Kings Around Oz: Pemberton

On our drive down to Pemberton we stopped off at the Beedelup National Park. The walk here got our blood pumping as we walked up a steep incline to reach the Walk Through Tree. This is a huge Karri tree that has a hollowed out trunk that you can walk through, hence the original name! We were all amazed at the size of the trees in this forest. We continued our walk around Beedelup Lake and to the Beedelup Falls. This was a nice little waterfall and you crossed over the river via the suspension bridge, much to Haydan’s horror who did not enjoy Glen’s attempts to sway the bridge! It was then on to Pemberton where this time we found a great camp behind a chocolate shop! For our first day of exploring, we went on the Pemberton Tramway that took us on a journey through the forests and over 3 bridge crossings to get to The Cascades. We enjoyed a stop here where you could go for a short walk and take some photos before heading back to Pemberton on the train. It was a very enjoyable morning but the day was about to get better as we had been given a great tip from the lady at the visitors centre that the Lavender and Berry Farm was the place to go for pancakes. This was a very good tip as we all enjoyed the best pancakes with berry sauce ever! They were the biggest pancakes we had ever seen and we only ordered the small ones! While we were here we also walked around the gardens a feed the alpacas. We were not allowed to feed the ponies as there was a sign to say that they were too fat! There was one alpaca that was a very big guts so Emmalisa thought she would go over to the other alpaca and feed it but as she got close, it spat at her. We all found it very funny, but Emmalisa, not so much! With very full bellies we then went to the Gloucester Tree. Before they introduced spotter planes there was a network of 18 fire lookout tree towers. Foresters would sit at the top of these trees and scan for smoke to send an alert of a fire. The Gloucester Tree was used as a lookout tree up until 1952. It is now a tourist attraction and you can climb the 53m to the top on little metal pegs with not safety equipment! Sadly the tree was closed for maintenance when we got there so we couldn’t climb it (phew!) We then found out there was another one you can climb and Glen and Emmalisa were keen, but we thought we would save that for another day. We returned home via Big Brook Dam. We were all very excited to see some Maron in the dam as this is a local delicacy that sells for big dollars! There are restrictions on these so they got to live another day in the dam.

The next day in Pemberton we went on a 4WD track called Heart Break Trail which takes you through the Warren National Park where you get to see the impressive giants of the South West, a place where some of the Karri Trees can grow up to 90m high and are about 200 years old. As we drove along the road, we came to a tree that had fallen over. The sheer size and weight of it as it fell down the side of the valley dragged it across the road and it was now ‘resting’ on the steep slope of the valley on the other size of the road. It was mind boggling to think of the sheer size of a tree like that coming down and coming to rest meters away from where it fell. At the end of this trail you get to the Bicentennial Tree this is another one of the fire tower trees that was used as a lookout except this one is 65m tall and is the tallest climbing tree in the world! Once again you can risk your life as you climb the little metal pegs on the side of the tree with absolutely no safety equipment. Glen and Emmalisa were keen and much to Laura’s rising anxiety levels they headed up the tree. They made it all the way to the first platform which was 21m above the ground. It was at this point commonsense prevailed and they made there way back down. Laura was very glad to have them back down safely on the ground! While we were there Pat Callinan from 4x4 Adventures was filming a story, so we got a behind the scenes look at filming a story like this.

The following day we went for a drive down to Northcliff. It was nice drive but when we got to Northcliff almost everything was shut. The local historic museum was open so we had a look through here and there was a documentary playing that showed how they cut down the huge trees back in the logging days. This was fascinating to watch and it was a wonderful display of how hard the foresters worked in those days. We then went to look at the Hollowbutt Karri Tree which is a big hollow in a tree that back in the day people used to get photos of there cars backed into the hollow. On the way home we stopped at the Brockman Sawpits. These were used in the logging days where the foresters would place the log over the pit and one man would be on top of the log and one man would be in the pit and that was how they cut through these massive trees! We just could not get over how hard they worked and how hard the work was back in the early pioneering days. After yet another busy and freezing cold day we thought it was only fitting to finish the day with some hot chocolates from the shop we were staying behind. We got to select our chocolate and they put the choc chips in the bottom of your cup and then fill it with hot milk and you stir it until the chocolate melts. This was a great way to finish our time in Pemberton.