The ancient site of Stonehenge.
A place of ritual,
ceremony, great spiritual and mythical power.
A neolithic light bulb for the druid moths of old Europe.
I'm here to celebrate the winter solstice in the month of June.
Wait a second.
This is all wrong.
It looks like Stonehenge,
the ritual stones are there,
but...the solstice is inverted.
This grass is growing the wrong way.
Where, am I?
What manner of madness is this?
Yes. Stonehenge...
...but not as you know it.
Not the one on Salisbury Plain, the broken one.
No, the one they've mended,
here in Esperance, Western Australia.
If you think you know Australia...
...think again.
Because there's an even wilder...
Here we go.
Phwoar!
...weirder...
Even the kookaburras are embarrassed.
...and more wonderful version of the land down under.
I don't think there's anywhere like this on Earth.
And it's in the west.
There's so much space here.
You could put 13 Britains into West Australia.
Let me take you there.
Imagine a land of giants...
You look like Bill.
Yeah, you look like Luc.
...of alien landscapes...
I mean where else in the world can you see
a waterfall in the ocean?
whoa-ho!
...and a bunch of characters you won't find anywhere else on Earth.
Well, if you're Space Gandalf, I'lUl be, what'lL I be, Space Gimli?
ELECTRIC GUITAR RIFF PLAYS
You play so fine!
I know. Sounds too good to be true.
But it's not.
This is the real Western Australia right here. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
I come in peace.
Because here it is,
the most remarkable part of this Great Southern Land,
is the western bit.
Who knew?
In our DNA...
...we want this.
We wanna be amongst this.
Western Australia cracks open your soul.
This leafy-looking wonderland
is the southern coast of Western Australia.
With its Mediterranean climate and dense forests,
it's a world away from the endless red dirt
and baking heat of the north.
It's an idyll.
Keenly sought by the explorers of Asia and Europe over centuries,
though the First nations people here always knew they were onto
a good thing.
There's two towns of note in these parts.
Esperance and Albany.
Bustling commercial hubs where I plan to mix with the locals
and get the Western Australian vibe.
But before all that,
a treat which transcends anywhere else on Earth.
So, here we are at Lucky Bay.
Wow, look at that.
This corner of Western Australia was voted the world's best beach.
A big call, but on first glance, I think they may have got it right.
And it's even scientifically proven to have the whitest sand.
It's simply beautiful.
And an appropriate place for my official welcome to
the south by Nyungar elder and Lucky Bay local Doc Reynolds.
Hello, there.
Kaya. Doc. Welcome.
Hey.
Kepa Kurl Wudjari.
Oh. My country.
Doc makes his living reminding visitors that his culture
is the oldest on Earth.
65,000 years old.
Maybe more.
What is the name of your people here?
Well, we are the Nyungar people.
Right.
Which is the largest collective group of Aboriginal people
on the Australian mainland.
We have 14 tribes within the Nyungar Nation,
which is basically in the south west of Australia.
Now, what I'm going to do is do a very special
and sacred ceremony to welcome people onto Kepa Kurl, Wudja.
Or where the waters lie like a boomerang by the sea and the land.
Understand that? I do.
The boorn or the tree brings the scent of the Earth,
which is our mother, to us.
Just want you to stay for a few seconds,
just to grasp...
...Mother Earth.
Smoking ceremonies like this are used for cleansing
and warding off bad spirits,
and literally wearing Mother Earth as smoke.
It instantly connects you to country.
Wow, look at this. It's a proper picnic.
What's this plant you've got here? This is a eucalypt.
It's a boorn. OK. This one here is the Tjaltjraak.
This is the Blue Mallee.
I'll take from one from each tree.
And now we've got the water boiling here, put that in there, OK? Right.
Just a little handful.
Like that? That's it.
Chuck it in there.
Chuck it in there, yeah.
Right. There you go.
So what you do is you get it,
and you just swing it, and just go like that. Whoa.
OK? OK.
Because the gravity will hold it.
Yeah. And then you get it.
So when you see the tea swirling around,
you know that's ready now to drink.
And you got to have to tea like me -
black and sweet.
Cup of splosh.
Oh, that smells good.
While I love a good brew,
Doc's cuppa is also a bittersweet taste of Western Australia's past.
See back when we were first colonised,
and our men were working,
their pay was flour, sugar, and tea.
Right. And so...
...flour... Flour, yeah.
...sugar... Sugar.
