Day 157 - Margaret River to Walpole

The weather improved today for our trip down to Walpole via Karridale, Pemberton, Northcliffe and Shannon, a distance of about 275km. The trip was through WA's Southwest Region, famous for its National Parks, home of the Karri eucalyptus forests.  We photographed a few of these giants along the roadside.

By way of explanation and with thanks to Wikipedia:

"Karri forest is tall open forest of Eucalyptus diversicolor (karri), one of the tallest hardwoods in the world.[1]

Karri forest occurs only in the south-west corner of the Southwest Botanical Province of Western Australia, in the Warren biogeographic region.[2] The Warren region is also known as the Karri Forest Region, but this is a misnomer, as only about half of the region is vegetated with karri forest.

Historically, karri forest supported timber and firewood industries from the 1880s, when access to the forest was improved by a network of railway lines. Small settlements such as Karridale, Deanmill and Pemberton were established around timber mills, and have since become townships despite the closing of some of the mills.

Some of the remaining areas of karri forest are now protected in reserves such as Brockman National Park, Warren National Park, Beedelup National Park and Gloucester National Park."

Timber is still sourced from this area but there are also commercial timber plantations.

100914 Karri eucalypts, one of the tallest eucalypts in the world

100914 Karri eucalypts

100914 Karri eucalypts

100914 Karri eucalypts

100914 Karri eucalypts

The forests were interspersed with emerald green fields carrying sheep, beef and dairy herds. The winter rains in the area have produced lush grass, the animals look fat and contented and the many farm dams are filled to overflowing.

The number of vineyards diminished as we came further south but there were a few.

One of the beneficiaries of the rain has been the waterfalls and today we slipped off the highway to look at one of them, the Beedelup Falls, 20km west of Pemberton.

100914 Beedelup Falls from the top

100914 Beedelup Falls from the bottom

100914 Bridge below the Beedelup Falls. Its high swing amplitude,
made its crossing quite exciting

Walpole is a small township about 120km west of Albany, the biggest community in the South West. We are on the coast now so we may see some more of the Southern Ocean, hopefully in a less agitated frame of mind.

The wildflowers are not as prolific as they have been further north but we saw one near the falls which was unmissable because of its electric blue colour.

100914 Wildflower near Beedelup Falls