Wednesday March 26

We arrived here in Augusta mid-morning yesterday, having endured one of the longest drives we have put in for a while – 126 kilometres! Not long after we got ourselves set up the drizzle started and during the afternoon it turned into the first rain we have had to endure, which the locals were much more excited about than us.

But, back to our travels on Friday, March 21 and our arrival in Windy Harbour, a small settlement surrounded by D’Entrecasteaux National Park which stretches 130km along the coast between Walpole and Augusta. Point D’Entrecasteaux and its limestone cliffs are incredible and the natural limestone bridge of Nature’s Window provided a very different view of the ocean.

Point D'Entrecasteaux

Nature's Window

A fishing expedition to beautiful Salmon Beach provided an opportunity to experience the reason for the name Windy Harbour, but no fish unfortunately!

Salmon Beach

Salmon Beach from Tookulup lookout

On Saturday we drove back to nearby Northcliffe, once again marvelling at the sudden changes of vegetation from heathland, to woodland, to Karri forest because of the extraordinarily diverse soil types, to indulge my plan to visit Understorey. This sculpture walk is a 1.2km circuit through the pristine native forest and features 26 sculptures by national and international artists exploring our relationship with nature and the ‘spirit of place’. Fair to say I enjoyed it more than Murray, but he did enjoy the superb forest!  

'Nurture II' recycled from 20,000 pages of government reports (mostly unread!)

Nature's artistry

Harking back to my comment in the previous post about local environmental activists saving the old growth forests of these areas, I can only assume that the former owners of this Northcliffe building were of that ilk, so good on them! In case you can't read it, the message on the roof says 'SAVE OUR OLD GROWTH FORESTS'.

Next stop was Pemberton, some 30km north-west. What a gorgeous little place it was too – in a valley surrounded by the Gloucester National Park. Many of the houses are the original mill houses:

Taking the advice of the lady at the Northcliffe Citizens Advice Centre, we camped out of town at the Big Brook Dam Arboretum, amongst the Karri and a selection of exotic trees planted in the 1930s. I don’t have a photo of any of the trees, but what about this amazing fungus, which was growing on a fallen karri tree.

Close to Pemberton is the Gloucester Tree, one of three former fire lookout trees. Those with better knees and legs than the Goddards can still climb this and two other trees in the area – at 61 metres to the tower on top of the tree, Murray decided discretion was definitely the better part of valour. Between watching others ascend and descend, I managed to get yet more bird photos – the collection is growing!

Female Western Rosella

Male Western Rosella

On Sunday we set forth on the Karri Forest Explorer Drive, which winds through some magnificent Karri forests in four different national parks around Pemberton – Gloucester, Greater Hawke, Beedelup and Warren. The Karri can grow up to 90 metres high, making it the tallest tree in WA and one of the tallest in the world. Amazingly the flowers of Karris take 4-5 years to grow from buds to gumnuts and one season of flowers can influence the development of other flower crops on the same tree, either speeding them up or slowing them down. This way, areas of Karri forest are bathed in heavy blossom every 4-7 years.

Karri trees - pretty impressive size!

Grass Trees (Balga)

Snottygobble Tree (Persoonia longifolia)
So called because the flesh of the fruit is mucous-like and green
Had to include this plant because of the wonderful name!

Bark of the Snottygobble is beautiful - red, soft and papery

Twisted paperbarks in Gobln Swamp

Murray on the suspension bridge at the Beedulup Falls

Warren River

Karris reaching for the sky!

Murray at the start of the climb up the highest of the climbing trees -
the Bicentennial Tree (68 metres)

Marianne North Tree - a huge Karri with a burl all the way
around. Marianne North, an intrepid English artist, painted the tree
in 1880 and her painting now hangs in the Kew Botanic Gardens.
Apart from being larger, the tree looks remarkably similar.

Nearby Manjimup was Monday’s destination, as Murray was keen to visit the Timber Museum. The trip there was most enjoyable – along roads lined with vineyards, orchards and vegetable gardens. Another fascinating fact I have discovered is that Manjimup is the birthplace of the Pink Lady apple!

Sadly though, the Timber Museum was closed so Murray was less than happy, although there were some other fascinating bits of historical timber/logging industry paraphernalia in the Heritage Park.

A 'whim' - hauled by oxen or horses to drag fallen logs out of the forest

Not to be outdone in the live tree stakes, Manjimup also had, amongst other things, the King Jarrah tree, the photo of which gives all the information you will need and whilst checking out some other large Karri trees we came across this one which had fallen across the track at some stage, so just to impress you with the size of these trees:

Back to camp and we finally got to see some of the wrens we had been hearing, although the frustration of trying to get a photo of the breeding male just about did me in! Here is a lovely photo of the female Red-winged Fairy-wren and a less than good one of the male just so you know what I am talking about.

This brings us back to our arrival in Augusta on Tuesday, which is a really lovely town and much smaller than we had expected. Augusta is the state’s third oldest settlement and is set on the banks of the Blackwood River and Hardy Inlet, where it meets the Southern Ocean. Just south of the town is the Cape Leeuwin, the most south westerly tip of Australia and where the Southern and Indian Oceans meet. The Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse, built in 1895 to light the way for ships carrying Karri and Jarrah to England, is the tallest on the Australian mainland

The old Water Wheel nearby was also constructed in 1895 when a spring was tapped to provide fresh water for workers building the lighthouse. Over the years the timber wheel has calcified giving it the appearance of stone

Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park stretches 120km from here at Cape Leeuwin to Cape Naturaliste in the north. There is over 100 caves in the spine of the Leeuwin-Naturaliste Ridge, which belong to a series of complex and fragile karst systems – landscapes formed by the flow of water underground. Like so many other of our natural features, these caves are also being affected by climate change. Today we visited Jewel Cave, the largest show cave. The floor of the cave is 42 metres underground and we were suitably awed by the massive stalagmites, flowstones, shawls, cave coral and helictites (ones which, incredibly, go sideways).

A Jarrah root growing down through the cave

A wondrous collection of straws 

Just to finish on a familiar note, here are a couple more birds I met on the river – a Pied Cormorant which was busy trying to pinch the fishers’ bait and a pair of White-faced Herons which look like they have just had a serious difference of opinion.

Off to nearby Hamelin Bay tomorrow morning, before going a little further north into the Margaret River region. Next post should have photos of wineries rather than birds!