Karri forests of the South West

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We left Albany to grey skies and heavy drizzle. I have finally mastered getting out of the car without plastering myself in the mud all up the sides so Brian decided the fun was over and it was time to clean the worst off. For reasons that I will never understand he decided to wash the car at the side of the road using a brush, puddle water and a Celebrations box. I refused to join in and was glad that no one drove by to watch the nutter!
I had chosen a route with some rather egotistical points of interest, namely the Muir highway, Lake Muir National Park and of course Lake Muir. It is worth pointing out to those who do not know my maiden name was Muir. Apparently there is even a Muir cockatoo but it is unsurprisingly very rare and very beautiful!
Anyway the weather was foul but we stopped at Lake Muir and found out lots of interesting facts about where all the water comes from (fed by a number of creeks and streams) and the absolute ecological havoc the European settlers and their descendants have caused. Here is the water table salination problem quick version.
Basically a lot of salts and minerals naturally occur deep in the earth but native plants and trees process and mitigate theses salts as they are salt tolerant.
We twerps cut down all the natives for pasture, crops and planted non native trees for commercial forestry.
These are all shallow rooted and the salts then end up dissolved and in the rivers streams and lakes due to surface run off. Result is ridiculously high salt levels and water sources ruined. Anyway they worked it out eventually and are now rehabilitating areas with replanted natives and the 15 year trend looks better.
So we moved on to our accommodation which is a cottage on a farm near Manjimup.
The first thing we noticed were the birds- very special birds from SW
Western Australia like the Red Eared Firetail finch and the Red Winged fairy wren. Those of you not interested in birds this could get tedious.
Our cottage is perfect for 2 with a cast iron wood stove. During the night it rained in biblical amounts so I am very happy we are not camping.
Today we visited the regions Karri forests and the fire lookout trees- the Gloucester Tree and the Warren National Park including the Heartbreak Trail and the Bicentennial Tree. It was truly lovely and a testament to all the bloody rain that seems to fall hereabouts! Brian made a friend of a Western Rosella parrot that practically sat on his boot.
The fire lookout trees were conceived and devised in the 1930s. They selected a number of very tall Karri trees in areas of good forest views, cut the top off and put a viewing platform up there. The trees are pegged with hand and foot rails so they can be climbed.
Now if this was in the UK these would be fenced off or some companies would charge a fortune and make you put on helmet harness and lord knows what else. Here in Western Australia if you want to climb the 63 metre high fire tree go ahead - there only warning signs suggested it was ill advised in wet and windy weather and not to do it in thongs (flip flops for my Pom readers) or sandals.
Neither Brian nor I fancied it but we watched some who did until I felt squeamish.
The trees were used to spot wildfires until the 1970s when aircraft we more successful but it seems in a bad year they are still used.
We had another lovely night toasting ourselves by the wood fire listening to the epic rain and today we move on to Margaret River.

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