Gloucester National Park is the closest National Park to the Pemberton Visitor Centre, with only a 5mins drive. You can purchase your daily national park fee of $15 per vehicle from the visitor centre before heading to the park. Upon arriving, the ranger will check your ticket (I believe you can also get the ticket from the ranger but we didn’t ask).  There are public toilets at the car park and I highly recommend you use them first if you are going to do the 10km Gloucester route (which is actually longer as I will explain)

As you can see from the map above, from the car park, it’s only a short 5mins walk to the famous Gloucester Tree, which you can climb up at your own risk (even the ranger will tell you that). When we are there, there are some maintenance works going on at the boardwalk but you can still go up to the tree. We didn’t climb up the tree but from the bottom you can admire how grand and magnificent it is, and at the top, there is a tiny platform where you can stand and lookout.  The 53m Gloucester Tree is a type of Karri tree which was chosen to be used for looking out for fires in 1947.

If you just want to view the Gloucester Tree, you probably will spend less than 30mins here(without climbing the tree) but it will be a shame if you don’t spend a bit more time exploring this beautiful forest.

If you chose to walk the 10km trail, here is why you will actually find out it is a longer distance. From the Gloucester Tree, it is about another 1km walk before you start the 10km trail, which means that is a total of about 12km. There are signs from the Gloucester Tree so make sure you choose the 400m, 800m or 10km one. Once you are on the 800m trail on route to the 10km trail, there are less signs. There is also a road crossing which you will need to do so watch out for on-coming cars. The Gloucester route is a Karri forest walk of climbs and descends, with mesmerising tall and giant trees, and a mix of other tress like gum and Jarrah trees. This trail will require a good fitness and good walking shoes and another one which I would recommend to bring along your walking poles if you have any. We completed the 12km in 2hrs 15mins.