Sawpits and big trees arnt a good combination

We found a lovely spot to pull up for the night between Northcliffe and Pemberton (10/6/13), at the Saw pits. As we were on our way to climb the big trees we thought stopping over at the saw pits ironic.  It was a cold wet night, and there were tree creatures who insisted on throwing eaten gum nuts on our roof all night. We managed to get some sleep though, and went exploring around the site the next day, was a tad to dark when we got there. We both felt a 'lil freaked out, because as we were driving down this long, narrow, winding road at dusk and Nick said "this looks like a scene out of a horror movie". Which really set the mood, I don't think I would have stayed if we didn't pick up Telstra reception.

 

We had a stroll through the saw pits, we both were reminded of Port Arthur in Tasmania, but in that case they were "convicts" not working free men. The eye condition s would have been terrible to

work at the bottom.

 

We packed up and got a move on, kind of worried about an early morning ranger visit, as we weren't exactly meant to camp there, even though the lovely ladies at the Northcliffe, i recommended to. We were both excited to get to Pemberton and see these big trees, like the Diamond, Bi- centennial and Gloucester. I remember when visiting WA with mum and dad when I was little racing up these trees and loving it, so I was excited to have another go 20 or so years on. We visited the Bi-centennial tree on our way into Pemberton and had a quick climb, well Nick did, but it was a bit too windy, and me being so accident prone decided to stay on the ground (on the lookout for rangers.)

 

 

We got into Pemberton and after a quick look around at the shops, and while Nick was in the post office we found an awesome Wholefoods shop which had a vegan lunch menu!! so excited and very random, we had a great chat with the owner- Jenny- and thought that she had a great thing going for her. We had an amazing lunch and restocked with some yummy wholefoods.

 

 

We meant to push on towards Manjimup (truffles) but couldn't be bothered driving the rest of the Avro, and we wanted to take the girls for a walk, so we went of the "tourist route" and went to inspect the 100 yr forest. This place had an interesting  story where the fella bought the land at the end of the 1800's and cleared it to grow wheat. he also built a water powered mill, to turn the wheat into flower on his land. Only to find out when the mill was needed to be used the creek didn't produce enough power to run the m ill for the flour. It was abandoned, years later a fire came through causing the forest of Karri trees that surrounded the clearing to engulf the whole lot. The Karri trees lost all their seeds and started to re grow. This land was not used for farming again. After all this the local Government bought the land and wanted to monitor it and use it as an example of how natural seed regrowth occurs after a fire. There was a lovely walk we through where the old wheat land was, and we decided to have a small fire(yes I know) and sleep there the night. Was really interesting watching the sun set through the Karri trees. Needless to say, it was a freezing cold night, sleeping in this forest. The starts put on an amazing show for us and we slept better because Nick hadn't drooped the horror story line

 

 

 

 We felt tiny camping around these massive trees at the forest.

We had a small fire but it got a bit smoky we thought the small planes in the air might have been searching for us...