...and tea. Tea, yeah.
So I get my revenge back on your guys.
So I'm paying you for you coming out to see me.
That's right. Well, I tell you, I'm not complaining.
Cheers.
This is good.
Well, that's that I call a proper welcome.
And now I'm fortified for the road ahead.
The southern highways of WA are dotted with country towns.
And while stopping to refuel...
Oh, The Quirky Den's my kind of place.
...something has caught my eye.
Hello?
I was just... We stopped for coffee,
and I saw in the window you have an accordion.
I do.
I wondered if I could look at it, please? You certainly can.
I'll get it out for you. Thank you very much. Thank you.
I notice it's, um, it's a Serenelli, which is a...
I think it's an Italian one, isn't it?
Is it? Or Russian?
Or might be Russian, yeah.
Might be.
Here we go. Look at that, it's working.
It's almost in tune.
Marvellous.
I'll take it. Oh, my God!
Lovely. Wow. Well, pleasure doing business with you, ladies.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Come again any time.
We will. Absolutely.
Thanks, then. Cheers. See ya. Bye.
100% Italian craftsmanship in rural Australia.
Grazie, mate.
OK, well, this will be fun on the road.
Now I'm sorted for sounds,
I can tell you a bit more about
the sheer size of this part of the world.
The population, 2.7 million,
or about the same as Manchester,
except it's 23,000 times larger.
All that space means Western Australians have access
to nature like nowhere else on Earth.
But to really appreciate WA's great outdoors,
I need a more elevated perspective.
I'm weaving my way through the landscape,
I'm making my way round the coast,
and I wanted to stop here,
at the Valley of the Giants,
just to get a sense of the biodiversity of the place,
the scale of the landscape,
and to find out about these massive trees.
Where they came from?
How did they get to be here?
And is this walkway safe enough for more than three people?
Hey. Hello, there. Helen, how are ya? Good.
Good to meet you. Lovely to meet you.
Lovely to meet you. Yeah.
This has definitely got a bit of a wobble.
It has. The more people on it, the more it'll wobble.
But there's only two of us, so you're fine. Oh, that's OK. All right, then.
We're fine.
This is quite amazing.
The Valley of the Giants Treetops Walk soars above
an ancient forest whose origins date back 65 million years.
I'm taking a spectacular if slightly precarious stroll
with my guide Helen.
We're gonna go up to the highest point.
OK.
How high are we up here, Helen?
Well, we're about 36 metres.
Not quite at the top yet.
What's that in the old money?
SHE LAUGHS
It's about a 13-storey building.
Oof. It's about 120 feet, I think.
120 feet? Right. OK. Something like that.
So don't drop anything... No. ..out of your pocket.
No. All right.
There's so much space here in Western Australia. Yes.
That's what I'm very much getting a sense of. Yes.
I worked out once that you could put 13 Britains into West Australia.
13?
Blimey.
And you're originally from the UK,
from Wales? From Wales, yes.
And you came here to live.
What was it about this place that made you want to stay?
I fell in love with Western Australia,
particularly because of the space.
Mm.
And to be honest, I loved all the plants and the animals,
how different they were,
how strange some of them were. Mm.
And people are genuinely happy in Western Australia.
I like it.
What are these trees, Helen?
OK, so these rough-barked eucalyptus trees,
they're called tingles,
but the local First Nations people call them Dingle Dingle.
Right. Which is a plural, it means lots of something.
See, these are special trees, because this is the only place
you'll find them, we've only got 6,000 hectares of them.
They are the biggest buttressing eucalypts in the world.
Wow. And we've got the Karri.
Oh, this one? The lighter colour one?
Yeah, the smooth bark one. That's a Karri.
Right.
But what's special about the Karris is that every February, March,
the tree will lose its bark,
and that's the time to go down to the south coast to fish
because the salmon are running on the south coast.
Ah.
That's great. I love that.
Nature's given you a bit of a, sort of, tip.
Yes. You know? Yes.
I can see why it gets the name.
Valley of the Giants?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
They didn't name it after me, as you can see.
I know.
I'm a hobbit. You're a hobbit.
Along with 10,000 varieties of native plants,
Western Australia also has 600 bird species.
And for an outdoors man like me, that's not too bad.
Hello. I think that's a Western Warbler.
He seems pretty tame.
He likes you.
So you've got all kinds of other wildlife here as well... Yep.
...in these trees in the forest?
