We drove off from Denmark after some school lessons with Miss Swan at 8.30. We headed down towards Walpole covering country we had already passed through – but with so many things along the way it’s fine going through again. We pulled in for a stop at the Giant Tingle Tree which is massive and the base of the tree has a burnt-out buttress that used to be the popular attraction to drive through and many people took photos of their car parked within it. Now it has a boardwalk around it although you can still walk through. the size is unbelievable and the fact that fires have burnt it out so badly yet the surface tissue of the tree has somehow kept on surviving is an amazing feat of nature.
We then continued on to the Circular Pool on the Frankland River which was a picturesque spot to sit and have lunch – the tourist numbers start to drop off as the natural attractions have less prominence so we had this whole area to ourselves.
We continued on choosing to wind out way through the forests towards Northcliffe and then towards Pemberton. We drove the Heartbreak Trail through Warren NP checking out the camping areas down on the river – good base for canoeing by the looks of it. We went to the Bicentennial Tree – one of these monster Karri trees you can climb on metal stakes hammered into the tree. No way we were doing it again – Amy and Josh did the climb 12 years ago and decided that they’d grown smarter in the time since!
Just outside Pemberton we headed towards the tourist attraction of The Cascades but kept driving into the State Forest and found a spot next to the Lefroy River to camp. There were marron in the creek which Josh unsuccessfully tried to catch (he was the Blackheath champion yabby-catcher back in the day). And a school of fish as well which could have been trout but not sure.
We had an early night – no fires allowed this time of year so we hit bed.
JALC-OZ-2018 