The Jewel Cave near Margaret River is a spectacular cavern filled with some beautiful cave formations. The most notable is the “table” floating above the water.
The only way to see the inside of the cave is a guided tour. To get to the start point of the guided tour, you’d better be prepared for some stairs, lots of stairs. The stairs weren’t so bad going down into the cave, but just think about when the tour is over and you have to climb all those steps to get back up to civilisation.
Anyway, the tour will take you into the cave where the tour guide gives you a history on caves in the area. They even turn off the lights for a moment to show you how dark it gets. That was pretty spooky, you can wave your hand madly in front of your face and wouldn’t get a glimpse of anything.
At the deepest point of the cave, and near the end of your tour, there’s a bench where we could sit while the tour guides turn off the lights and put on a beautiful light show. That was really spectacular, very magical.
We couldn’t get very good photos in the cave, as you would expect. There’s not much light and flashes, in general, ruins the photos, unless you have a professional flash. The photo below was taken from tourist site with information about the Jewel Cave.
The Boranup Maze is right near the Boranup Forest, pretty much opposite it. It’s a small circular labyrinth made of climbing vines, bushes and small trees.
It’s not much to look at and it’s definitely not meant to be a commercial venture. It looks more like a labour of love from the people who have built and maintained it. They’ve been kind enough to open the maze up to the public and it doesn’t cost much to see and run through the maze. Monies are paid through a honour system, which goes to show that making money is not the maze’s primary objective.
Even though the maze doesn’t seem like very much, it was surprisingly very fun and sometimes frustrating. It’s a circular maze, so the aim is to find your way to the center. Beware though, at certain times of the year, you may have company in the maze in the form of spiders and other creepy crawlies.
The Boranup Forest is a rather vast area of protected forest full of karri trees. It has a unsealed road running through it that is perfect for four wheel drive vehicles, and suitable for family sedans. However, anything with a lower clearance between the car and ground may find it more challenging as tree roots stick up from the ground.
The drive through the Boranup Forest was pleasant for the most part, if you could call feeling every little bump on the road pleasant. Nevertheless, even with the bumpy ride, it was still a tranquil and peaceful drive.
We did have a bit of excitement as a wild emu and its baby ran out in front of us on the road. We didn’t hit the flightless birds, but we did chase them for a few minutes! They were obviously trying to find a path off the road and would veer off several times trying to escape from us, but the forest undergrowth must have been too dense for them. Eventually they found their escape and we continued on the bumpy ride out of the forest.
There’s really not much to do in quiant little Pemberton. About one of the only attractions in the area is the Warren Tram ride.
The Warren Tram ride takes you through the karri forests of Pemberton. It was a sweet and romantic one and a half hour journey to the Warren River and back. The tram driver was a lovely man who gave us an amazing commentary for the entire journey. He would tell us stories about the history of Pemberton, the history of the the tram lines, details on the native flora and fauna and about the tram itself.
The tram stopped at several places to let you out to stretch your legs. One of the stops was at a stream of some sort, where you could walk out onto the stream using rocks as a stepping stone. The other stop at half way at the Warren River allowed you to walk a circular path through the karri trees where there were some trees with a hollow trunk that you could walk through. Great photo opportunites.
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.
