Epic Round The World Trip Adventures! Stunning Photos & Articles - A fascinating gap year travel journal covering every stop of their journey.

Pemberton - West Australia
Round The World Trip Journal

(23rd March - 25th March) Pemberton - Surroundings
This whole area is known for its trees – and boy did we see trees – nothing but trees! There are several trees around the area that used to serve as bushfire lookout points – they form a chain across the region. We went to the Gloucester, the Bicentennial and the Diamond Trees. Although they now use airplanes to spot fires, these trees were manned every day in the 40s and 50s by teams of firewatchers. They had to climb up the 60-75 metre (200ft plus) high trees using a ladder formed of round metal spikes stuck into the tree trunk. I’d love to say that we climbed to the top and saw amazing views but although we both tried to climb up, it was very disconcerting knowing you could slip and fall down through the steps and there is nothing to stop you – Sally you would have a field day with the Health and Safety issues here! We got to about 15 steps I think and then retreated back to safety. We did a tram ride through the forest and saw the timber mill that is still in operation. We crossed several wooden bridges and arrived at the end point to walk out to a 300 year old tree that had been hollowed out by a lightning strike and fire (see photo of Mike stood under it). For lunch we drove out to Big Brook Dam which is a big lake surrounded by nothing but trees. There is a small beach with a picnic site so we sat and had our lunch here listening to nothing but bird song – glorious! We did the full 4km walk around the lake and were honoured to be joined by a kookie on the bridge. Again he didn’t seem phased by our presence and you can see just how close Jo got to him. He sat there for a good 15 minutes looking at us looking at him and then shot down to the water to catch a fish! He didn’t do a full on laugh but we did get a little chuckle out of him!
And just to make you all feel so much better back home in the UK, we had our coldest overnight temperature down in Pemberton. It suddenly dropped overnight to 4 degrees! We had 5 nights in a row of temperatures between 5 and 10 degrees. We had to sleep in three layers of clothing, plus fleeces with the hoods up, socks and two sleeping bags on top of us. We have no heating in our van - it was like a fridge!