Walpole
2/22/06
Walpole
After a night at a scary caravan park, we headed out to see the Tingle Trees that are special to this area. This one is famous for its size and it hollowed out trunk. If the bush fires that frequent the area get hot enough, they can burn through the outer bark and begin to burn the wood core of the tree. If the fire burns out before the whole tree is consumed, the tree can often survive, as the living part of the tree lies just under the bark. This tree survived one of these great fires many years ago, and is still very much alive.
Many of these trees grow to 300 feet, and are over 200-300 years old.
A tree top walk was built in the forest of these trees to bring visitors closer to the tops of these giant trees. This one swayed a bit more than the one we visited in Victoria a month ago.
Unfortunately, I was surrounded by visitors with agoraphobia, so they were in a rush to get through the walk and down from these heights. Allowing people to pass became tedious, so I soon followed them all down to the bottom.
Another walk at the forest floor gave us a closer look at the bottom of these trees. It took a lot of chasing to get my daughter to stand inside the tree for a picture so I would have something to show the scale! The walk at ground level was actually more enjoyable because we could walk at our own pace, and see what we wanted to see without someone rushing through.
The Tingle Trees and Red Gum Forests border the coastline of the Southern Ocean. Conspicuous Beach is supposed to be one of the best beaches in the area. Not to say it wasn’t, but with so many beautiful beaches, they’re all starting to look the same!
Peaceful Bay ws slightly different because it was exactly that, peaceful. It’s shallow waters made it perfect for swimming, and was well protected from the rough Southern Ocean waves.
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