What sort of things do you have?
Well, we've got the, I say the birds,
you know, the white-tail black cockatoos, the parrots.
We also get the possums,
the brush tail possums. Mm-hm.
And they love the holes in the tingles. Mm.
But on the ground, of course, we've got the famous quokka.
Yes.
Now, I've seen quokkas,
but I've only seen them on Rottnest Island. Yes.
I didn't realise they were on the mainland.
Yes. We've got them on the mainland.
And they live, mostly live in the sword grass,
and they make holes in the sword grass.
They go through and make nests on the ground.
Is that that grass that's really sharp... Yes.
...and the edges are really sharp? Yes.
I think I just encountered some of that.
Cutting grass.
Razor grass.
Very well aptly named.
Yes.
Helen's just told me great things.
She said, "Oh, I love it here."
And I said, "Yeah, because look at it, it's beautiful and wild,
"and there's a great expanse of nature and all that."
And she said, she goes,
with a slight welsh.. lilt in her voice,
she said, "I love it cos it's dangerous."
I said, "What?"
I said, "Most people...that's the reason why most people
"don't want to come to Australia,
"cos there are things that can bite you, and sting you, and nip you.
"There's sword grass, and, you know, everything.
"Even the plants want to stab you, get you."
She goes, "No, I like that.
“I like the danger."
Because it's untamed.
It's nature unchallenged, untrammelled, unrestrained.
This is my theory, right? This is what I think about all this.
Humans have an instinctive desire to connect with nature,
and most of the time, we spend our lives indoors, in cars, buildings,
and yet...we yearn to be out in all of this.
What this is, is this thing, biophilia,
our innate desire to be amongst nature.
It's part of our evolution.
Our ancestors spent all their time out in nature.
In our DNA...
...we want this, we wanna be amongst this.
This is where we feel...
...more at home, in a way.
And that is why I think that so many people here have this
positive attitude in Western Australia,
because of the proximity to the natural world.
And biophilia, this innate sense of desire to be amongst nature,
to connect with it,
is really what it means to be human.
Experiencing biophilia and being menaced by the local grass
has got my philosophical juices flowing.
A picnic spot is the perfect place to listen to
the sounds of nature, hear its rhythms,
and perhaps add my own accompaniment.
HE PLAYS THE ACCORDION
ACCORDION CONTINUES
I don't know what it's doing,
but I think I've scared all the wildlife off.
I'm travelling along the breathtaking southern coast of Western Australia,
and my next stop is Albany.
Although the Nyungar people's original name is Kinjarling,
meaning place of rain,
I like it already.
The British landed here in 1826
and set up a whaling industry
that prospered until the late 1970s.
Thankfully, humpback and sperm whales are now protected,
and as is often the way with gory and brutal industries,
there's a museum, and a gift shop.
Oh. Viewer discretion is advised.
Four whales being processed at once.
My God.
But what is...
...what's extraordinary about this photograph here,
there's bunch of kids...
...in the foreground.
Oh, my God.
What kind of school trip was that?
I mean, we used to go to ruined abbeys and old churches.
"Now, kids, we're gonna see a giant whale being carved up
"by a bloke in a pair of shorts.
"There'll be guts and blood and blubber.
"Make sure you write it all down on your questionnaires.
"Slaughter. Today, the theme of today's trip, kids, is slaughter."
There's 45-year-olds walking around in Albany now with
a kind of haunted look on them.
They probably all work in conservation now.
This kid here, on his own.
"Why?" That's what he's thinking.
"Why?
"Worst school trip ever."
I might hold off on my lunch for a bit after that.
But not every relic of whaling is quite as grisly.
This is an incredible piece of scrimshaw,
the art of etching onto bone.
In this case, the jaw bone of a sperm whale, and also on teeth.
And all of the teeth from this whale that were recovered
have got scrimshaw.
It's just staggering the amount of detail that goes on here.
This depicts the wreck of the boat, The Kathleen,
and there's the whalers rowing away from the wreck.
The storms and the waves all round
and all the teeth
depict a little story as well.
It's just extraordinary.
Whalers had a reputation as salty reprobates with
a healthy disregard for authority.
So it's no surprise that Albany is regarded as
WA's most rebellious town.
There's always been a strong separatist movement in WA.
As recently as 2020, almost a third of the population said they wanted
independence from Australia.
But Albany took things a step further,
wanting to secede from the state.
