved in.
This one highlights the crap our kids are being taught at school and is titled "Floating Town", exploring the impact of global warming and rising sea levels.
This one is titled "High Rise Housing" created by a similar or the same team of students throughout the local region.
There were other great pieces that blended in with the forest trail theme.
This work apparently represents the the organisms that breakdown the forest littere
The message on this one was a bit too esoteric for me
The trail also took us through some great forest and wildflower displays. The tea tree is in flower at the moment which was the dominant wildflower, although we did see a few new ones.
Glad we had taken the recommendation to visit this site, it was time to move on, as we still have quite a way to go to get to Albany.
Highway 1, but it is not busy. Many patches of it are through National Parks and Karri Forests, with breaks of grazing land with some very healthy livestock.
Walpole was the first town of any significance we passed through, so we stopped there for lunch. It is a small village that seems to rely totally on tourism, and in particular, the Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk which is about 15 km South of the town. It is also on the Bibbulmun Track, one of the World's great long distance walks, stretching 1000km from Kalamunda in Perth to Albany.
Bibbulmun Track
The weather turned as we approached Albany, drizzly rain returned and a cold wind made it unpleasant to be outside for too long. We set up in the caravan park, have decided to spend 3 days here instead of our original plan of two, and are reviewing our plans from here probably bypassing Bremer Bay. The real attraction there is it has one of the highest concentration of orcas in the Southern Hemisphere, but not at this time of the year.
Keen to see some of Albany and not be too exposed to the weather, we ventured out into another artistic adventure. Albany has their very own chainsaw sculptor and he has his own drive through gallery to display his wares. As you don't need to get out of your car to see the works, it seemed ideal in this weather.
One of his works at the entrance
Here is just some of his work, which is prolific.
Enough of artistic pursuits, the weather is still not great for outdoor activities, but their is a lookout very near our caravan park that we decide to go to to get a general overview of the area. Mount Melville Lookout Tower, whilst not the highest rated lookout in town, gave as a great view.
Lookout tower
Here a few shots from the tower, sadly the overcast conditions detract from these great vistas.
Another new wildflower
Tomorrow we are hopeful the weather will be fine.
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