31st October 2022
RAC Karri Valley Resort
This morning we drive to Pemberton to meet up for our 'Beach and Forest Eco Adventure' run by Pemberton Discovery Tours. We are told to meet at Crossings Bakery at 9:00. Our fellow travellers are easily identified and the tour 'bus' draws up outside the bakery. Graeme, our guide, disappears into the bakery to pick up our lunch. We pile into the bus, a 4WD Toyota Land Cruiser converted to take 12 passengers, and head back towards the Karri Valley Resort. Before we reach KVR we turn left off the main road down a track into the Karri forest and the Warren & D'Entrecasteaux National Park.
Karri is a hardwood tree, which can live up to 500 years. It is characterised by a straight trunk with relatively few lower branches. The bark is smooth, mottled grey or cream. Typically it reaches a height of 10 to 60 metres but can reach 90 metres. The area around Pemberton has some of the oldest and tallest Karri trees. It grows in areas of high rainfall.
As we drive down the track we stop so that Graeme can point out a 'Snottygobble' tree (there are many). He gets out to pick the fruit, berries about the size of a small grape, and hands some round for people to taste; I decline the opportunity, but Jo can't resist! A little further on we all get out and wander down the track for about 600 metres
We then head for the Yeagarup Dunes. The tyre pressures are lowered to about 10psi to enable the bus to gain traction on the sand. It's quite a climb with a few hair-raising moments; the lady across the bus from me does not look happy. The dunes are inland and cover an area approximately 13km long by 3km wide, running parallel with the coast. The dunes have built up over thousands of years and are built from sand being blown inland into the forest from the coast. We get out at the top of the dunes to play in the sand!
Back in the bus we travel the few km to the beach and the mouth of the River Warren. At this time of year the river flows into the ocean, but later in the year, presumably when the flow is not as strong, the mouth 'bars up' and creates a lake with no obvious mouth to the sea. The colour of the water in the river is very brown. We have a quick snack and then it is back into the bus for the return journey, stopping after crossing the dunes for lunch (buns with various fillings from Crossings Bakery). While we eat lunch Graeme re-inflates the tyres for the return through the forest.
On our return from Pemberton to KVR - I'm getting to know this stretch of road quite well now - Jo and I walk from our lakeside room to reception, about a 1km round trip I would think, to get one of life's essentials, a few spare loo rolls. On the way, and way back, we pass kangaroos and emus lazing in the paddocks beside the road.
Once stocks have been replenished we go for another circuit of the lake and walk to Beedelup Falls.
