A good friend and her family came to visit us the other weekend; she is a kindred spirit, in the way that she sees herself as a fellow gnome, not of the wood variety, but a common village gnome. You know that sort, when you have a closer look at your neighbours and wonder why some always seem to wear a scarf up to their eyes or a cap deep into their face, moving a bit awkwardly and often mumbling under their breath while hurrying down the road? They're hiding their ears and are not to be mistaken with garden gnomes. Entirely different species.

Now, that friend was sitting her exams a few weeks ago in Average Gnome Customs and for the practical part she made a pair of mist-proof boots for me out of random findings.

She sent them to be with the plea to road-test them and film the tryout for further improvements.

Which I did. They consisted of a pair of excruciatingly beautiful pink, flowered thongs, two large plastic bags and a pair of straps to secure the construction right under the knee. It must have looked awesome when I stepped into our local rivulet to see if they are actually not only mist - but waterproof. Which they were. Thumbs up, they worked very well and I was very pleased to call them my own.

Unfortunately I managed to delete the filmed proof somehow and when my friend wanted to see evidence of my tests I had to admit that she would have to rely on my word only. Now, village gnome are highly suspicious creatures, and I fear she didn't trust me to the degree I'd have liked to. What was to do, in the middle of the night, our husbands in the thick of an extended wine tasting and her daughter already gone to sleep?

Sure, we had to repeat it all. So off we went, armed with torches, the camera and the boots, into the forest, down to the rivulet, on went the boots, into the stream ( cosy 5°C cold ) and my friend stood next to me on dry grounds, giggling madly, jumping up and down and snapping the whole thing. I do hope nobody saw us there, or else the rest of what little reputation I have left is gone with the winds.

But my friend was extremely proud of me and promised never to doubt my word ever again. For proof see below.

Autumn Colours

What an amazing ..... well, what is it? A Tractor Cabrio? Made some heads turn around for sure and looks like real fun.

Regent to the left, Silvaner to the right (grapes, that is).

No more hand picking, these giant machines to all the hard work these days. They are enormous, and so loud! The vines are shaken and the grapes fall on a conveyer belt that carries them on to a trailer.

Given the special climate in our area, sweet chestnuts grow here by the thousands. Like many other things, the Romans brought them here and apart from me and the other hundreds of people that plough up the grounds in search of the biggest and sweetest chestnuts every September/October, the wild boars are eternally thankful, too.

Goes without saying. We used to turn those into itching powder when I was a kid.

It's an amazing sight when the grape leaves start to change their colour, depending on the variety from a light yellow to a deep red. The village here is Leistadt, beautifully situated at the corner of the forest, overlooking the vinyards down to the Rhine plains.

Kallstadt; in the distance Herxheim am Berg. We have cosy wine village like these by the dozen.

Part of the old outer fortification walls of our Wachenheim castle. I lived just 150m downhill to the right.

Home again; Thursday

Last breakfast.
Last time packing the car.
Last walk along the Swan River.
Last pictures taken.
Last drive with our now beloved battle ship.
Last time taking up fuel.
Last taxi ride.
Last time paying with Australian dollars.
Last look on Australian ground from the plane's windows.
Last everything here Down Under.
What a sad day.
Will I come back? You can bet on that.

Fremantle, Wednesday

Our last complete day in OZ.

Holy shit , where did those four weeks went? We had a really lazy day, wandering around, looking for the Kulcha, Fly By Night and Sail And Anchor, visiting the WA Maritime Museum, spending some time on the beach, reading, gathering strenght for the evening. Last opportunity to have some Australian beers and maybe even spot some of Tigh's list.

So around 7.30 we went out to have dinner at Cicerello's (yummy seafood, Harald had a grilled Barramundi that was stunning). The first time I was given a pager that peeped and blinked to indicate that our food was ready and could be picked up and a red bucket with ice to keep our bottle of wine cool. Lovely sunset in the harbour and , apart from those pushy seagulls, a serene dinner.

After that we were ready for a pub crawl. We started at the Sail and Anchor and tried our way through some of their homebrewed stuff. The Brass Monkey Stout has to be my favourite. Then we trundled through some others whose names I can't remember but where I finally found and enjoyed Redback Wheat beer until we landed at Rosie O'Grady's pub which had live music and where we finally let the evening die away. I had more than my share and was dead tired, so we went back to our room for what was left of the night.

Yep, really a place where you could spend a few days.

