Pemberton: Karri trees and Karri forests

After leaving Margaret River we drove to Pemberton via Nannup. Nannup is a very pretty town, on par with Omeo in Victoria, which I still hold in my mind as one of the prettiest town we've seen on our journey. Nannup is quite an historic town, with many of the buildings in the main street built in the 1920s and 1930s. I think I could have stayed a day or two to explore. It's only a small town but there were a few cafes and galleries that I would have liked to look at, but we never do with the kids. The caravan park there looked quite pretty too. But we had it in our heads we were heading to Pemberton and I feel like Greg is in a bit of a rush to head east (probably to get to Kalgoorlie so he can go gold hunting!). It was a Sunday, so not everything was open. After a walk up the main street and back, we headed on.

Tightrope walking (about 110cm off the ground)

I love the stick to help him balance

The drive to Pemberton was so beautiful through the Karri forests. The Karri trees are amazing and oh so majestic. They grow so tall and straight, with smooth white and grey bark, and very few branches lower down. The road, which is a highway, is a narrow, two land road that winds between these awesome trees. Karri trees grow up until they reach 71 years, and then they start to thicken at the base. Some of the trees we drove past were estimated at 400 years old. Karri trees are the 3^rd largest in the world, with the Mountain Ash in Victoria and Tasmania coming in second and the Redwood trees in America being the tallest.

Pemberton is another very pretty town. There is a mill, which is the main function of the town (other than tourism), and a main street with a mix of shops. Most of the houses were all built in the 1920s and are heritage listed. They were built by the timber company and are all identical in shape and size. They timber company discovered they could build 2 of these houses for each good sized Karri tree they harvested! I thought that was pretty amazing and almost 100 years later these houses are still so quaint and cottage-y and so sturdy.

There are 3 giant Karri trees you can climb in the Pemberton region; the Gloucester, Diamond and Bicentennial trees. The Gloucester tree is probably the most famous, and the only one situated in a National Park where you have to pay an entry fee. The Gloucestor Tree stands 61m tall, the Diamond Tree, which is closer to Manjimup, stands 51m and the Bicentennial Tree, which stands 75m. The Gloucester and Diamoond Trees were spiked in the 1930s (I think) as fire watch towers. It was someone's job to climb them every day and keep watch for fires. Not to mention the poor people who originally climbed and pegged the tree, lopped the top off and built a tower at the top! The Bicentennial tree was pegged as part of bicentennial celebrations (but I didn't get to read the information about it at the time). I was pretty keen to climb the Gloucester Tree as it seemed like the thing to do, but when we got there and I looked up at this giant, towering tree with just spikes driven into the trunk, my never wavered. When I started to climb, my nerve failed me completely. The first time I tried to climb I got 5 rungs and felt like I was miles off the ground. It didn't feel very safe, so I climbed back down. After a short while I decided I couldn't be that much of a wuss and to try again. Tilda climbed ahead of me (although the signs do say they don't recommend kids climb). Watching my daughter climb up this tree, with nothing but the rungs and her hands and feet to hold her on, my heart was in my throat and I just couldn't let her climb. I had climbed 10 rungs, while she had climbed 23, but I made her come back down. I did read that over 44,000 people climb it every year, so it must be OK, but it just didn't feel safe. Greg climbed around 20 rungs up but then remembered that he had been having vertigo attacks and wisely decided to come back down.

The base of the tree (Greg stands about 4 rungs high)

The next day as we headed into Manjimup we drove passed the Diamond tree. I was determined to climb this tree. I mean, if others can do it, I should be able to. There were 2 older couples at the bottom and young guy making his way down. We chatted to him at the bottom. It turns out he had been cycling Australia for the past 100 days and has 3 years of acrobatic high wire training, so of course he could do it! Greg climbed a bit. I don't think he counted how many but I think he'd done about 35+ before he decided to come back down. I decided to take my turn. There is no way to pass someone on these rungs, so you have to hope no one is coming down while you go up, or vice versa. I began my climb but I just couldn't silence the voice of reason and fear in my mind. It's funny, I can climb a ladder and have done since I was a kid. I've climbed down the fire ladders at Narrowneck, and it never bothered me, but there is something about climbing up the outside of a massive tree, with just metal poles stuck into the side of the trunk and no form of safety net, rope, cage etc, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

This is what you climb up

The next day we did a drive through the Warren National Park. Gosh it was stunning, filled with Karri forest. This National Park houses the Bicentennial tree. I figured I may as well at least climb 10 rungs on this one, as I had climbed 10 on the other two. It was quite a windy day and as we approached the tree, we could see the tower at the top, all 78m up, swaying and moving quite a long way in the wind. As we got to the bottom of the tree we could hear the wind rushing through the forest, sounding like a train approaching, and as it hit, branches began falling down from the forest around us. Needless to say, we didn't even climb any of the rungs on this one, but hastily made our way back to the car and safety.

There's a platform part way up this tree

Rory climbed 1 rung

We drove the Heartbreak Trail, which is a 4WD track through the Warren NP and takes you to some campgrounds which are suitable for tents and campers only, and are in some of the most stunning bushland I have ever seen. The Warren River runs through the NP and is tannin coloured but so very pretty. I would have loved to camp there and I did think about leaving the van for a night and camping in the tent, but with the strong 40kmh wind gusts, and a forecast for rain the following day, I decided it wasn't worth the effort. Part of me wishes we had have taken the opportunity, but it wouldn't have been pleasant with branches falling from trees and rain.

