Karri on Tree Hugging

Our travels through South West Australia took us into a land of giants. After leaving the Margaret River wine region we took a quiet road down to the most South Westerly tip of Australia, Cape Leeuwin, where the Indian Ocean and Southern oceans meet. Cape Leeuwin's lighthouse warns ships of the dangers of this wild headland and scrambling over rocks gave impressive views of the coastline. 

I spotted a small lizard on the rocks, probably a type of skink, but it was somewhat camera shy, and incredibly fast moving. 

A camera shy skink!

A coffee stop in the sleepy town of Augusta, taken in a charming second hand book shop run by a local charity resulted in an unplanned purchase: a copy of 'Oscar and Lucinda' a novel by Australian author Peter Carey. I do love a second hand book shop and this one invited visitors to bring in their own coffee and we sat drinking this with views over the Blackwood River..where by a strange coincidence a coffee table book stood open at a page describing Ludlow in the UK!  Revived by this interlude our journey started to take us inland. Mile after mile of virtually empty road took us through vast swathes of forest and native bush. It brought home how large Australia is as a country and how much wilderness it possesses. It also gave an insight to the land that must have confronted early European explorers and had been successfully used for thousands of years before Europeans arrived by the aboriginal peoples. The level of resilience and resourcefulness required to survive and thrive when confronted with such a vast landscape of trees and bush can't fail to impress.

The southern forests of South West Australia are home to some of the tallest trees in the world. These giants are called karri and they can grow up to 90 meters in height and live for a thousand years. We arrived at Beedelup National Park, for our first sight of these magnificent trees. A variety of eucalyptus, karri trees have smooth pale grey bark and very little foliage until the top quarter of the tree. A detour to Beedelup Falls and a loop walk involving a swing bridge gave a first chance to walk through karri forest. The waterfalls were not that impressive if truth be told but the forest was peaceful,  the trees truly magnificent up close and our only companions were little birds that hopped around in the undergrowth and mosquitos or midges who seemed to have a voracious appetite!

Our base for the next couple of days was Pemberton. From our hotel we walked a couple of miles to see one of the fire lookout trees. This 60 meter high karri was named the Gloucester Tree and you are still allowed to climb it. There are no safety nets...so I decided to admire the tree from ground level as did some colourful parrots, Western Rosellas, that hopped around by our feet.

The Gloucester Tree....

The forest areas around Pemberton have dozens of walking trails and our next destination was the misleadingly titled Big Brook Dam.

This was in fact a resevoir, with a circular walking trail. We followed the trail surrounded by trees, birdsong and the sound of motorcycle frogs....so called because they don't exactly croke! Mrs B was moved to do a bit of tree hugging. 

After all this walking we headed to the lovely Lavender and Berry Farm and shared an enormous berry pancake. It was about half an inch thick and smothered with fresh berries and ice cream.  Feeling the need to burn off some more calories we managed a further forest walk before returning to Pemberton.  

Its well known that some of the fauna in Australia is dangerous. But so is the flora. Bush fires are potentially devastating as we saw the following morning driving south towards the small town of Walpole. In February 2015 firefighters spent 3 weeks tackling a huge bushfire that closed the road we were driving and cut Walpole off from the outside world. Its about 60 miles between the towns of Northcliffe and Walpole and much of the forest and bush was black throughout this journey.  We could smell burnt wood and there were still small plumes of smoke rising from the forest. It brought home that life in Australia has an unending capacity to challenge life and livelihoods. The ability of these trees to regenerate is astonishing.  Less than 2 months after this fire green shoots were appearing and life was returning to the bush. 

We stopped in Walpole. A helpful visitor guide at the information centre suggested a few places we could visit. On her advice we detoured to Coal Mine Beach and pulled into a parking area. There wasn't anyone else around and the coastal views were beautiful. Even more delightful were the mother kangaroo and her joey on the picnic area next to the beach. They were contendely nibbling the grass and completely unperturbed by our presence.

Mrs B. photo bombing some roos!

The high light of this part of the Southern Forest was a walk amongst the treetops. At 40 metres above the ground the Treetop Walk in The Valley of the Giants provides an unrivalled experience. Amongst the canopy of giant tingle trees a walkway provides visitors with a chance to see the forest from a very different perspective. Tingle trees often have hollowed out bases, caused by fungal attack and forest fires but continue to grow,  living for hundreds of years. 

The Tree Top Walk near Walpole

The hollowed out base of a giant red tingle tree

This part of South West Australia, densely forested, had revealed an aspect of the country that had delighted us with its greenery and the rich variety of bird life that had meant our walks were surrounded by chirps, whistles, tweets and chirrups. Before leaving the Southern Forests we made one more stop...in Denmark. Not a catastrophic sat nav error..this particular Denmark is a small town on the coast and has an award wining bakery that sells delicious hot meat pies. On an impulse (and after removing a few stray pie crumbs from my clothing) I headed down to the coast where a river met the sea. As we parked the car a small flock of Galah parrots arrived, squawking and behaving in a rowdy manner whilst on the river a pair of Australian pelicans swam gracefully and serenely past as though such behaviour was beneath them.

A short drive took us to our next base, a chalet in the grounds of a B&B in a country town called Mount Barker. The B&B was called Nomads, which seemed somehow appropriate for our trip.