Tree across the road! Doesn't look that big, but too heavy to move, plus it was pinned in by other trees. No way we could turn around. The idea of reversing 26km was quickly discarded. Cem has been prepared for everything this trip, so luckily he was able to produce a tomahawk for this incident.
We climbed Mount Frankland in the Mount Frankland National Park. Another bald granite outcrop at the top of a good climb, with a 360 degree view of the 'Walpole Wilderness' and another fire spotting lookout which was summited by the fire watchman at least 3 times a day. Once was good enough for us.
Everything is so quiet and deserted in these areas and we aren't seeing a great deal of other people, the odd car now and then. We almost feel we have it all to ourselves. Maybe the recent bad weather contributes to this. We stayed at Ferndale Falls in Mount Frankland National Park. Ayla and Sol impressed me by sleeping by themselves in one of the huts distanced some way from where we parked and surrounded by forest. We all made ourselves cosy for the evening in the hut, lit the fire (bit smokey by the look of the flash photography), ate dinner, toasted marshmellows, but then left them to it while me, Cem and Kai headed back to the van.
The other 'tree experience' was the 'Tree Tops Walk' at the Valley of the Giants near Walpole. Now 13 years ago Cem and I had accidently ended up briefly in WA (long story involving the collapse of Ansett) and had in fact done this Tree Top Walk then. This was late 2001 and indeed only a week or so before conceiving Kai, so certainly days of freedom. This time, as we wandered through the tree tops looking down at the enormous trunks of the Karri and Tingle trees, and the forest floor, we had to ponder how our life has changed since then .... it was made particularly obvious with Sol in one of his stinky moods.
And we felt the need to take a selfie for the occasion.
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