Gotcha Australia: 10. – 11. December

Climb the tree!!!We reached Pemberton – another point of the “to-do-list” of my mum or better said something Tom and I had to do… But first things first!

We left the van at the park and decided to use our feets and get driven around – no not in a 4WD but in a tram! The forests around Pemberton were logged and the wood had to be transported… so there was a railway connection to Bunbury/ Perth. But later the trucks were more efficient to transport the logs and the logging was banned anyway so the railway got dis-used but not dismantled. The part between Pemberton and Northcliffe is used as a tourist railway. It’s a 100 minute return journey (just halfway between Pemberton and Northcliffe). The trip meanders through Karri, Marri and Jarrah forests crossing 6 bridges. During the trip we alighted at the Cascades (not accessible otherwise) and the Warren River Bridge. It was really great and the tram driver explained lots. We learnt stuff about the history of the town (the oldest houses belonged to the single and married mill workers), the building of the railway (mainly by prisoner and only on elevated ground), the Saw Mill (for a long time the mulch was just a waste product and burnt off – the fire kept burning for 5 years after they discovered the use for mulch), the tram itself (unused trams from Fremantle) and of course about the nature. We hardly saw any water in the streams and brooks and no wildflower was seen at all. The driver explained that they had a very dry year – the last big rainfall was in September 2009 (continuously for 21 days) which has flooded the railway tracks and then no rain until June 2010 and just little rain since. We also learnt that the forests are referred as “old-growth” or “re-growth”. Unfortunately there are not many old growth forests left (not a single tree got logged so the canopy is on different levels and it is checked before declared). Most forests were planted between 1925 and 1935 so their canopy is at one level nearly as someone is cutting it. But this doesn’t mean that these tree are not tall – the trees grow in height first before in width.

As you can imagine the fire danger is immanent. Today fire planed are used for fire spotting but some years back you had to use manned-fire towers. These trees grow up to 70-80m so it would have been a great effort to build towers that tall. They came up with another idea and used the trees instead. Some kind of ladder system is built around the trees and it’s possible to climb some – the Gloucester tree (63m), the Dane Evans Tree (75m) and the Diamond Tree (59m). My mum’s plan was to see Tom and myself climbing these trees and we were happy to comply as we didn’t have to stay for long up there. The shift for a fire-spotter was around 4h and if he or she spotted a fire they had to radio it to the nearest station with the best possible location. The job was nothing for people afraid of height or who can’t endure solitude…

So we walked to the Gloucester Tree and waited until a party reached the ground. Amazingly there was no official person around to take an entry fee or to supervise. The tree looked quite funny – the ladder spokes were connected like branches and some kind of mesh-protection around. But anyway we started the climb – keeping the advice “don’t look down” in mind. And up it went – around the tree. The spokes were spread apart by around 30cm and sometimes we had to climb near vertical or near horizontal. But we managed and had wonderful views from the top platform. The platform is a little bit higher that the actual tree so we had to climb some real ladders. Everyone on the ground looked like miniatures. My parents had a go as well but they just took some steps.

Next day we tackled the Dane Evans Tree (also called Bi-Centennial Tree). Compared to the other climbing trees this history is a bit different – it was never used as a fire look-out. It was purpose erected for the Bi-Centennial Celebrations. This time we were the only one around and started without any hesitation. We took the video-camera from my dad and went up. This tree features more platforms – the first just after 43 spokes. But to reach the top we had to climb 100 and for the final platform around 160 (I hope I didn’t miscount). We enjoyed the beautiful views but spotted a fire near by (or at least so the smoke) but we had no radio with us… This time my dad climbed up to the first platform.

Oh, I should not forget our other adventure; bird-feeding and camp-fire! The caravan park has so many trees which parrots call their home and they like feeding. So we bought one pack of seed and hold them in our outstretched hands. It probably took 1 minute before the first parrot recognised us and landed on us. They were picking the seed from our hands even moving from one hand to the other. It was a nice head massage when they were walking over your head… But unfortunately the ducks wanted to get some seeds as well and they don’t care if they get a finger in their mouth… We had a special dinner as well – fried egg on a camp fire! It’s possible to fry your egg on aluminium foil on top of coals and it was delicious.