Tall Timber

Karri is regarded as Australia’s tallest tree and the third tallest in the world. Tonight here in Pemberton we are in the thick of it, amongst the frogs croaking in the small brook behind the tent, and all is fine with the world.

Birds delayed our start and progress a little today. The Blackwood River camping ground at Alexandria Bridge was alive with birds this morning. The aim was to get through Pemberton, but the quality of the forest and the Karri Forest Drive served to delay us. By the time we arrived in Pemberton, the call of laundry, showers and shopping was enough to call stumps for the day.

In the morning we stopped beside a particularly magnificent roadside Karri. The Isabel-o-meter put it at about 3m across at chest level, and the signs say the trees can get over 80m in height, and I could believe this one got close to that. An enquiry at the mill this afternoon in Pemberton puts Karri at $1200/m3 sawn for furniture grade and $40 a ute load for firewood, so even accounting for mill waste, that tree would fetch around $150000. No wonder they chase it.

Beedelup Falls was our first real stop. Not magnificent in waterfall terms, but plenty of water going over, and a swing suspension bridge kept all amused. It was however most important for getting us onto the Karri Forest Explorer drive, although we attempted it first in the wrong direction, and discovered that the signage all goes the other way, and is deliberately obscured if you go the wrong way, so we gave up and went as requested. It led us through some magnificent stands of Karri, both old growth (but perhaps logged) and regrowth. Some stands regrown from 1936 are already impressively tall. We also passed through some plantations in rows, but the young trees didn’t give an indication as to species, although they were hardwood.

We came to the Bicentennial Tree, almost by accident. Louis had seen it and wanted to go, but we really had no idea what it was. Turns out it was a climbing tree, much like the more famous Gloucester Tree, but it was created as a bicentennial project in 1988 rather than as a fire lookout, which were all replaced by aerial observation from light planes by 1972. Perhaps against my better judgement, and certainly against the wishes of my better half, although not heard I got down, I climbed it. Sensibly the signs strongly discourage children, so that much was at least dealt with. Part way up, with my eyes straining from alternately focussing on the rung in front of my face for my hands, then down to the one for my feet, and perhaps the effort of climbing 75m pretty much straight up, I was thinking it should have strongly discouraged everybody. However, 130 steel pegs about 450mm apart and five ladders between platforms later I was at the top, looking out over the forest canopy. Conscious of not losing concentration on the way down, it was fortunately not as hard as I thought, perhaps because the climbing effort was not there. About 45 minutes after starting, I was happy to be back on the ground.

Perhaps bizarrely we have seen numerous flocks of emus down here. Not being able to fly to migrate around, and being more used to seeing them in northern arid parts, they must truly be a versatile bird, because it is certainly neither northern nor arid around here.

The Pemberton Mill here sells karri, but no marri nor jarrah. That kind of dulled my desire to see what shipping costs. Apparently the Manjimup Mill does all three, but we may not get up there, with time being what it is. Sigh…

Tomorrow, is it the mill tour, or the train? Don’t know myself yet. What I do know is that the further we go, the behinder we get!