“I have no fear of heights and I have no fear of falling – it’s the landing that scares th
e hell out of me!” I have no recollection of who said this but these words, and others of a similar ilk, churned through my mind as Sandra and I climbed the Gloucester Tree.
We are near Pemberton, a very pleasant little town in the far South West of Australia. Despite the name, Snotty Gobble has proved to be one of the best campsites we have stayed in – deep in the forest with excellent facilities i.e. clean toilets, spacious campsites, fire pits and, as a bonus, a small river running near to our tent supplying unlimited water for hot showers. It obviously is not the camping season in this part of the world as we have been here for three days and have seen no other campers – probably just as well as they might have been disturbed by the sight of Sandra and I frolicking under our bush shower which we hung from a convenient tree – and all as nature intended!
This is Big Tree Country with forestry and logging being one of the mainstays of the local economy with a large sawmill in
Pemberton, many wooden houses and woodcarving galleries which, naturally, Sandra was unable to resist. Forest fires are a major hazard in this part of the world and until the 1970’s, when planes took over, the fire watch was carried out by people perched on top of a network of trees throughout the forest. When a fire was spotted from a tree, fire fighters were dispatched to deal with the blaze. These trees were usually the tallest trees in the area and access to the top was by a series of metal spikes driven into the trunk to form a rudimentary staircase. At the top was a platform which was the fire watchers office for the day. When planes took over fire watching duties in 1972 the fire trees became largely redundant 
although several have been retained to scare the shit out of tourists – which brings us to Sandra and I.
Just out of Pemberton is the Gloucester Tree, named after the Duke of Gloucester, which was one of the original fire trees. The type of tree is Karri – very straight and tall with few lower branches. In Britain it is very doubtful if the Health and Safety “Police” would have allowed members of the public to risk life and limb climbing 200 feet up a tree using metal spikes as steps, with no supervision and no safety net. However things are a bit more relaxed Down Under so up we went. The metal spikes forming the staircase seemed OK so I sent Sandra on ahead to test them out – after the first hundred feet she seemed to be making good progress, so I followed her up. My thinking of course was, if she fell, I would be in a good position to catch her! After about 150 feet we reached the first of two platforms with further progress being by stepladder. The climb up was nerve wracking, the view from the top was spectacular and coming down was horrendous.
The photographs do not do justice to the white knuckle-ness of the expedition (double click them to see them full-size) I am continually amazed at the courage I have shown in following Sandra on such foolhardy missions!
e hell out of me!” I have no recollection of who said this but these words, and others of a similar ilk, churned through my mind as Sandra and I climbed the Gloucester Tree.We are near Pemberton, a very pleasant little town in the far South West of Australia. Despite the name, Snotty Gobble has proved to be one of the best campsites we have stayed in – deep in the forest with excellent facilities i.e. clean toilets, spacious campsites, fire pits and, as a bonus, a small river running near to our tent supplying unlimited water for hot showers. It obviously is not the camping season in this part of the world as we have been here for three days and have seen no other campers – probably just as well as they might have been disturbed by the sight of Sandra and I frolicking under our bush shower which we hung from a convenient tree – and all as nature intended!
This is Big Tree Country with forestry and logging being one of the mainstays of the local economy with a large sawmill in
Pemberton, many wooden houses and woodcarving galleries which, naturally, Sandra was unable to resist. Forest fires are a major hazard in this part of the world and until the 1970’s, when planes took over, the fire watch was carried out by people perched on top of a network of trees throughout the forest. When a fire was spotted from a tree, fire fighters were dispatched to deal with the blaze. These trees were usually the tallest trees in the area and access to the top was by a series of metal spikes driven into the trunk to form a rudimentary staircase. At the top was a platform which was the fire watchers office for the day. When planes took over fire watching duties in 1972 the fire trees became largely redundant 
although several have been retained to scare the shit out of tourists – which brings us to Sandra and I.Just out of Pemberton is the Gloucester Tree, named after the Duke of Gloucester, which was one of the original fire trees. The type of tree is Karri – very straight and tall with few lower branches. In Britain it is very doubtful if the Health and Safety “Police” would have allowed members of the public to risk life and limb climbing 200 feet up a tree using metal spikes as steps, with no supervision and no safety net. However things are a bit more relaxed Down Under so up we went. The metal spikes forming the staircase seemed OK so I sent Sandra on ahead to test them out – after the first hundred feet she seemed to be making good progress, so I followed her up. My thinking of course was, if she fell, I would be in a good position to catch her! After about 150 feet we reached the first of two platforms with further progress being by stepladder. The climb up was nerve wracking, the view from the top was spectacular and coming down was horrendous.
The photographs do not do justice to the white knuckle-ness of the expedition (double click them to see them full-size) I am continually amazed at the courage I have shown in following Sandra on such foolhardy missions!
(Posted from the pub in Northcliffe)
Climb the Gloucester Tree? No, not even with a flagon of the brothers under the belt! You're better Gunga Dins than we are.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you're enjoying the South West.