Malcolm Trail is an expert on WA's rabble-rousers.
So the, I guess the important thing
to realise from Albany folks' point of view is that we were
two and a half years ahead of Perth
because there was a settlement here in 1826.
Perth, as the capital, didn't get settled till 1829.
And there's always been this rivalry. Yes.
For many years in the 19th century,
Albany was the sort of centre of international trade,
and defence, cos it was a very strategic place.
So, from that point of view,
over the years, we've had a few little efforts
to secede from the rest of Western Australia.
Really? Yeah. So we thought, on a couple of occasions,
"Look, I think it would be good to set up our own state here.”
And on one occasion in the 1880s, there was a proposal put in
the House of Commons that we should set ourselves up as
a crown colony, not even be part of this,
this is before Australia was Australia. Right.
So we'd become a separate crown colony,
like Hong Kong, or Singapore.
And so we thought, "That was quite a good idea, really." Yes.
Because we'd get rid of Perth,
they could do whatever they wanted.
Yeah. It never flew, sadly.
No. Oh, that's a shame. It is bit of a shame, yeah.
I think we could've been good as a crown colony.
I heard this phrase, this Cinderella kind of state...
Mm. ..or the Cinderella, sort of, feeling of, like,
you were providing all of this bounty... Yeah.
...and weren't getting much in return.
Well, very much so, yeah, that's right.
And we're the sort of Cinderella town of Western Australia.
Cinderella town. Yeah.
So Perth was gathering all the resources,
all the taxes were going in there,
they were sort of going ahead in leaps and bounds,
and poor little old Albany was left to fend for itself,
despite our natural resources.
When West Australia was holding off from joining
the Commonwealth of Australia,
Albany, at that stage, was aligned, I guess, with the gold fields.
So we saw ourselves in league with Kalgoorlie
and the gold fields there against the common enemy of Perth.
Right. There was the whole separational league
which would carve off the bottom bit of Western Australia. Hm.
The capital was going to be, not surprisingly, Albany.
Yes. Of course. Well, why not?
My kind of place.
So, we'll send you the visa papers.
When am I moving here?
All this talk of unruly behaviour has strangely drawn me
to the pub...
...purely for research, obviously.
SINGING
# ..loving, loving wife
# She's all gone for beer and tobacco... #
The Albany Shantymen are the global superstars of
the sea shanty movement.
Like K-Pop, but with beards and craft ale.
# Well, it's all for me grog
# Me jolly, jolly grog
# It's all for me beer and tobacco
# Well, I've spent all me tin
# On the lassie drinking gin
# Far across the western ocean I must wander. #
During Covid, one of their shanties,
Soon Will The Wellerman Come,
inspired a TikTok craze that spread across the planet.
# Well, I've spent all me tin
# On the lassie drinking gin
# Far across the western ocean I must wander. #
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
Shantymen Crispin and Alby join me for a pint and a yarn.
We had that song on Spotify and things,
and all of a sudden, I think we got...
I don't know. ..700,000 streams on that.
And the next closest was, like, 10,000. Yeah.
And we couldn't work out what was going on.
Why do you think there's this resurgence in interest in shanties,
cos it's definitely...
It's happening in England a bit too, isn't it? It's hugely popular, yeah.
Yeah. There's a resurgence in pub singing,
and group singing in general.
I have a theory that music started when apes are in the forest,
and one starts hooting, and they all start hooting in unison. Yeah.
And it makes them feel bigger and safer. Yes.
And that, when we launch into a chorus,
to me, it's like we're one organism. A bunch of silver backs?
Yeah, but we becomes one organism... Flexing.
Yeah. ..and I feel bigger and safer.
So what's happening then? What's the plan?
We'll sing, people will clap.
If you'd like to join us, you can join us.
In fact we've got a song specially prepared for you.
Love you to join us. I would love it. Yeah, we'd love you to join.
Yeah. I feel like I'm...
I feel like, sort of, I'm amongst my people here.
Oh, you will. You will. You will.
And, um... Because in shanties, volume and enthusiasm counts
much more than musical talent. Oh, I've got plenty of that. Yeah.
Well, we'll do a cheers, and then that'll be that. Yeah.
Cheers. Cheers, mate.
Looking forward to it. Done.
APPLAUSE
We're auditioning a new fellow tonight so,
just bear with us cos we don't know how he's going to go.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
Get up here.
Hello.
