Pemberton is a very beautiful town and I could see myself settling there. It has a great regional location and I really do prefer forests over beach. It’s not too far from the coast anyway. The local community seems fairly active and the neighbourhood is very pretty. Love it. I made a note to come back again in the future to spend some proper time exploring. I had a nice enough sleep, although the full moon kept me awake until it moved above the roofline and out of sight. It was like having a spotlight directed on me. When I was half packed up a guy walked through the compound with his dog. He told me it was an old pine sawmill. When I had arrived yesterday I had pulled the entry gate closed to have some sense of security – I saw that the ground had not been disturbed so I knew no one had recently opened the gate. When I left this morning I discovered the gate was just a ‘floating’ one. A fence was attached on one side only, leaving the other side completely open. And around this open side was a well-trodden path. So my sense of security was misinformed. It’s funny what you don’t notice when you’re completely exhausted. During the first half of day I was hounded by intermittent deluges but the rain eased off as the afternoon arrived. I made a big push for Manjimup and reached the end of my tether at a few points. I’m so exhausted. I reached Peter and Kathy’s house about one minute before Peter got home. Peter is my mum’s cousin. I settled in with a beer, hot shower, million-dollar minute, dinner, dessert, cake, TV (Nepal crisis) and bad jokes from Peter.

Trail joys