The beautiful forests of the south west- now at Pemberton

Sunday, Dec 10

Pemberton is beautiful! Huge Karri trees in the forests all around the town, many hundreds of years old and so tall- up to 80 metres. It’s a refreshing change to be off the coast in forest, with cool temperatures. We’ve been busy since we arrived here yesterday afternoon, when we hit the ground running as usual (I also started the day yesterday with a morning walk and swim at Prevelly which was really refreshing, and the sun was out, before the clouds came back over).
We set up our caravan in a lovely little park which borders the forest- we have an excellent site, right on the edge of the park, surrounded by trees and lots of birds, which we love. We are seeing lots of parrots, including the pretty western rosellas, plus some gorgeous wrens (red-winged) and finches (red-cheeked firetail) which only live in a small area of this south west corner of Australia.
After unpacking and having some lunch we set off on the “great trees tourist drive” through Shannon National Park, about 50km from here. It was a beautiful drive, and we also stopped at one point and did a 6km bushwalk. We also drove to Manjimup and looked at that town and a giant Jarrah tree. By the time we arrived back it was nearly 8pm, but thanks to daylight saving we still had light, and lit a fire, cooked a bbq dinner and then sat by the fire for a while. Great.

Today we had our breakfast outside looking at the trees and the birds, before heading off to explore more of the region. We started in the Gloucester National Park, where there is a “climbing tree”- they are basically huge karri trees, with small cabins right at the top of them, and ladder rungs sticking out all the way up the side of the tree- they were used as fire lookouts. There are three in this area and the public is allowed to climb up them, with signs saying do so at your own risk etc. I decided I wanted to make it to the top of one, and along with some others who were taking on the challenge this morning, I started climbing up on those rungs, which had been drilled into the side of the tree. The top of the tree was 61 metres above me-straight up! There was a sort of wire mesh around where my back was climbing up, but absolutely nothing behind the rungs themselves, which had large spaces between them, through which I could see straight down to the ground. In places the rungs going up the tree, near the top, were almost vertical. It was bloody scary!! I stopped for a while about half way, with my heart beating- a couple of people climbed up past me. Then I decided to just focus on each step, and I made it to the top. The view up there was great, over the forest! Coming down was hard, but easier than going up. I was proud I managed to do it. Adam, with his fear of heights, nervously watched on from below.

We then set off for the coast, heading south through the town of Northcliffe to D’Entrecasteaux National Park. It was very wild and untamed and impressive. We drove to one beach with huge, wild surf, and dangerous rips, and cliffs up behind the beach. I walked down onto the sand and sat for a while and there was not another soul in sight. Fairly awe-inspiring. We also hiked to the top of a granite outcrop at the top of a hill, which had some good views.
After that we took a drive through nearby Warren National Park, with more huge trees and lovely forest scenery. We did a short bushwalk and had our lunch (back to tuna and crackers today) and enjoyed the peace and sounds of the bush.

This evening we lit the fire again and enjoyed another barbeque dinner, read the paper and watched the birds around our campsite. It’s so lovely being surrounded by nature. Tomorrow we are heading out to see some more natural attractions, on another tourist forest drive, and may treat ourselves to a café lunch at one of the regions vineyards, which are really starting to take off in the pemberton area.

Hope everyone is well and happy and getting ready for Christmas. Sending our love and best wishes to you….
Emma & Adam xx