Walpole

Thursday 13^th October

All the area around Pemberton and Walpole is covered with Karri Forest National Parks.  We had some fairly heavy rain during the night which eased off to showers by the morning allowing us to hook up the van without getting wet. The road was fairly hilly and windy for the whole way from Pemberton to Walpole.

Walpole is a small township on an inlet, on the southern-most coast of Western Australia. Our motor camp is about 2km east of town right on the edge of the inlet. After setting up camp we headed for the Valley Of The Giants and its Tree Top Walk, about 17km away.

The Tree Top Walk is made up of long steel trusses about 60metres in length starting at ground level and reaching up to a height of 40 meters as it meanders for 600 meters through the giant Tingle and Karri Trees.  Both the Tingle and Karri Trees are a form of Eucalyptus, and both can grow to over 70 meters in height.  It takes a lot of getting used to the huge size of these trees.

We enjoyed the walk so much we did it twice.  After the tree top walk we did another walk the Walk among Giants, on the ground among the trees.  Tingle trees have a peculiar trait in that a lot of them split at the base and end up with holes right through them, some big enough to walk through.

From there we drove to another part of the forest to view the biggest Tingle tree in the world.  It was standing among several other similar sized trees, and again the size of these forest giants never fails to amaze.

From there we drove into Walpole and had a look at the town before heading back to our camp.  Just as a matter of interest, there are four Kiwi or ex Kiwi families camped around us.  There’s a heck of a lot of kiwis in this area of Australia.

Tomorrow we will continue our journey east and travel to Albany, about 130 km away.