Climbing trees in Pemberton

Stayed in Syd's camp - an out the way welcoming camp with a shower made out of old Land Rover parts. Basic but super friendly people there. From there we travelled the short distance to Pemberton and the Gloucester National Park, firstly enjoying an early morning walk at the Cascades, spotting a water rat, known as the Australian otter. The park is home to large Karri trees and Marri trees. In this region there are 'lookout' trees which are used to spot wildfires from an elevated position. These consist of a platform at the very top of the tree with access via metal stakes hammered into the tree about 2.5ft apart to create a ladder. Some sections are nearly vertical. No handrail or safety nets! Amazingly these are open to the public, no safety fences, wardens, harnesses or disclaimers, just wander up and climb! The Gloucester tree was just under 200 feet tall to the platform at the top and gave great views from the top.
We later travelled to Warren National Park where the Bicentennial tree stands even taller, at 270 feet at the top platform and an intermediate stage at 82 feet (in photo 4 Louisa is at 82ft and James below the top platform around 220ft above the ground). As the weather was wet we had the whole tree to ourselves, but did make the climb a wee bit more challenging! The platform also moves 1.5m in high winds - as the breeze was increasing we hastily retreated from the top! Camp tonight is deep in the forest, sharing with a nice family from Australia travelling for a year around the country.Read more