A gorgeous sunset over the harbor in Albany
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Glenn's Journals 11-27-02 Western Australia

We have a few ideas for todays agenda so we were up early (8:00 am), had breakfast, introduced Erin to Leigh and Sharyn, packed our things and off we were. The Pemberton Tramway, another recommendation from Adele, was our first stop of the day and we wanted to catch the morning train that departed at 10:45 am. We had left Augusta a little later than I had planned and arrived at the Pemberton tram station with only minutes to spare. The tram takes you through lush marri and karri forests and lasts approximately 1hour and 45 minutes. It also included a few stops where you could take short hikes through the forest to see the sites.

After the tram ride we stopped into town for lunch before hitting the road for the Gloucester Tree. The Gloucester Tree, located in the Gloucester National Park, is a 60 kilometer fire lookout station that is available for anyone to climb. The steps are metal rods planted into the tree with a wire going along the edge to help mark the path. The ascent was quite steep and, as the guide book states, not for the faint hearted. Erin and I both started up the tree with confidence but it only took a few steps before we were ready to turn back. I gave it another go and made my way to the top only to have a spectacular view of the surrounding National Park and beyond. We also found ourselves hand feeding the local birdlife which Erin enjoys very much. She could spend the whole day just feeding animals if she could.

By the time we had completed the climb up the Gloucester Tree is was after 4:00 pm. We wanted to fit in the Tree Tops Walk outside of Walpole but we would not get there before closing. We also wanted to see a little of Albany before turning back towards Perth so we opted for the extended drive to Albany and we would stop back by Tree Tops tommorrow. We arrived into Albany around 6:30 pm and found a local hostel, recommended in our guide book, and stayed in a twin room for the night.

Once we had dropped our bags off we headed back out into town to find dinner. We found this nice quaint restaurant just around the corner from the hostel where we enjoyed a wonderful and relaxing meal after such a hurried day. After dinner there was movie and popcorn night at the hostel so we returned to catch two videos along with about a dozen other backpackers. We called it a night around midnight.