Sue Zann Toh

Beedelup lake is an idyllic lake lined with towering karri trees on one side, and the Karri Valley Resort on the other.

We visited the lake as we were going to have dinner at the Karri Valley Resort restaurant, aptly named Lakeside Restaurant. We arrived at the lake just before sunset and had to wait for the restaurant to open. We hung around the lake edge, where there was a mini-jetty. Remember that we visited the region in March, where the weather was cooling down and the March flies were out in force, especially at sunset! We had to fend off quite a few of these blood suckers, but it so bad that we had to leave the area.

Dinner at the restaurant was lovely, great food, great atmosphere, great service. We were eating dinner while the sunset and it was truly beautiful and ever so romantic. Half way through our meals, the karri trees on the opposite side of the lake were lit up with strong lamps. That was a stunning sight, so very beautiful, so very romantic. The perfect place for a dinner for two.

The Gloucester Tree is a karri tree, which is a type of Eucalyptus. It’s about 60 metres tall and you can climb the tree using the pegged ladder which spirals around the trunk. There’s a cabin at the top of the tree that’s about 58 metres from the ground. That’s quite some distance and not for the faint-hearted or acrophobic (one who has a fear of heights).

I would have loved to climb that monstrous tree again. I climbed it once when I was a teenager on a holiday trip with my parents, but that was years ago. I would’ve made the climb if we weren’t chased out of the area by March flies, also known as as Blow flies or as the Australians call them, “Blowies”. They’re named March flies because they’re mostly around during the month of March. These March flies are vicious little buggers, they bite and each bite hurts, not stings but hurts.

That would learn us to go into the forest during late afternoon in March, that’s when the flies are most active.

We did have an interesting experience with some birds in that area. There were these little birds about the size of a finch, that were whizzing around us. At first we thought it wanted to hurt us, then we thought it liked us, and finally we realised it was after a snack of March flies, which were buzzing all around us.

In March 2003, my partner was lovely enough to plan a romantic, five day holiday for us in the South West of Western Australia as my birthday gift. The trip took us from Perth to Pemberton (with a quick lunch break in Bunbury), where we stayed for one night, then from Pemberton to Margaret River, where we stayed for three nights.

In Pemberton, we visited the the Gloucester Tree, Beedelup Lake and went on the Warren Tram ride. In Margaret River, we visited the Jewel Cave, my partner’s former phD supervisor’s property, Boranup Forest, Boranup Maze and tried to visit the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse but the weather turned bad so we didn’t take the tour. On our way back to Perth from Margaret River, we visited the Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse and Busselton Jetty.

The map below shows the route we took for this trip.

Pictures of our trip can ben seen in the south west 2003 photo gallery.

In 2005, I thought I’d do something a little different for my birthday. I thought I’d take my boyfriend, his sister and her husband up to Lancelin, WA for a little Quad Biking adventure!

Lancelin is about one and a half (1.5) hours north of Perth, on the coastline. It’s famous for it’s beaches, where surfers are frequently seen riding the waves, and it’s sand dunes, where extremist are frequently seen riding the dunes. The dunes are truly amazing, it looks like some giant took a bucket of clean white sand, and dumped it inland to form these dunes. It’s so white, it’s almost blinding! The sand dunes at Lancelin are a popular place for sandboarding, dune buggys, dirt bikes, quad bikes and four wheel driving.

We found DirtBikeHire.com on the internet, and booked for a one hour quad bike hire and tour for $70 per person. When we arrived at the sand dunes, we signed our hire agreement and disclaimer form, put on the helmets and goggles provided with the hire, then hopped onto the quad bikes.

There were two types of quad bikes, the manual quad bikes with gears like a dirt bike or motorcycle, and the automatic quad bikes. I was eternally thankful that I got the automatic quad bike as I’ve never been on a motorcycle in my life. Although the automatic quad bikes were less powerful, they were much easier to drive, there was the “Go” button on the right handle, the front brake on the right handle and the back brake on the right foot.

At the beginning, we were sent to the “idiots hill” and given some time to get use to the bikes. I felt like a complete dope after the guide came up to me and said “Go faster!” (Yes, I was driving as fast as a turtle). After that, our tour guide took us around the sand dunes where he would stop and let us zoom around, up and down the dunes. It was a whole heap of fun! I enjoyed it much more than I expected, even when I fell off the bike! I didn’t hurt myself, but I did feel stupid for about half a second.

My most memorable moment of quad biking was going over some of the larger sand dune. We were warned to be careful driving up the sand dunes as the other side of the dune was usually a sharp drop. My thoughts were, “Uh huh, OK whatever”, but then I drove up the first sand dune, saw the HUGE drop on the other side and some profanities escaped my lips. I was scared, so I stopped my quad bike at the top of the dune and consequently got bogged (stuck). The guide had to push me off the dune, so I had no choice but to tackle the huge drop. I encountered many more huge drops on the other side of sand dunes, but I was smarter this time, and found an alternate route for my quad bike.

Although there were some scary moments, I really did enjoy my first quad bike experience. At the end of the hour, I was physically and emotionally tired from the excitement. I highly recommend that everyone tries quad biking at least once in their lifetime!

Visit DirtBikeHire.com Web Site