Southern Forests and the Valley of the Giants

We continued west from Alexandra Bridge to get to Pemberton. This is the area known as the Southern Forests, for obvious reasons. The trees around here are enormous and very beautiful. Our first stop in the area was Beedelup Falls. They were a little disappointing as there wasn't much water flowing but we walked to the "walkthrough tree" instead which was about 2.4 km return. Charlie cracked it and had to be dragged the whole way screaming at the top of his lungs so it wasn't a very peaceful walk. He refused to be in the family photo.







We then stopped in Pemberton to have a look at one of the trees originally used by fire spotters. You can still climb it but only Tom was brave enough to go a little way up. The tree is about 75 metres tall and there is a lookout at 60 metres but none of us made it up that high!













We then decided to pull over on the side of the road for the night, about halfway between Walpole and Denmark. As usual the boys had a great time as we had another fire and Dion made them all bows and arrows.







The next morning we went to see the Valley of the Giants which is a tree top walk amongst the giant Tingle Trees. This is the only place in the world that these trees grow. They can get to over 400 years old and are usually hollow. The first walk we did was called the Ancient Empire Walk. This was the view of the trees from ground level.



















Once we had done that walk we did the tree top walk.







You can see the walkway in the photo above. It is about 40 metres up at it's highest point. The whole walkway moves around a lot so it is a bit scary! I haven't been to the one in the Otways so am not sure how it compares but it was good to have another perspective.

We then headed towards the coast and Denmark.