Karri Valley Resort

Our arrival at Karri Valley Resort was not without drama.  We were tired and hungry, but were informed that if we wanted to eat in the restaurant we had less than half an hour before the last sitting.  We had envisioned a hot shower followed by a cold beer on our lake side balcony, but this wouldn't happen if we wanted to eat a warm meal. It had been a long day and we were both cranky, so we decided to skip the fine dinning experience and have a lakeside cold meal of surf and turf--tuna and beef jerky raided from our hiking provisions.  As we sat on our private balcony overlooking the Beedelup Lake it was soon became apparent that we had not been the first people to enjoy such a picnic as we were soon joined by an Australian Ringneck Parrot.   In the end we were happy with the dinning choice.  We couldn't have had a better view or been in a more peaceful location.

As night fell, our eyes drew heavy and we soon turned in.  I am not sure if it was the fact that Beedelup is derived from the Noongar word Bejalup meaning place of sleep or the 12 hour drive, but no sooner had our heads hit the pillow were we fast asleep.
We awoke early the next morning anxious to explore the surrounding forest.  We decided on a short pre-breakfast walk among the giant Karri trees.  I am not exaggerating when I say giant, since this variety of Eucalyptus tree can grow to be 90 meters tall.  A short path up one of the surrounding hills took us up to the Walk-Through Tree.  The 400 year old tree, which is over 75 meters tall has a 3x4 meter hole cut into its base.  It was pretty impressive to stand inside the tree knowing that there are more than 150 tons of tree above you.

After breakfast we returned to the forest.  Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of time to spend on the trail since we had a long, almost 400 km, drive back to Perth.  But, we did spend a few hours walking through the damp and misty timberlands.  The understory was very lush and green.  A moss covered trail took us around the lake to Beedelup Falls.  Here we crossed a swing bridge which took us over the Beedelup Brook and provided a full on view of the water flowing over 100 meters over steep granite rocks.  The waterfall itself was not that impressive, however, we were astounded by the amount of water.  After all, this was not what we had imagined from the arid land of Western Australia.  As our time in the southern forests of WA came to an end we knew that we would return to spend more time exploring the area.