Busselton, the Jetty and the Underwater Observatory

Busselton is referred to as the premier holiday destination for WA in loads of the information brochures. I think that's because of the direction the beach faces, so it is very sheltered from the almost constant (at this time of year) winds. All I knew about Busselton is that it has the longest timber jetty in the Southern Hemisphere and an Underwater Observatory at the end. I don't want to offend or upset anyone but I don't see why it is quite so wonderful and why the caravan parks ask so much. It is a nice enough town, but I didn't find it as pretty or as appealing as some other places we have seen or stayed on our travels. We didn't have swimming weather so we didn't get to enjoy the beautiful beach/bay, so perhaps that clouded my impressions a bit.

The accommodation at Busselton is very expensive, with most of the numerous caravan parks wanting over $65/night for us to stay, and one wanting $89/night. Admittedly it does look pretty special with its 3-4 pools, one of which is heated and one with a giant waterslide, but we aren't on holidays and that was way too rich for us! We headed slightly out of town to stay at the Adventist Camp. It is just like a caravan park but without all the bells and whistles, but the showers were hot (although they do have a 5 minute timer!) and we had power and water, the kids had a playground and it's right on the beach.

Given that all I knew about Busselton was the long jetty and Underwater Observatory, we had to do both of those. The ticket for the Observatory also includes a ride on the train along the jetty, which of course made Rory's day. The train is pretty cool and it was much nicer to catch that than try to walk the 1.8km jetty with Rory, especially as it only has a rail on one side. Rory also has a tendency to just stop walking when he's had enough and I think Greg or I would have had to carry him most of the way.

I loved the Underwater Observatory. I just love reefs and the fish they attract. The jetty is so long because Geographe Bay is so shallow. At 1.8km out from shore it is still only 8m deep. The jetty pylons are covered in coral, sponges etc and there are so many pretty and colourful fish that swim amongst them all. We saw quite a lot of fish, a starfish, crabs and an octopus. The octopus was pretty hard to spot, and the young lady running our tour pointed him out to us. There are windows at 4 different levels of the Observatory so you can see the differences in plant and fish species as you descended to the sea floor.

Sydney 3328km away

And this is just for Tilda to remember: the Busselton Maccas has a very awesome playground. I've got to admit, I wished I were a kid again so I could go and play in it. The half-clear slides were pretty cool and pretty fast.

Kalbarri National Park and Wildflowers

Kalbarri is another one of those places I have wanted to visit since doing research before we left home. The National Park photos I had seen always looked so interesting. What we hadn't planned on was getting there while the wildflowers were in bloom and oh my! They are beyond beautiful and so hard to comprehend. In the National Park, and on the roadside, everywhere you look there is an abundance of blooms in white, red, cream, pink, yellow and orange.

We stayed at Murchison House Station, a working station that has been in operation since the mid 1800s. I'm not sure if they run cattle or sheep, as we saw signs of neither, but it was a nice place to stay and a welcome change from caravan parks. For $27.50/night we had a lovely riverside campsite with a nice view and access to fairly old and run down, but clean, showers and toilets. It wasn't luxury by any means, but it was lovely to be away from people and not staring at other caravans, and the showers were hot! They had alpacas and goats in pens near where we camped and the kids loved them, especially the goats. Rory now wants a baby goat that says "maaaa maaaaa" to him, as there was a baby goat that would call out to us when we went near the yard. At first he was scared of them all but he soon overcame his fear, even of the ones that got out of the yard. He would walk up to them and pat them happily after the first day.

There aren't a lot of walks to do in the Kalbarri NP. There are a couple that are 500m - 1.2km and then there are a couple of longer walks and a 2.4km gorge walk to the Murchison River. Everyone but me is over gorges; Tilda even going so far as to saying she never wants to see another gorge again. Rory would have done the gorge walk with me because it involved climbing down ladders, but I'd have never got him back up again without carrying him. So we stuck to the top, shorter walks. The flies were horrendous and walking was almost hazardous with so many trying to get up your nose or in your mouth or ears. Quite a few people were sensibly wearing fly nets and the rest of us just suffered.

The wildflowers were spectacular! None of the walks took you through wildflowers really; the best ones were along the roadside on the way in. We stopped frequently to take photos because it is so foreign to us to see so many wildflowers blooming together like that.

There were just fields of and fields like this

These amazing flowers were white or purple, or in this case half and half, all on the same plant

This pretty plant is called Stinky Socks... for good reason! At night the smell it puts out is disgusting. We had to shut all the windows and vents to keep the stench out of the van

A close up of Stinky Socks

The walks were to lookouts over various parts of the Murchison River, WAs 2nd largest river. It was a bit of a surprise to see water in it after seeing nothing but dry rivers for the past month or two, apart from the Ord River.

West Bend Lookout  

Z Bend Lookout

Z Bend Lookout

Z Bend Lookout

One of the key photo opportunities at Kalbarri is Nature's Window, a rock formation that perfectly frames the river. This was by far the most popular, and populous, walk of all. It is an interesting phenomenon but not especially beautiful. I think, if the wildflowers weren't blooming, it would have been an OK experience, but not a fantastic one.