Tuesday 25th May - Pemberton to Valley of the Giants

After adding up the cost of Anne’s list of items to which she took a fancy at the Fine Woodcraft Gallery, we decided we had better leave before we needed to re-mortgage the flat and get a trailer to tow behind the Land Rover to carry it all.

In order to relieve the urge to purchase some beautiful wooden furniture, a drive through the sand dunes near Yeagarup Beach was called for, so after airing down our tyres we entered D’Entrecasteaux National Park and headed towards the sea.

All of a sudden you glimpse the sand dunes through the trees and then they tower over you, encroaching on the forest.

This was to be our first experience at dune driving, and immediately we aired down a little more in order to make progress up the first dune and onto the undulating surface of the dune field.

Marker poles are laid out across the sandy expanse to indicate the route, and we drove between them until we reached another area of forest which separated the inland dunes from the coastal ones.  Once out on the coastal dunes it would appear that it’s every man for himself, with tyre tracks disappearing off in all directions and bike tracks following suicidal lines up and down the dunes (no doubt belonging to Andi and Tom as they went in search of the highest dune to camp on for the night).

There were also some interesting doughnut patterns which we thought it best not to emulate.  Being over three tons and somewhat top heavy we took it easy, especially as we didn’t fancy having to dig ourselves out if we got seriously stuck.  After an hour or so of dune fun we headed up the slope to get back on the track to drive out, and didn’t quite make it.  However, after a spot of lunch we took a second run and the Land Rover powered to the top (just!).

We got a perfect Australia moment on the way back across the inland dunes when the sky was being all moody, the sand was being all lovely, there was no-one else about (there hadn’t been all day) and then an emu ran across the dunes to the left of us.  Sadly we weren’t quick enough with the camera, so you’ll just have to believe us.

Circling back through Warren National Park, Anne voted for a stop at the Pemberton Wine Centre rather than climbing the 68m Bicentennial Tree; who was I to argue.  We relieved the centre of a couple of bottles of wine and then headed off to Northcliffe, where we decided to take the unmade 4WD Chesapeake Road as a shortcut to Walpole.  Rather annoyingly, half way along the road had been shut for “construction work”, as was the other dirt track off to the north, which meant we had to retrace the 30km we’d just driven.  This resulted in us having to drive in the dark so we kept a close eye out for kangaroos (we had to slow a couple of times, but no hits), and eventually we reached a rest area near the Valley of the Giants to the east of Walpole which we shared with a camper van towing a trailer. SPOT