Denmark

Our road trip to Denmark was successful and most pleasant. Going down, we took the Albany Highway, ‘down the middle’ to Mt Barker, then across to Denmark. In all about 4.5 hours.

I left Joan to rest at the motel whilst I delivered the laptop and printer to the High School. The young lady to whom I was giving the gear had decided to ‘chuck a sickie’ from school, but when we rang her she immediately raced in to get a run down on the operating system and the niceties of the Mac . She was thrilled with it all and I could see that it was a worthwhile project.

We have been to Denmark a few times before and visited our friends, James and Marilyn, but had not seen their 38 acre farmlet. It is about 5 kilometres out of town in a beautiful valley surrounded by picturesque hills. They have about 5 acres of various berries which is a good sideline for Marilyn. She is/was employed by the Commonwealth Government as a census taker but last year had a major road accident and has permanent damage and acute pain due to her injuries. Even so she tends the thousands of berry plants and has plastic chairs placed at strategic points amongst the rows so that she can rest. Kangaroos share the paddocks with cattle. We are envious of their lifestyle and were we younger and fitter,would seriously consider a country lifestyle change
The farmhouse is of Rammed Earth construction and has great views across several properties.

Denmark town is very pretty with the river right in the middle of town. It is a bit backward in as much as the local kids don’t even know how to do graffiti. We saw none in the town or surrounds. Yesterday morning I got up at about 5.30am and went for a walk. Council workers were already watering garden beds and tidying up. Most civilised!

In the middle of town is a war memorial which looks like it was built by a 'busy bee' group. It has a very chintzy 'eternal flame' which is actually red fabric fluttering in a blast of air. I think that beats the statue of Our Lady of Fatima we saw in Noumea which had a circular fluorescent light tube as a Halo.
The 'eternal flame' is at the left and below is a closeup shot of it.


Denmark is about 60 kilometres from Albany which has much more history than Denmark. We like both places, but Albany is a small city, very much like other cities or large towns. Denmark, with its farming and forest very close to the town limits, has a genuine country feel to it.

Tuesday evening we joined Jim and Marilyn for dinner at the Tavern. Nice sounding meals, but rated just a 4 from me.

Before we left Denmark to drive home we returned to Berry Farm to collect three tubs of their selected berries. At home last night we had some with ice cream. Lovely!

We drove back using a different route taking 6 hours through magnificent state forests. The long drive cured us of any urge to drive interstate or anywhere more that 500 kilometres. Plane and hire car for us.

Today we have a meeting with the radiotherapy specialist. We assume that he is going to go over all the side effects and expectations of the SIRT treatment before Joan has it next Thursday. Joan held up well over the two days away. Six weeks without chemo makes a huge difference.