Up north again; Tuesday

We carefully planned our trip to arrive in Yarloop on the appointed time and made a good job of it as we entered the locality in exactly the half hour I had announced our arrival. Mike seemed to have expected a phone call nonetheless (in case we got lost? I have no idea) but that couldn't be helped now.
I have to admit he is very handy. Again not what I had expected, but very pleased. It was a pleasure to meet Rhonda as well as two of the kids later on who didn't seem to be able to make hand or foot of us being there. Mike had the BBQ going and treated us to a wonderful lunch (thanks again for that!!).
Again, I commited a blunder. I am completely disappointed with what the Aussies call 'bread' in this country. It consists of 50% air, 30% water and 20% something, offers absolutely no resistance to your teeth and messes up your digestion completely. So I was more than pleased to spot "real" bread on the table, with a crust that deserved the name, something substantial. That made Mike burst into a laughing fit; he said that just the once when they'd have german guests they wouldn't dare to bring out the plastic bread. And so on..... he could hardly calm down again.
Anyway, it was a lovely afternoon; we chatted till we really had to go if we wanted to reach Fremantle during daylight. I finally got to hear some of McGills songs plus others I liked quite a lot and I have a vague idea now what Mike is doing in Egypt when he is supposed to work....
The afternoon was all too soon over and we parted again, leaving him a bit puzzled after I had delivered the kisses I have been asked to give him. I apologize if that came a bit surprisingly, but I'm reliable in my deliveries. I was asked, so I did. Maybe we'll meet again some day. I do hope so.
This time the predicted time we'd need for reaching Freo was not only right but it took us even longer. There was a fire in the BP Oil Refinery along the highway and we had to take a large detour to reach our destination, just in time before dawn.
But oh my god, what hostel did we land in again. So far we had all possible combinations of clean,big/dirty, small bedroom, well/bad equipped,clean/filthy kitchen, working,clean/sleazy bathroom. But this one outtook most of them. It was big (for one the handrail was not sticky and that was the best feature...) and the managers didn't seem to give a damn about it. The kitchen was .... I won't go there now, I just had lunch....... absolutely sickening.
Two showers (in various states of deterioration) for the whole floor and I won't tell about the giant cobwebs/spiders in the loos. At least our bedroom was kind of ok, but since staying there I have a nasty rash that is still itching like hell a week later and I have no idea where that comes from. Though I have a wild theory......
The town itself was great. Would be even nice to spend a week there and usually I'm not for towns. Very lifely, interesting night life and some nice beaches to spend the days sleeping.
Just the right place to relax a bit on our last day here.

Albany; Monday

The first day with really bad weather. And Graham isn't even anywhere near us. Heavy winds, rain showers, very uncomfortable. We headed for Albany, having intended to spend an easygoing day at the beaches of Torndirrup National Park. No way. We drove to the most outstanding features like the blowholes, the Natural Bridge and the Gap, but as it grew colder and colder we turned around, driving to our hostel to warm up again. At least to some degree.
Monday, 17th was St.Patrick's Day, right? So we were at least looking forward to a moist and merry evening in one of the local pubs. When we went out for dinner we already spotted some weirdly dressed blokes in green shorts, shirts and giant plushy hats, which assured us that there would be some sort of celebration later on. But when we looked for it around 9pm there was....nothing. Zilch. Nada. We found two (TWO!) pubs in a city of 30000 (we only looked in the city itself, but hey, even so the result was poor) and both were almost empty, no party, no music, no nothing. I was not in the mood to start one for myself, seeing that not many people were out having a ball. They were more the type of serious drinking "I'm not doing this for fun" guys. So what, we went home again and that was about it. Strangest St.Patrick's day we ever had.
Only highlight was phoning Mike and discovering that his voice was completely different to what I had expected. As far as I understood him we made an appointment to meet the other day on our way to Fremantle. So that was a thing worth looking forward to.

Bibbulmun Track; Sunday

We left early in the morning and drove a few kilometres to the Tree Top Walk, a giant steel construction on which you can take a stroll through the crowns of some of the most astonishing trees in the world. The walkway goes up to 40m above the ground, which gives you a kind of "squirrel sight" on the forest; we made it three times as I couldn't part from it. The bridges were designed to swing with the wind which was a delight to me, but obviously not to some elderly people who looked a bit distressed...

Next to it is the Ancient Empire Walk, a grove of impressive veteran tingle trees, some over 400 years old. They are endemic to this area and only grow on some 1600 ha. Most of them are affected by a fungus that has eaten away all the core wood and when there was a fire it burned all the rotten wood away, smouldering for months sheltered from rain through the outer bark, until it reached living, moist wood and went out again. This way most of the trees are hollow to some degree which makes for some interesting cavities. This giant tingle is so huge that you could park a pickup in his trunk. It makes you feel so small to stand beneath it, watching through the gaps in his bark, wondering how on earth it can still be alive. But he is doing exceedingly well. We took part in a guided tour through the Ancient Empire Walk and the guide told us that 1937 and again somewhere in the 70s there were massive crown fires sweeping through that area, going on an incredible speed (no chance of keeping out of its way..... ) and burning vast expanses. But even if these trunks are almost completely destroyed, they still live on and regrow from shoots lying just under the thick outer bark. We saw trees, completely hollow and burned to a bare minimum, hardly holding to the soil, but surrounded by four, five "new" trees emanating from the original trunk, growing strong and green.

These "walks" barely covered 5km altogether, almost nothing. So we decided to tackle a part of that famous Bibbulmun Track that covers almost 1000km from Perth to Albany. I have been told that it is similar to the Appalachian Track in USA, of which I have absolutely no knowledge at all, but others might. So there were more trees to marvel at (no hugging, sadly; on one hand they are simply too big, and on the other hand, huge as they might be, they are also very fragile with shallow roots that are easily damaged when you step on them and they don't like to be touched. They might survive a conflagration, but the guide showed us where people had constantly touched the bark of some red Tingles and how it had damaged the bark, forming large podgy humps like scar tissue. Sigh.).

I "see" with my hands and I love touching things. In German 'to reach for' and 'to understand' are closely related ('greifen' and 'begreifen') and that's how I work as well. It was hard not to touch all the new things I found in this country, but my encounters with nature have been very painful at times in the past, so with all the poisonous stuff here I was fully aware that I'd best keep my hands close by. Not to mention sniffing/trying things as I usually do.

But even so it was a rewarding walk for several hours. One day I'd love to spend at least a week on one of these long tracks, here or elsewhere in the world. That should be serious fun, spending all day outside, sleeping in the woods and all. Even if it rains.