Tall Trees

Febuary 13

Do the lawyers know about this?

Well we decided to spend a couple of days away from Margret River, as we had 4 days off between pickings, and since I couldn't go diving as they were all booked up we headed down to Pemberten for a couple of days. On our first day we went and saw the Bicentenial Tree, which stands 75m above the ground. Chris really wanted to see this tree as he heard that you could climb it using the stairs they built around it. We arrived and Chris spotted the tree and the stairs and suddenly didn't seem to enthusiastic on climbing it. I on the other hand saw the stairs and got a wide smile accross my face. What they called stairs were actually 3/4 inch rebars sunk into the tree trunk that spiraled all the way to the top where they had built a platform. It reminded me of the wrung ladders I used to climb the bins with back home. It reminded Chris of a rather horrifying scene from Vertigo, as he didn't like the sensation of seeing his feet below him acompanied by a large amount of empty air. At 25m he turned back and retreated to the ground, I on the other hand never looked back, seriously as I didn't really want to look down. I reached the top in under 10 minutes, which I was rather proud of, and proclaimed rather loudly "I'm king of the world" which made the lady sitting beside the tree jump. Unfortunately I forgot to do my Tarzan impression, and will fully admit that it was an opportunity I totally missed. Chris, who looked rather more comfortable since he returned to the ground, started taking pictures and asked how the view was. I said it was excellent, though if I had to admit it, even if it was crap I wouldn't have told him, I could just imagine the conversation.

Chris "So you climbed 75m up a tree and saw absolutely nothing?"
Adam "Shut up, I don't want to talk about it."

Anyway continuing on. I took some pictures and gave Christian adequit time to use the video camera (which I had given him) to show the world the tree and me upon it's tallest braches. I beleived he would use the very powerfull 40 times zoom to pull right up to my face giving everyone a great perspective of actually how tall that thing was. (I later discovered that he did not do that, something that I am still mad at him for.) Anyway I began the 75m decent, something which I have to admit was much harder than the accent. I think the hardest part was having to look where you put your feet, and seeing only a large amount of empy space behind the 3/4 inch rebar. On a happy note if I did miss the rebar I would be able to call home to say farewell before I hit the ground. I reached the ground safely, punched the air in defiance and did a little jig, patiallly because I was estatic, and partially to hide the fact that my legs were shaking more than I wanted my crowd of would be admirerers to see. The next day we decided to keep our feet on the ground. We went to the Lavender Farm where they serve lavender pancakes and ice cream. Then continued onto Manjimup where we got some of the best bread from a bakery I have had in years, had a nice relaxing drive through the countryside, and saw a really deep mine pit (300m). I spent some time checking out an old railway station and antique shop where I found these 2 things. The first are 2 cans of Canadian beer, the second is this thing. Does anyone have a guess what it is? Correct guess via comment or e-mail may win prize. Anyway, will probably hit sack now, am cheering for Team Canada as the olimpics have now started. I must find some more Canadians to cheer with.

Cheers

Adam