Southern Forests

We’ve been spending a week in the Southern Forests, an area between Albany and Augusta, a three-hours drive south of Perth. We didn’t know much about these forests and were totally surprised and impressed by their beauty! The so-called tingle forest is a very ancient forest. Its trees only occur in this small area and provide a window to the past. Some of the plants, we learned, have origins that can be traced back 65 million years to the super continent Gondwana, when Australia was joined with what is now Africa, India, Antarctica and South America.

The canopy, ranging between 30 to 90 metres in height includes the red and yellow tingle, karri and Jarrah trees. All of them part of the eucalyptus family.

There are plenty of National Parks in this region, big and small ones, and we visited quite a few of them. Again and again the sheer beauty of these giant trees filled us with awe. We liked especially the karri with their long straight trunks with bark in varying shades of pink, orange, yellow, white and grey. It is the third largest tree in the world, by the way.

At the Valley of the Giants we did the famous tree-top walk, a stunning walkway held 40 metres above the ground. I felt like turning into a bird and fly away! Another big attraction here are the lookout trees. Spotting bushfires from towers built on high ground traditionally gave firefighters their chance of responding to fires quickly. However, in karri forest it was hard to build towers taller than the trees. Between 1937 and 1952 eight trees were selected as lookouts, and pegs were hammered into their trunks to form a ladder. We drove both to Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree (65 m) and The Gloucester Tree (53 m). At both places I climbed maybe a third of the height before turning back, Robin a little less, and Dag stayed on the ground taking pictures. It was fun, but also a bit scary without any form of safety.

Before continuing to Augusta, we spent a couple of days in D’Entrecasteaux National Park. It’s a great place to go four-wheel driving, and it is very remote and isolated. We didn’t dare driving too much along the coast due to some steep sand dunes, but we both drove to Lake Jasper and Black Point. Dag had no trouble driving on these sand tracks with lots of pretty soft spots. And when he put in low gear the second day, it was actually lots of fun!

Lake Jasper is the largest permanent freshwater lake in WA and very picturesque as it’s nestled in dense bush that grows right down to a fringing white beach. And the best of all: we had the whole place to ourselves.

Black point, where we spent the second night, is famous for its black basalt cliffs plunge into the sea in brick-like formations. We only saw the columns from a distance, but it was also quite spectacular at Steppping Stones, where the rocks fit together like a mosaic. The waves were too big for swimming, so we just strolled along the beach barefoot enjoying the scene.

Now we’re back in civilisation in Augusta, shopping groceries, washing clothes and ourselves, I can’t wait until we’re out in the bush again.

Author: cobaroblog

Travelling architect View all posts by cobaroblog