quick breakfast for us to go into town to find an internet point and give news. After crossing preventive fires, we also take the opportunity to do some shopping and stop by the Margaret River to eat.
At the heart of the fires
Preventive fires
Next destination : Pemberton, we follow Bussel Highway to Karridale (a city on the road, not far from Augusta), then branch off onto Brockman Highway, heading east. We pass over Blackwood (River) when signs in the trees catch our eye.
Kookabura
Chester Forest
U-turn, a man comes to us to explain that they are camping there to prevent deforestation and offers us to stay for a moment and have a coffee, to discuss. Small well organized camp, main tent with fridge connected to wind turbine, vegetable garden (in jars, the bush land does not appear to be productive !) musical instruments and enough to feed more than ten people regularly.
Camp de Chester
Cultures de Chester
A cup of coffee later, we are still here and decide to spend the night there, we feel so welcome. People come and go during the late afternoon and throughout the evening when we all eat together. We end around the fire, guitars and djembes are present under a sky almost too starry to seem real !
Chester Shelter
Wind turbine connections
The camp is calm when you wake up, those who have stayed overnight and those who live here meet in the armchairs of the main tent for a good “brekky” (breakfast : breakfast), before everyone tackles their job : marked a path in the bush so that occasional locals like us can visit. Simon (one of the guys) shows us a bit of the surroundings, explaining to us what they are doing. Others have gone to dig a hole where they want to cut down the trees, to put a van in it and thus attach to the van and the road, preventing all work, unless you cut off their arms ! Still others tweak the camp facilities, connecting cables, batteries and wind turbine to connect a small sound system !
Climbing in Chester
View of the shelter
Meanwhile one of the guys, makes us climb a tree where there is a small shelter maybe six or seven meters high. Rope, carabiners and harness to get up there and back down, bon trip ! We would stay a few more days, just to enjoy this life in nature and to be able to get your hands dirty. But we have to keep going east and the goodbyes come, delighted to have met such people ...
Cascade à Beedelup
Karri et Mr Big
Back on the road, we make a detour in Beedelup National Park to pass over a suspension bridge and admire waterfalls, in the middle of a Karri forest that can reach over eighty meters high. Then the town of Pemberton looms before us, as we walk past a forest of young eucalyptus trees. Small town on an American-style coast where we stop for the night.
Lake at Beedelup
Pemberton