Saturday 10th January 2015 – Augusta to Crystal Springs WA

We woke to a much calmer day in Augusta.  It was breezy but nothing like we had in the past four days.

It takes a long of wind and constant wind to shape and trim the trees like this.  These trees were out front of our camp site at Augusta, so we don’t believe them, that it is “unseasonal”.

This farm gate hay bale always brought a smile to our faces as we passed, so we finally stopped for a photo on our last journey past. 

We didn’t leave the park until around 10.30am as we had a few people stop and chat and say good byes.  Heading towards Pemberton, we stopped at Alexandra Bridge for a morning cuppa.  The Blackwood River had a fair breeze gusting up the river.  Our new road started after we turned south from the Nannup turn off.  It was a lovely drive over to Pemberton.

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was orphan Joey day at the information centre at Pemberton.  They were so cute, but sad that their Mum’s had died.  I loved the little Brush Wallaby with the black gloves.  That was the same type of wallaby we saw at Wellington Dam. Obviously well looked after by the wildlife carer.

Pemberton has the largest hardwood mill in the southern hemisphere, not to be confused with larger mills in Victoria and Tasmania which are softwood mills.  It is obvious that it is a timber town and everyone worked at the mill.  All the houses are built of timber and of the same design.  The town has lovely gardens and a small shopping centre.

 

This is the up street and down street view at Pemberton.   After the information centre, we visited one of the two bakeries in town for a quick lunch so that we could catch the tram tour at 2pm.  We had the best pies ever.  I had steak and kidney and you could see the beef chunks.  Glen had steak and coriander and said it was the best pie ever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The red flowering gums are sensational.  They come in many shades from orange to red to pink tones.   They are endemic to the area and are at their peak now in January – lucky us.  Every flower seemed to have a bee in it.

We decided to walk the kilometre or so from the information centre to the Warren River Station.

Unfortunately the tour is on a tram – it should be called a rattler.

 

 

 

It goes through the karri and marri forest for several kilometres and the driver gives a commentary.  Unfortunately it is more a botany lesson and he really didn’t mention anything about the rail network at all.  The seats were very uncomfortable right from the point of sitting down.  Someone had made the seats in the refurbishment and completely got the angle wrong.  The trip out is very slow which lasted 1 hr and 30 minutes, and the homeward bound trip is done in 15 minutes where you feel every jar in the rough track at speed.  Both our backs are sore from the trip.

 

 

This bridge is supported by karri logs under the uprights.  The bridge was built around the 1930’s and the karri logs are not affected by water and the bridge is very structurally sound.  They laid the large karri logs in the river as a base for the bridge.

The end of the line.  The bridge support further along is not sound, so the tram trip finishes here.  The driver simply goes to the other end and drives it back from there.

We headed off to our camp at Crystal Springs which is about 18 kms west of Walpole.  We were not sure if it would be crowded or not.

 

The answer is no – in fact there was only two other campers there.  We expected as we had been told that it would be busy at this time of year.  We have not seen any crowds at all and we are a little confused if in WA a crowd consists of a couple of people or everyone has gone home because of the unseasonal wind.

Here we are camped at Crystal Springs.  It is under a grove of Peppermint Trees.  They have a lovely peppermint fragrance when you crush the leaves.  We are out of the wind :).  We have toilets, water and waste removal.  We don’t know how long we will be able to stay as the lovely filtered shade isn’t really ideal for the solar panel, so we will have to pack up when we run out of power.

Crystal Springs is a nice camp and is close to Walpole.  It has plenty of birds and a group of Kookaburra’s who like to start up early.