Pemberton
14 Feb 2025 - Austin Shen
Yet another summer SWWA camping trip, this time to Pemberton to see the lush green foliage and fresh water swimming pools in the Karri Forest. It was a beautiful weekend – Kelsey and I left on Friday to make the most of our time there, wandering through the cosy towns Gnomeville and Bridgetown before arriving at our campsite (Draftys) for a perfect sunset, made particularly orange and three-dimensional by the smoke drifting in from the nearby (but relatively harmless) bushfire. A sunset and foliage combination so perfect it has made the MacOS Sequoia default wallpaper (the view on my monitor screen as I am typing this out, which is remarkably similar to our view at the campsite.)
The other car arrived late at night (11:30pm), after Kelsey and I had set up camp, cooked dinner on a broken BBQ, and had accidentally fallen asleep for a couple of hours. It’s a scary drive to this campsite through the Heartbreak Trail at night – one I’ve done before in the pouring rain and in the middle of winter, where we didn’t arrive to the sight of other cars and the soothing sound of a snoring friend, and instead it was pitch black and silent (terrifying). It’s funny that the campsite can change entirely in different conditions. But anyway, overall it was a wonderful weekend getaway with all of the essentials – the farmers market, where we had a surprise encounter with our friends Ethan and Kurumi; a swim in a natural swimming hole, this time at the Big Brook Dam surrounded by tall Karri trees; a hike through some nature; pub lunch and drinks at a winery; an occasion to celebrate, this time being Matt’s birthday; and some campsite beers at sunset to wrap up each day. We were also able to climb to the first lookout of the Bicentennial Tree, 20m up from the ground (crazy high, wild that you can pass the top of the canopy normally), and poor Kelsey gave us a scare by smashing her thumb in a car door (which has since survived a trip to Bali, and is now healing mostly fine…)
A very eventful weekend, full of fun - wish we could had longer!
