Having caught sea sickness from Richard in the Whitsundays, I hoped I wouldn't catch his fear of heights while climbing trees and doing the tree top walk in the national parks between Pemberton and Denmark.

This area is covered in tall karri and tingle trees and made a pleasant drive from Margaret River, passing trees with foliage that resembles florets on broccoli stalks.

Near Pemberton there are three trees that you can climb - Gloucester, Bicentennial, and Diamond. The most popular is the Gloucester which stands 61 meters high and boasts of being the world's tallest fire lookout tree. We headed off there and I sat and watched a group of people go up first. The tree has metal spikes driven into its trunk to form a ladder and there is some wire netting to help keep you from falling off. Richard had no intention of going up but I was relishing the idea as it was something I could do with ease that would give other people the willies. It would make up for the torture my fish phobia imposes on me every time I try and go in the sea. Whilst waiting for the others to come down we were entertained by some brightly coloured parrots that looked very pretty.

As I made my way up the tree I ensured I always had at least one hand and foot on the spikes. Some parts were near vertical and by the time I got to the top my hands were shaking from gripping so tightly. I took a few photos from the viewing platform of the 360 degree vista over the forest and then made my way down to greet Richard with a big smile, satisfied I hadn't caught his fear of heights.

Next stop was the Bicentennial tree. This is the tallest of the tree climbs at 75 meters. As we approached you could see it was a lot taller. I didn't hang around - I climbed straight up as no one was there. Although this tree was taller, in some ways I found it easier as the spiralling ladder was at the same angle all the way up and there were no vertical sections. However, for people with a fear of heights this one would be more difficult as on the way down you can't help but see all the way to the bottom as there were no big branches obscuring the view.

I decided not to bother with the Diamond tree because it was a fair distance from the others.

We spent the night in the national park at Drafty's camp. It's the best equipped DEC site we've stayed in. It had a campers kitchen which is uncommon and had better facilities and cleaner than a lot of caravan parks. The highlight of the evening was having a Kookaburra watching us make tea.

The next day I woke up with the side of my thighs in agony from the climbing. We continued our drive to the tree top walk, passing the town of Walpole on the way which has a lovely hilly setting over a pretty inlet. We also made a short diversion to see a very large tingle tree.

The tree top walk takes you 800 meters along a suspension bridge set 40 meters above the ground to bring you to the same height as the top of the trees. We both did the walk however I didn't find it as rewarding at the tree climbs. There is an additional walk on the ground which was interesting. Here there were wide tingle trees, some even big enough to walk through a hollow arch in centre created by fire or fungus. Tingle trees can still live with this damage.

We went on to Denmark which has a river running through the town and lots of boutique art and craft shops. With the pound doing so badly against the Australian dollar we just did a brief bit of window shopping. We stayed overnight in a caravan park on the edge of town. Two brown kangaroos came along to munch on the luscious green grass and at one point stood up and did a play fight with each other - most entertaining.

Katy