A Day Off

For the past few months we've been beavering away in the garden every day. We've been pruning, weeding, fertilizing and getting the garden ready for summer.  We love it.  It's great exercise and we're working in a beautiful environment.  But this week we decided it was about time we took a day off to do something other than gardening.  So we decided we'd take a look at Beedelup Falls near Pemberton.  We didn't think we'd seen these falls before.  Turns out we had.  They're literally within walking distance of Karri Valley Resort where we stayed for our honeymoon more years ago than I care to mention.   

The infrastructure wasn't in place when we visited the falls on our honeymoon.  Back then we negotiated bush tracks and clambered over rocks to see them.  Ah the benefits of youth!!  Now there is a walkway that goes right around the falls with a viewing platform along the way.  So one gets great views of the falls from lots of different angles. As long as one has enough nerve to stand on the middle of the suspension bridge one can drink in the best view of the falls, looking up at them from the base.   I definitely do not have enough nerve it has to be said.   Suspension bridges never bothered me when I was younger but they do now.  Why is that I wonder?  The last suspension bridge I crossed was on a walk just out of Collie. That is nice and solid and quite big but still darned scary for me.  The one at Beedelup is quite small but definitely not solid.  And the sides, well in my opinion they do not come up anywhere near high enough!! I got about a quarter of a way across and nearly lost my nerve.  

This a pic of the bridge.  It's very narrow, one person wide and very wobbly.  The sides come up maybe to thigh height.  Thankfully there are two thick wires across the top which are great for nervous types like myself to hang onto. 

With some encouragement from my lovely husband I forged ahead, albeit at snail's pace.  But I couldn't stop long enough to more than glance up at the falls.  The rest of the walkway was just fine.  It felt solid and afforded fabulous views of the falls.  Hopefully these pics show how the walkway goes around the falls and the views to be seen.

This is the bridge that goes across the top of the falls so you can look down at them. If only they'd built a nice solid bridge like this across the bottom 😁

The lookout provides plenty of room, and seats, for people to pause and enjoy a view looking down the falls and to listen to the flow of the water and the surrounding bush.  

If you're a complete wuss like me, and can't do suspension bridges. you can traverse the falls in the opposite (anti-clockwise) direction and backtrack once you reach the bridge.  That walk takes you down a lovely path through the trees onto the look out. From there you can cross the bridge at the top of the falls and access the rest of the walkway down to the suspension bridge at the base.

There are also a couple of lovely tables if you want to stop for a picnic. We're definitely going to do that next time. 

There are a couple of good walking tracks that start at the fall.  One takes you through the jarrah trees around the lake past Karri Valley Resort.  We didn't allow enough time to do those but will next time we visit.

They might not be as grand as Niagara or Victoria falls but they're way more beautiful than my photos portray and well and truly worth a visit.  Maybe we'll see you there one day.