Climbing the Gloucester tree is precarious yet exhilarating. Wend your way on flimsy looking spikes which flex unnervingly as you spiral ever higher around the weighty circumference of the 72 metre high Karri Pine in Western Australia. At the top, it is not the view that will take your breath away, but the experience of the rustles and sways of the forest canopy from within.

Gloucester National Park near Pemberton in Western Australia.
Google map: bit.ly/REgFpV

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This cafe-restaurant also offers wine tastings and sells wine and the terrace overlooks the vineyards and karri forests beyond. It's a good place to stop for a glass of wine if you need to steady your nerves after climbing the Gloucester tree.

Gloucester Ridge Winery (near Gloucester National Park), Burma Road, Pemberton, Western Australia. Open seven days a week, 10am-5pm.
www.gloucester-ridge.com.au

Google map: tinyurl.com/lllh9u

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The Gloucester Tree is a 61-metre high Karri tree originally used as a bushfire lookout in the 1940s. If you have a head for heights you can now climb up 153 spiralling metal rungs stuck into the tree trunk to a platform at the top with spectacular 360-degree views of the forest.

Three kilometres from the centre of Pemberton in Gloucester National Park, in the southwest of Western Australia.
www.calm.wa.gov.au/national_parks/previous_parks_month/gloucester.html

Google map: tinyurl.com/n3uny7

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