Apparently, the Albany Shantymen started out with
a strange-looking bearded Englishman coming to this city.
LAUGHTER
So maybe this is history repeating itself.
Anyway, take this as an audition.
Thank you.
# In the year of '42
# An Irish ship hove into view
# On Paddy's day arrived the crew
# Here come the drunken whalers
# Way-hey, up she rises.
# Way-hey, and up she rises
# Bastard drunken whalers
# Drunken whalers roamed the town
# Drinking rum till the sun went down
# Spending till their last half crown
# Here come the drunken whalers
# Way-hey, and up she rises
# Bastard drunken whalers... #
So what have I learned so far?
That Western Australians are a proud
and ancient people who love the outdoors,
have proper gory school trips, enjoy a sing-song,
and cock a snook at authority.
Definitely my kind of place.
# ..up she rises Bastard drunken whalers
# Hello, ladies come and see
# The drunkest men in Albany
# Try your luck upon my knee and feel the drunken whaler
# Way-hey, and up she rises
# Bastard drunken whalers
# Way-hey, and up she rises
# Bastard drunken whalers
# Way-hey, and up she rises
# Bastard drunken whalers. #
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
Thank you very much.
Thanks.
I hope I passed the audition.
Thank you.
Psychiatric help, five cents.
Anyone, step up.
This is what I always thought.
My dad was a doctor,
and he was a rural GP,
and at one stage of my life,
I think he wanted me to follow in the footsteps, you know, and...
...perhaps now I can just say,
"Here I am, Dad...
"Top of the world."
Bill Bailey? Yes. G'day, mate.
Hello, how are ya?
Pleasure to meet you, mate.
Do you need any psychiatric help?
Oh, BLEEP yeah.
Oops, sorry.
No, not today, thanks, mate. I've had enough of doctors for one day.
Oh, yeah, no, you look like you've been banged up.
Bit of Aussie skin, Aussie sun.
You're good to watch on telly, mate. Thanks, mate. No worries.
Good on ya. Pleasure meeting ya. Have a good day. All the best.
Yeah, you know, just remember, any...
...any time.
Blimey.
Doing pretty good trade.
I only set up shop in two minutes, already had a first customer.
DOG BARKS Shut up.
Doing business here.
I'm heading for the port town of Esperance.
It was named after the French word for hope,
when a storm-damaged vessel sheltered here in the 1800s.
But it was another stricken craft that really launched
Esperance's name into orbit.
I did hear about this, actually.
It's quite an interesting story, really.
Skylab, not that one, that's a model,
it launched in 1973
and it orbited the Earth thousands of times
until the orbit started to decay.
And they knew it was going to land somewhere,
they just didn't know where.
They thought it might land in the Indian ocean.
But, in fact, it landed here, in Esperance.
And one of the local rangers decided to charge NASA
with littering, which was quite a nice touch.
They charged them $400 for littering, but they haven't paid it yet.
It's kind of a running joke with them.
The San Francisco Examiner had a competition.
They were gonna give a $10,000 prize to
the first person who'd actually found a bit of Skylab debris.
And this kid, this teenager called Stan Thornton,
found this bit of debris,
and they managed to get him out to San Francisco,
and he claimed his money.
But for many people, it was the way that...
...it put Esperance on the map.
That's what they loved about it. You know?
Because it's a little bit out of the way here.
But an International Space Station landing in your backyard,
well, that's going to put you on the map.
And that's it there.
Skylab may have hit the headlines,
but here at Mission Control...
Mm...well, that's that then.
...I've discovered evidence of a little-known
Western Australian space program me.
This, of course, was Australia's first space station.
And, uh, it was launched in 1962,
but, uh, very quickly, they realised it was unsuited for space travel.
This was where the pilot sat, up here.
Australia's first astronaut, Frank Williamson, sat up there.
He had a...air bowl for a couple of days,
and he had a vacuum-packed rucksack with 20 chicken parmys.
And, uh, they got about as far as, I don't know, 400 feet up,
then he had a bit of a mechanical failure,
and the thing crashed down.
But, you know, bit of history.
"Preparing for re-entry."
That would have been...
...what he said, they were his last words...
...before he broke up over...
...over Esperance.
Right, we better get out of here...
...before we get told off.
Before I'm chased out of town,
here's a bit more on Esperance.
It's home to one of the most important ports on the planet.
That's because more nickel - you know, the wonder metal
that's essential to everything from electric cars to smartphones -
is exported through here than anywhere else
in the southern hemisphere.
