SWAA: Jewel Cave, Bicentennial Tree, and Pemberton

Our last day in Margaret River started really well, with a delicious breakfast at the hotel and a trip to the local Saturday market.  As I said before Margaret River is well know for its local produce, so it was great to see the local market and pick up more food for our picnic lunch.

Our first destination for the day was Jewel Cave, but along the way we drove through what I'm going to call the "fairy forest" (actually called State Forest No. 45).  I knew one of the main attractions of South Western Australia was the beautiful karri tree forests, but this was the first time we had truly driven through one.  Someone had accurately captured the mood of the forest by "editing" this road sign, and it didn't seem like anyone was keen to fix it.

Our other main reason for going to this area of Australia was because it is wildflower season, and the forest floor was just starting to become blanketed in flowers.

The Margaret River region is home to about a dozen limestone caves, and Jewel Cave was supposedly the best show cave in the area.  If you have any questions about the cave, as usual, ask Ryan.  It was difficult to get good pictures, but it was definitely a beautiful cave system.  Unfortunately because it's a "show" cave they had some weird lighting effects and laser lines to point out certain features, which kind of cheapened the beauty of the cave. 

If you look closely, it kind of looks like a karri tree forest.

After the cave we headed to what was my personal highlight of the trip: the Bicentennial Tree in Warren National Park.  Now this isn't just any tree; it is the tallest climbing tree in the area.  Soaring to 75m high, the Bicentennial Tree is equipped with a re-bar spiral "ladder" and multiple platforms, originally used for spotting forest fires.  Those of you who know me know that I am a wuss - I don't take dangerous risks and I really don't do anything I don't want to do.  For whatever reason, ever since hearing about this tree, I just knew it was something I had to climb.  I never even climbed apple trees as a kid, so I have no idea what possessed me to do this!  To put this in perspective there were no guides, no ropes, no harnesses, and no safety net.  Really, this kind of thing would never pass safety standards in Canada and I can't believe it's allowed to exist here.

Now to set the scene.  Ryan and I rock up, all confident and ready to climb this thing.  There are a few weary people at the bottom watching their friends/family climb, but the place is relatively deserted.  Without much hesitation, we both start the climb to the first platform, about a third of the way up the tree.  Once at the platform we look at each other and go "yup, that's all I'm doing!" and "boy that was insane"!  Really, it was pretty damn scary.  At that point we're both shaking in our shoes working up the courage to go back down, but as I become more confident I realize I'd be mad at myself if I didn't just suck it up and finish what I started.  After a few more minutes, I was ready!  As Ryan headed back down, I worked my way to the top.  Surprisingly the first bit was the hardest, and once I got into a rhythm I was completely fine.  Ready for a picture?

The bottom arrow is the first platform, and the top arrow is the top platform.

 If you look really closely you might be able to see me in a red shirt on the top platform.  Now for some pictures from the top!

You can see Ryan at the bottom.

View over all of the trees from the top.  It's bleached out, but I could see massive sand dunes in the distance.

This was my descent from the lowest platform.  I was feeling brave enough to take a picture!

As you can see the view from the top was kind of underwhelming, but that's not why I climbed the tree.  And although I probably wouldn't do it again, I'm glad I did it!

With my feet firmly back on the ground we headed for our hotel that evening: the Kerri Valley Resort in Pemberton.  Because it was Saturday night we had to splurge since lots of places were fully booked for the night.  We ended up in a large 2 bedroom cottage in the middle of a  beautiful forest on a lake.  I know to Canadians lakefront property isn't that exciting, but in Australia it's a novelty if it's freshwater.  We didn't know what to expect so we were kind of shocked when we showed up to this:

Quite a bit more lavish than we were expecting!  Overall though the place was way overpriced and I was allergic to it so it must have been mouldy.  They had also fully booked their restaurant, so we had to have take-out for dinner instead.  That aside, we got to enjoy another lovely evening of wine, board games, and chocolate, this time with a lake and a fire place.

Ryans "classy" face