Theres not alot Rotten In This Shire of Denmark...

We decided at the beginning of this trip to go slower and spend more time in each place instead of rushing like lemmins to see what round the next corner so we are doing our best... We have spent 3 days at a very nice camping at Parry beach ... with a friendly kookaburra and brave mouse that came to visit us in the night. The place is alegedly teeming with deadly snakes but we havent seen any .. yet..

From this base we have walked on alot of beaches, and we wandered on some cliff tops and up some hills... and scrambeled on quite alot of rocks...we visited Greens Pool - good for swimming and Elephant rocks, both were very pretty but absolutely crowded as it was the weekend.

We had a pleasant wander around Denmark which is quite a pretty little town, full of nice shops with very expensive things in... some nice artwork and good cacti though.

But mainly it's been more stunning long beaches, turquoise seas and crashing waves... and in between a few nice swimming lagoons with not so crashing waves so I,ve actually been swimming properly.. out of my depth!

There's been a continued proliferation of huge giant boulders some on the beach.. some on hills and Dr Fred has been and touched them all - he has also looked longing through the van window at distant crag on the top of far away mountains... but you can't have everything!!

Today we did the elevated treetop walk in the Valley of the Giants. The trees native to this area are called Tingle trees - and they are pretty amazing - some of them are really old amd consquently really huge.

The walkway is really good - a 600 metre stretch which takes you up 40 metres high so you really are looking down on most of the trees. It's obviously very sturdily built but has a quite definite sway as you walk along the gantries which have got metal fenced sides and a grill floor for optimum viewing...

it was pretty amazing - very tranquil, but a bit creaky in places and fortunately not too busy - there are supposed to be alot of Quokas but didnt see any. I'm still a tad disappointed at lack of wildlife....

I went and swam at peaceful Bay ... Dr Fred did rocks... we climbed Flagstaff lookout and looked back along the bays.. as always stunning views.

This is good camping (again)... probably my joint second favourite - we have a good private spot with a campfire... but tomorrow or by the time I post this we will be off round the next corner...

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty b...

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