Now, I'm about to head over to the...
I recognise you.
Wait a minute, I think I've been spotted.
Hello. I said to my husband, I said, "They're making a film,
"or they're doing a doco." Yes. That's right. You're right.
I said, "Let's go over and ask," and he said to me, no,
because he would be too embarrassed.
Oh. He's an English gentleman.
Oh, you see, that's right.
But you...you show no such reserve, madam.
That's right. God bless you.
Ah. Ooo, you got a strong grip.
Well, if you're going to shake someone's hand in Australia,
darling, that's what you've got to do.
Grab hold of it. Don't let go.
What's your name, madam?
Lenore. Lenore. Or you can just call me "Lovely" if you like.
All right, then, Lenore.
Uh, do you live here?
Yes, I do. Are you an Esperance local?
I am. We came here three years ago when Covid struck,
and we got stuck.
And you just thought, "Why not?"
And the man said, "You can't leave Western Australia,”
so we stayed and bought a house, and here we are.
It's a lovely spot. It's beautiful.
It's absolutely stunning.
Bill Bailey, I'll give you a hug and everything.
Oh, give us a hug then, Lenore.
There you go.
Thanks, then.
All right. All right, Lovely.
All right, then. Bless you, mate.
Bless you. Thanks very much.
Welcome to WA.
OK, where was 1?
Oh, yeah.
Western Australians rely on the sea
for work, trade, food, and for their heritage and identity.
In fact, over 90% of the population
live less than 30 miles from the ocean,
even though WA is the size of Western Europe.
OK. Can I keep my beanie on?
Yeah. I've got mine on. OK, yeah, all right. There we go.
Is that right?
Yeah, that doesn't look, that doesn't look stupid at all.
To understand this aquatic affiliation,
I'm joining Mackenzie Marine,
a WA family firm of tugboat operators.
Thank you. Morning.
Hello, there. How's it going?
This is apparently a Turkish-made tug.
It's brand new.
Costs about 12 million euros.
So...it's pretty state of the art.
We're just setting up to head out over
to this big cargo ship here to tow it out from berth,
cos it's fully laden, ready to go.
Hello.
This port is...is huge, isn't it?
There's a lot of traffic coming through it now.
It's a very unique port.
We're the deepest port on the southern part of Australia.
Trade through Esperance has been going on since the early 1900s...
Yeah. ..sailing ships
slowly evolving to these size,
and these modern tugs to be able to handle them. Mm.
Multinational companies rule
the cut-throat business of commercial towing,
making Sean's firm true Aussie battlers.
My grandfather started it.
This is right back in the early '50s,
he had a small wooden fishing boat,
and since then the business has just grown from there.
It's a real delight to be able to have
a family business that's continuing through the generations.
It's all about local knowledge.
So there's a kind of a Western Australian, entrepreneurial,
this, kind of, resourcefulness that is born out of the isolation.
RADIO CHATTER
The tanker we're towing is packed to the gunnels with iron ore.
At around £86 a tonne,
that's a £60 million load we're responsible for.
It's out to sea. Yeah.
Oh, it's halfway to China now.
Being out on the waves definitely brings out
the steely-eyed mariner in me.
If only they'd let muggings here drive their expensive new toy.
Try.
All right.
OK.
How much are these things worth again?
Hold on below.
I don't know. I'd say go this way.
Bit of this?
Something's happening.
Is that right? We're going to the right. Why don't you pull this in?
What, just do that? Or just do that.
Or just do that?
Oh, OK.
This is a very high-tech piece of kit.
This propeller's going in all directions.
So... Cool.
...if you tried both pods to one side.
That way? Yep.
So, what do you think's going happen now?
We're just going to...
Do doughnuts. Do doughnuts! BILL LAUGHS
Is that what you get up to out here, Rennie? Yeah.
whoa-ho!
That was amazing.
Thank you so much, Sean. I appreciate that very much.
Cheers, mate. Good on you.
This port is the lifeblood of Esperance.
There's a huge boat full of iron ore heading for China,
and then if it's not iron ore, it'll be grain.
These are the two big industries that have driven
Western Australia's fortunes.
It's mining and agriculture.
You know, wheat and iron ore,
the essence of what Western Australia is about.
I don't think I've done doughnuts in a tug before. That's a first.
So thanks, WA.
Even on a chilly wintry morning,
the south of Western Australia is a sight to behold.
