Winter 2011 photo journal; Day 2 - Pemberton to Margaret River, Boranup Forest

[moonvoice]

Boranup forest, you complete me.






Trees across the road - We were either stopped by the trees, or by the teams of people removing the trees off the road. We weren't bothered by any of it. The storm that hit overnight had been incredibly vicious. And many eucalyptus trees love to drop their branches at the slightest provocation (making them not exactly the safest choices for swings).





We'll get rid of the rest of the tree later - This gap was only really wide enough for small cars, and not larger trucks or buses or anything like that. As this is a fairly 'major' road from Pemberton to Margaret River, it would've made locomotion difficult.





But then we'd see things like this.





I couldn't decide which one I liked more. One of the benefits of living on the flattest continent in the world, with minimal pollution, is that the sky is so damned big. Doesn't matter where or how you look at it, the air is crisp, the sky is huge, and the clouds are amazing.





The boranup forest - is a fair sized pocket of karri forest along Caves Road (so named because of the many, gargantuan caves off-road, many of which haven't been explored properly yet because there's just so many).





The little things. - I think one of my favourite things to do really, in any woodland or forest, is look for the little things that provide flashes of colour or texture.





These little guys were both tiny and and adorable.





Karri canopy - Bill Bryson once said something along the lines of (and I'm paraphrasing), 'they might not be as tall as redwoods, but they are far prettier, and a far lovelier tree.' These are the tallest trees to grow in Western Australia, and one of the tallest trees to grow in the world.





Mushroom shelters.





























Just a little bit mossy...





Treeffiti









These karri trees are actually quite young - and haven't yet reached their width or full grandeur. Though they are still very grand!





There are spirits in there.





Then we dropped off briefly to the rivermouth lookout in Prevelly








And then we rested!

Comments

[tangledaxon]

Seeing all your beautiful photos makes me so desire to go there that it almost physically hurts. Just gorgeous.

[moonvoice]

If I don't get there often enough, I miss it to the point of physical pain, so it definitely makes sense. I wish I could show you all of these places over and over again. I think that would be so amazing.

[tangledaxon]

Oh goodness--I think that would be amazing, too.

[stephbg]

Beautiful stuff, the large and small both.

[ariestess]

Eeeeeee! The mushrooms!

All of these pictures are gorgeous and make me want to visit zOMG So. Bad!

[silverjackal]

*whistles admiringly at the vistas*

Thank you for sharing these! (And the others as well, I just didn't want to repeat myself endlessly like a parrot.) I'm torn about your tree graffiti picture. On the one hand, I dislike any sort of tampering with trees, as it poses a real damage to their health. On the other hand -- dogs! How charming! :D

I also really love your mossy log photo. I am going to have to find a way to get down to your part of the globe eventually!

[moonvoice]

I think you'd love it here. Also, I'm pretty sure it is a red velvet mite; I think I got confused by the 8 legs + spiderweb. Ah, silly.

The karri trees - and a few eucalyptus trees - handle graffiti really well, and preserve it for their lifetime (which has meant that there are some settler carvings on trees that have expanded and gotten bigger over 200 years). So even though I don't like it, the trees handle it fine, and as a result - there's treeffiti in the boranup forest on particular trees. It tends to be pretty typical stuff 'Dan <3's Lucy '08' and stuff like that, but I saw this one and found it charming.