Tall tales of trees and endurance

With its rammed earth walls, timber floorboards and sloping tin roof, the Northcliffe Visitor Centre fits right in with the surrounding bush. And on one of the days I visited, the "bush" was fitting in with the visitor centre with two baby joeys and a baby wallaby in for a feed and a nurse.

The orphaned babies, which are released at 18 months, are frequent guests at both Northcliffe and Pemberton visitor centres with carer Lesley Harrison.

Not just a nursery, the centre has everything visitors need from national park tickets, maps, pamphlets, souvenirs and books about the animals and plants (including wildflowers) of the area. The visitor centre and website are also the places where the best of Northcliffe's accommodation options are gathered. They can tell you quickly whether there are vacancies and direct you to the beautiful farm bed and breakfasts that are scattered around the area and tell you about their nearby attractions.

With Wendy Eiby managing it and assisted by a team of locals - all full bottle on the many attractions in the area, you'd be the proverbial one kangaroo short not to stop in.

At the back of the centre, the 1.2km Understory walk is the jewel in the crown of the region's thriving Southern Forests Art Community of which Northcliffe is an essential part.

The artists, sculptors, authors and musicians explore the relationship between the community and the animals and plants of the forest, a theme that's made stronger by being enjoyed in situ. From the welded metal entry "window" to a series of nature scenes carved into granite and the jarrah and bronze "step inside" sculpture Bound, each evokes a feeling of intimacy with the forest, aided by an audio commentary on which each artist explains both construction and concept.

Four other audio tracks have readings from poetry specially commissioned for the project, extracts of audio tracks composed for Understory, stories for children read by their author Dianne Wolfer and, for young adults, Forest Music written by Louise Schofield and read by Northcliffe teenager Si Facius.

Whatever your age, whichever track you listen to, keep your eyes peeled, the parts of this beautifully themed whole are positioned subtly, lying down, immersed in bush and sometimes well above ground. And each adds another facet to the Southern Forest experience.

·Northcliffe Visitor Centre is on Muirillup Road. It's open every day from 9am-4pm. National park day passes are available for $12 per vehicle and allow any number of park visits for that day. Concessions are $6 per vehicle. Cars are fine on unsealed roads, a four-wheel-drive is recommended for off-road tracks to places such as Moore's Hut. 9776 7203 and northcliffevisitorcentre.com.au.

·Understory entry is from 9am-3pm and costs $11 for adults, $8 for concessions and $6 for children, with proceeds going back into the project and visitor centre.

The town may now have a patchwork of pastureland but the seemingly impenetrable bush that surrounds Northcliffe is what confronted the group settlers who arrived in this area to be dairy farmers in the 1920s. It was a sight that moved many to tears.

Before they became dairy farmers, they had to be foresters and standing in the pioneer museum looking at the thick, heavy, unwieldy axe and thin and insubstantial cross saws each settler was equipped with for clearing, my heart aches for what must have been an agonising daily ordeal.

Those settlers were mostly from England and many had answered a call for workers which promised a new life in Australia, printed in The Times and Daily Mail - both owned by newspaper baron Lord Northcliffe.

A few hundred were here eking farmland from forest when Northcliffe was founded in 1924 (a recent 90th birthday shindig attracted 1000 people).

Divided into groups of 20 families, they had to contend with strong winds, high rainfall, continual flooding and those inadequate tools as they tried to clear their promised land of some of Australia's tallest trees.

Many resorted to ringbarking the giants, which took forever to die.

Blood, sweat and tears were spilt as they graduated from tents, to iron shacks, then timber homes as their herds grew bigger.

There was the occasional escape from harsh reality, such as when a silent movie cinema came to town in 1928 and was shown in the new town hall - still standing today.

Northcliffe gradually found its feet. The rest, as they say, is history and it's all kept proudly in the museum, carefully catalogued, dated and displayed. Kitchen utensils and crockery, imperial scales and tobacco tins, bottles and books, school photos from 1924, the teacher's desk, the Raycophone 35mm projector which brought such amusement. More is being discovered. The lino was lifted in the town's oldest house - 81 Zamia Street, built in 1928. Under the lino were old hessian sacks, beneath these, pages from The Western Star and _The West Australian _ from November 7, 1944, when the town was but 20 years old. Another paper, missing the masthead, is dated August 31, 1930.

The oldest artefacts date back millions of years. The George Gardner Rock and Mineral Collection takes up a whole room, with alphabetically ordered pieces from around Australia.

Across the length of a wall is the lower jawbone of a right whale washed up on Coodamurrup Beach at the turn of the 20th century.

·The Northcliffe Pioneer Museum is open daily, 10am-3pm. Entry is by donation. northcliffe.org.au/museum.html.

It would take a fair few days to comfortably get around all the natural beauty spots in the Northcliffe area. All are rewarding and deserving of a bit of time.

One of these is Lane Poole Falls, about 18km out of town, down Boorara Road (sealed for about a quarter of the way).

A 2.5km walking trail winds through the cool karri and marri forest of Boorara Conservation Park. It's best walked towards the end of winter when the waters of the Canterbury River tumble up to 12m off Lane Poole Falls, forming into pools below. Allow about 90 minutes for the walk.

The mighty Boorara Tree stands near the beginning of the trail. The 50m-tall karri is more than 200 years old and, with a cabin built in its crown, served as a fire lookout between 1952 and 1972. Now this proud old tree casts a giant shadow across a lovely shady spot just right for a picnic.

I built up a fair appetite during my days out exploring Northcliffe and the national parks - must be the liberal doses of forest and sea air - and I had a few lovely meals to satisfy that hunger.

For lunch and breakfast there's Hollow Butt Cafe. Big breakfasts, great coffee, a massive range of sausage rolls and pies - even one with marron. I sat on the veranda one lunchtime enjoying the quiet of the main street (even when a front-end loader pulled up), and a perfect long black and a tasty chicken, fetta and sun-dried tomato pannini ($12.50).

Just a couple of doors down, the Northcliffe Hotel has a good reputation for its meals and it didn't disappoint.

Pub grub it may be but it's done well. There are entrees such as garlic bread, four choices of homemade soup, seafood, chicken and beef meals. I went for chicken kiev ($29) which was great and came with some of the best chips I've had. But that's not all. This must be the first country pub I've seen with a salad bar and it's included in the price, so you can wander up for cold pasta mixes and tabouli. Lovely.

Hollow Butt Cafe and Northcliffe Hotel are both on Wheatley Coast Road.