Just sunlight coming through the trees,
morning mist,
birds chirruping away.
I need a coffee, though, so.
I can see one person.
So that's where I'm heading.
BIRDSONG
Listen to the magpies, the butcherbirds and a crow.
Can you hear that? Harr.
There's this difference between British crows and Australian crows.
British crows are just, "Hah."
But Australian crows are actually sarcastic.
You know they're, like, "Harr."
"Are you're gonna get coffee, are you? Harr."
I'm leaving the hecklers behind
and heading east towards my final stop on my southern travels.
Once I'm fully fuel led up.
Can I get a flat white please?
Sure. Want to get a large one?
Just a regular size, please. OK.
Oh, the cinnamon rolls.
I mean...
...oh.
This is forbidden fruit right here.
There's a fire burning in the stove there.
This is...this is so cosy.
Could just stay here.
I might move here.
Just become, like, a local eccentric, you know?
Play the piano in the local bar...
...maybe join a sort of Police tribute act.
Play guitar in it.
I'd be quite happy with that.
Come in here everyday, get my coffee, banana bread.
Just leave my old life behind.
Oh, yeah that's Bill. Yeah, the English bloke.
Yeah, no, he just showed up one day with a film crew, and
he's been here ever since.
I'm actually singing Roxanne right now,
but you'll have to imagine it
because we don't have the budget to pay Sting's royalties.
You all right to go past?
Yeah, come on, mate.
I love you, eh... Oh, thanks very much, cheers.
Bye-bye. Yeah, I'm here all week.
Good luck. Thank you.
At least the humans are more enthusiastic than the crows.
But before I leave Esperance,
I have some unfinished business.
You were probably wondering about this place.
Hello, Tracey. Hello, Bill, nice to meet you.
Lovely to meet you.
It turns out there's nothing Western Australians like more
than recreating neolithic landmarks.
So, this looks to me like it's pretty much an exact replica.
It is. It's the exact same size,
same layout of what they would've built when they envisioned it. The same dimensions? Yes.
This is what they would have been looking at
all that time ago. Right.
Now, I've got to ask you this, Tracey.
What, uh,
what possesses someone to build a Stonehenge in Western Australia?
It's a bit of a story, Bill. OK. Right.
But it was originally going to go to Margaret River
as a tourist attraction,
and the gentleman from there commissioned the quarry here
cos he wanted it made from pink granite.
This is back in 2008 when they'd finished,
he couldn't afford to pay for it because there was
a global financial crisis at the time.
Oh, right. Actually stayed in the quarry here for three years.
Just sat there, the whole Stonehenge has been cut out. What? Just all this? Yeah.
All been cut out.
Huh. Not too much demand for a Stonehenge.
Well, I mean there's, I mean, there's a bit of
a slow down in the whole Henge demand, globally. There is.
Yeah, so it stayed there for three years,
and a farmer who was here at the time,
he decided he'd buy it, and put it up here.
My husband said, "Do you want to buy a farm in Esperance?”
And I said, "No, not really."
And he said, "It's got a Stonehenge on it."
And I said, ""Yes, OK then, let's buy it." Al right, that was the...
That was the clincher. ..sort of... The clincher, yeah.
So, now you're, sort of, keeper of the Henge? Yes.
How does that feel? Being a Henge keeper?
I love it. I feel very blessed.
And this is the giant, the trilithon, is it?
Yes, giant trilithon that is there.
So later later on today, when the sun sets,
it's going to come straight down
and set in between those stones there.
So you've even...
It's aligned. ..aligned it up to the solstice? Yes.
Yes, it is. Oh.
For winter and summer.
Can I actually go and commune...
Of course you can. ..with the stones?
Yes. They love it.
You see, there's something lovely about
putting your face against stone.
There is.
I don't know what it is.
There's something very calming and cooling about it.
Because in the, the old ones, we call it...
Yeah. The broken one. ..the broken one,
you can't walk around it. No.
I mean, you can't get close to it, so at least with this one,
you can get into the centre of it, walk amongst the stones...
That's right. ..and get a feeling of what it would've been like.
Exactly. We let people sit on our stones.
Do you? Yes, we do.
You see, that's great. Yeah.
That's very Australian.
"Sorry."
“No, get on it. Get amongst it."
Time and time again,
I've been struck by the free-spirited nature
and sometimes downright eccentricity of Western Australians.
