Day 22 Walpole – Forest giants and water holes

Our main aim for staying at Walpole was to go to the Valley of the Giants treetop walk and Ancient Empire Boardwalk during our planning session we discovered there was a scenic route which offered good views back over the coast and a walk into view a giant tingle tree. 

View back towards Walpole from lookout near Giant Tingle tree

Base of giant tingle tree

This was unusual

more of the giant tingle tree

 These tingle trees have very tenuous hold on mother earth but are huge and up to 400 years old. They have incredible character in their trunks and most of the older ones are hollow in side. There is a picture in the discovery centre of one that was used as a garage for an old Holden. The tree, unfortunately, fell over a few years back, not sure if the car was still parked in it at the time. We then followed a dirt track up to the circular pond which was a spectacular water fall and rapids. 

Circular pool

Section of the Forest walk suspension walk way

The water was the colour of coffee and covered in a foam layer. The foam is caused by an excretion from the trees that line the river and not pollution and in places had to be a metre thick.. It called the circular pond because of the way the water rotates around the pond. From there it was on to the Treetop Walk. This is very different to the Colac fly in that there is no cantilever just the suspension walk way up to 40 mtrs above the forest floor. It’s like walking on a swing bridge and very disconcerting at times. The trees here are huge both in height and circumference. You are only allowed 20 people per section at any one time and 10 people on each of the landings. The place is well set up and enjoyable. By now it was mid-afternoon so we headed back to camp. Gaz and I wanted to get the kayaks on the water and do a spot of fishing. We ended up out for about 2 hrs on the water. Got a lot of small black bream but no keepers but it was enjoyable. Wendy tried her hand at fishing from the jetty with Laura and managed to land 5 – all undersize – black bream , not  bad effort for the novice.