Bibbulmun track - 6th section - Pemberton to Northcliffe

Length 37 miles - 3 days walking

Our rest day in Pemberton allowed us to live the high life for the day. We arranged transport to a truffle and winery; drinking a trio of wines with a selection of truffle products over lunch certainly made a change to pasta/rice/noodle dinners. We also made use of the campsite bbqs, to have some burgers in the evening. 'BBQs', actually gas powered hot plates are ubiquitous on this trip, no town would be complete without a few public ones available.

Getting back to the trail I was incredibly excited for the Gloucester tree after reading all about it in the museum in Pemberton. 50-100 years ago some of the massive Karri trees were converted into fire lookouts by creating a ladder of iron bars nailed into the trunk. Miraculously the Australian authorities still let you climb one of these old trees - 53 metres tall without any harnesses or safety equipment. Despite the drizzle this was an amazing experience, not for the faint hearted though.

The trail also took us by some cascades that we're picturesque and serene. Less peaceful was the rabble of year 10 school children awaiting us at our nights shelter. Whilst they provided some entertainment with their ineptitude of putting up tents, it wasn't conducive to a chilled afternoon. There are also over 200 other school kids in the area over the next 10 days that we are likely to encounter!

The highlight of our second day was getting to some more cascades in the river and taking a dip. This was harder than it sounds as the water was fairly shallow so you needed to sit down to be submerged. Shocking to all that know him, Callan got in further than I did. Our final day was a shorter 3 hour walk to Northcliffe. On a walk as long as this, one of the joys is noticing the subtle changes in the landscape day by day: now fewer Karri, a more sandy soil and more open plains. A precursor of terrain to come.

Northcliffe itself was a small town. Our main priority was finding enough to do before we could check in to the hotel for a shower. We explored the town twice and went to the sculpture park - it wasn't the most inspiring at but tided us over until our room was ready. Other mildly interesting things that happened were that upon finding out that Mike couldn't get a bus from Northcliffe to the coast the next day, the lady in the tourist office helpfully suggested that he could walk back to Pemberton (37 miles and 3 days walk) to catch the bus from there tomorrow morning! It's been nice to have Mike's company for the past week and it's a shame he didn't quite have time to join us on the next leg.

There was also a placard in town dedicated to the region's doctor who was the GP, obstetrician, surgeon and anaesthetist until 1980. He rather showed us modern single speciality doctors up.

Bibbulmun track - 5th section - Donnelly river village to Pemberton

As explained in the previous post we were staying in the land of tame animals at Donnelly river village. Mike had arrived in the evening after two flights, two buses and a very delayed taxi resulting in over 48 hours of sleep deprivation. Turns out this kind of ordeal helps combat jetlag and he slept surprisingly well.

Suspension bridge

We spent more time admiring the emus, roos and parrots before getting on our way again. The excitement of course being the Karri forest for the next 4 days. Another diversion for forest burning meant a boring first day of this section - mainly walking on wide 4x4 tracks. The advantages of this were that the route was shorter on easy walking roads and that we got an unusual view over some agricultural valleys that a look a lot more like home than the Australian bush.

Massive Karri trunk

Our second day on this section was probably the toughest day of the trail so far. It was a longer day as we were doing 3 stages in two days, but the really severe thing about it was the gradients of the paths. On the map going up and down by 30-100 metres at a time doesn't seem too arduous, however when faced with a slope that appears near vertical in front of you the challenge is very apparent. Not only this but after every short sharp accent was a steep descent so we didn't make any upward progress all day. Nonetheless it was nice waking through the Karri trees in a river valley. Our campsite for the night was idyllic; adjacent to a small pond it contained some lovely frogs and but sadly also millions of mosquitos. We also had the pleasure of 'Ratty' for the evening, a resident rodent or marsupial of the shelter that thankfully didn't eat our food but did spend ours making high pitched screeching noises.

Our last two days on the trail were more civilised, easier gradients and shorter distances with some magnificent trees on show - they are neck achingly tall and their trunks are beautifully smooth so we can see why Western Australians are so proud of them. Our trip into Pembroke was uneventful following another river and several dams. We checked into a cabin at the caravan park and decided to have our first rest day of the trip.

The food at the best Western hotel was good - though somehow despite the menu saying that the burgers came with chips - they didn't. There seems to be a large contingent of French workers in Pembroke (three in the pub and more in cafes and the campsite) that we can't quite figure out the reason for.  We're now off for some proper rest day activities - wine tastings at local vineyards followed by a BBQ.