Before I end this leg of my trip,
I'm off to meet a man who's got a unique insight into
the people who call this state home.
Hey, Milo. What's going on?
7ft 2in colossus Luc Longley is one of WA's most famous exports.
Playing alongside Michael Jordan,
he was a key member of the legendary Chicago Bulls
NBA team of the '90s.
You look like Bill.
Yeah, you look like Luc, I think.
Ah, we've got the right guy then. How are ya? Good morning.
Really good, thanks, yeah.
Now he's returned home, I want to know Luc's take
on what makes WA and its locals so special.
Whoa!
All right, here we go.
I'm trying to think of, though,
the contrast between life here and
touring around America, part of the NBA. Mm.
I mean what, that must have been a bit of a culture shock, was it?
I mean, I was 18.
It was more of an adventure than a shock.
I was just up for having some fun and playing some basketball.
I had no idea it was gonna lead to...
...to the Chicago Bulls.
At that point I didn't even care.
I was just down for... Yeah.
You know, like any young bloke, at that stage,
just down for an adventure.
But this was a culture anchor for me.
So I started living down in Denmark in the off-season as a way,
as a detox, I suppose,
both physical and emotional detox from all the stuff that goes
with playing in the NBA.
There's lots of Australians in the NBA now.
At that stage I was the first and only. Mm.
And, ah, so I was a novelty act, for sure.
A big 71, skinny, ginger, novelty act, who was pretending to,
that he knew how to basketball, but didn't really.
But they never figured out that I was just pretending.
We're in the William Bay National Park
for a wintry morning dip in the Southern Ocean.
Where are we going?
What is that? Tell me about that, this...this...
So, really, it's just a great little beach that, you know,
on a good day you can launch your boat from.
You know, it's just one of those spots that's still accessible,
that doesn't get a lot of traffic.
Although at times, I mean, at times it gets busy.
And fun to get to. Yeah. Yeah.
Classic bit of WA Adventure.
That's what we're all about here.
This is where we're going. Oh, here we are. Look at that.
Stunning.
I suppose, for me, the bit that's charming about Western Australia
is that ability to go out and hunt out a beach...
Yeah. ..find your own little spot.
Come on, Milo.
Beautiful. And what's in the water?
Oh. Anything you want, Bill.
Anything you want. Um...
Cause every time people go,
"You went...you went swimming in Australia, are you mad?"
And you've still got both your legs. You've got your limbs.
That's right. Yeah, yeah.
Well, there will be a few sharks here, but they're pretty well fed.
I think you'll be right. Oh, OK. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I probably don't taste great, anyway.
You don't look a lot like a seal.
No. No. No, I've got too much fur.
More of a walrus, maybe. Yeah. The sharks here wouldn't be looking for walrus.
No, they might be confused by a walrus.
That's right, I think you'll be fine. I think I'U be all right.
The water temperature hovers above zero,
but the siren call of a pristine dip is too tempting to pass.
Nice.
Beach life is as Australian as it gets,
but in WA, the numbers are mind-boggling.
Western Australia has about 3,500 beaches.
So, doing the maths, at one a day,
it would take me ten years to visit them all.
Oop.
OK, I'll get the hang of this in a minute.
It's just me...
...a sporting legend...
...and a very happy dog...
...with nothing but crystal water between us and the South Pole.
It's warmer than I thought.
Good boy.
Get going now.
Well, that was fantastic.
Wasn't that great? Eh? Thanks, mate.
The water's pretty nice, isn't it?
It is. It's beautiful once you get in there.
It's actually not as cold as I thought.
The only person who enjoyed it more than you was Milo. I know.
It's very much indicative of the pull of this place that someone like Luc,
who was the first Australian to play in the NBA,
achieving fame around the world,
and yet he feels this great pull to come back here
to Western Australia.
For me, it's the space.
For me, there's a, sort of,
it's definitely not a frontier,
but it just feels far enough behind everything everywhere else,
where it's slower, and there's more space,
and I feel like I can relax into that as a place to live.
Yeah.
This really represents everything that
the Western Australian spirit is all about.
And that is the hugeness of the space,
the proximity to the nature,
and just this, kind of, tranquil beauty.
And this is just glorious.
On the next episode...
You call that history?
This is history.
Those that strayed in were punished by the gods, and turned into stone.
And the nature just keeps getting wilder.
They're huge.
Nothing prepares you for how big they are.
They're just amazing.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media