Tag Archive for 'karri trees'

Friday Eco-fact: Amazing Karri Trees

Published on July 18, 2008 in Environment and Western Australia. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

There is no country on Earth with more species of eucalyptus trees then Australia. Depending on climatic conditions across the continent the species of eucalyptus trees can change dramatically. For example in the state of Victoria the climatic conditions are such that eucalyptus trees have grown to such proportions that the mountain ash is considered the world’s largest flowering plant:


Mountain ash tree in the Otway Ranges.

Likewise in southwestern Australia the moist climatic conditions combined with the nutrient rich soil have allowed the regions eucalyptus trees to evolve to become one of the largest species of trees on Earth as well:

The trees do not grow as tall as the mountain ash trees in Victoria but they do still grow to an enormous height of 90 meters. These trees are called karri trees after the Aboriginal word for these massive trees. These trees as mentioned earlier are only found in southwestern Australia:

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The tree has smooth silvery bark and a straight trunk that has an inner wood colored a reddish brown. The karri tree sheds its bark every year leading to multi-colored trunk. The leaves of the tree are a dark green on the upper reaches of the tree and the darkness of the green lightens on the lower leaves of the tree. The tree also produces barrel shaped fruit.

The karri tree reaches its maximum height in little as 100 years which is extremely fast for a tree to grow up to 90 meters. The trees live up to 300 years old with most of the larger karri trees remaining in southwestern Australia being about only 200 years old. This is due to the heavy logging of the tree in prior decades which caused a steep decline in the number of karri trees. Logging of the karri trees continues today under controlled conditions with much of the old growth trees protected in the various national parks in Australia’s southwest.


Area of logged karri trees with one tree remaining as a fire lookout.

The best place to views these beautiful trees are in Walpole-Nornalup National Park and in particular the Tree Top Walk:

The Tree Top Walk is raised platform that allows visitors to literally walk on top of the trees located in the park. Adjacent to the tree top walk is The Ancient Empire which is the best place in the national park to appreciate these fabulous karri trees from the ground:

A really unique thing you can do in southwest Australia is that you can actually climb up one of these karri trees:

The Gloucester Tree outside of Pemberton is a fire lookout tower that allows visitors to climb up its metal pegs to the top of this 61 meter tree. Highly recommended but don’t climb it if you are afraid of heights:

The Australian karri trees are truly an impressive and just another example of how incredible a species of tree the eucalyptus is.

On Walkabout On: The Gloucester Tree

Published on February 8, 2007 in Western Australia. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Climbing the Mighty Gloucester Tree

The next day we packed up our campsite in the southwestern Australian logging city of Pemberton in order to move on to our next destination. While packing up my wife and I witnessed a number of people actually stuck in the caravan park due to heavy rain that fell that night that turned the caravan park into a mud hole. It was raining so hard that night my wife was worried the stream we were camped by would over flow, but fortunately it did not. A guy with a four wheel drive vehicle with a wench was using it to pull people out of mud holes that they were trapped in. I was actually able to drive out of the mud hole with my campervan without any assistance to the surprise of those around me. Heck I surprised myself, to tell the truth.

Once safely out of the caravan park we headed for the last sight we wanted to see in the Pemberton area, the Gloucester Tree. This single tree ended up being the most memorable thing we did in the Pemberton area. The Gloucester Tree is located in Gloucester National Park which is less than a five minute drive outside of Pemberton. The national park has a number of hiking trails that skirt the low hills and allows visitor to walk through the protected groves of massive karri trees. However, the undisputed highlight of the park is with out a doubt, the Gloucester Tree:

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This tree is used by the forest rangers as a fire look out. The karri trees are to big for regular fire look outs to be made. So instead the forest rangers put pegs into the side of the largest karri trees and climbed up the trees to use them as fire look outs. The Gloucester Tree is one of these look outs that is open to the public to climb up on. The picture below was from the museum in Pemberton of one of the first of these early fire look outs:

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Notice the man standing on the top of the tree. A word of advice, before climbing this tree, make sure you are not scared of heights. My wife is scared of heights so she stayed in the campervan while I went to climb up the tree. As an added bonus, during the short walk to the tree, I was able to see a number of beautiful birds:

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The various, colorful birds are something I really enjoy about living in Australia:

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It was drizzling again when I approached the tree. A number of people were sitting on the benches near the tree watching others climb up the tree. Make sure you wear good shoes because the wet weather does cause the pegs to be slippery. You need as much traction as you can get on the pegs when you are climbing up the tree:

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It seems a bit scary when standing at the bottom of the tree and looking straight up, but once you get going up the tree it gets less and less scary. It took me about 15 minutes to climb up the tree and this was the view from the top of the Pemberton area:

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The trees don’t seem so big when viewed from the top of the forest canopy, but just take one look down and you realize how high up you are:

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You need only be of moderate fitness level to climb up the tree because I had to pass a woman who was extremely exhausted about halfway up and decided to go back down. Passing on the this tree is not easy, so if you go up make sure you are in good enough shape to get to the top. However, overall the experience was definitley well worth it and I highly recommend it to anyone visiting southwestern Australia. The only thing I could have lived without was the rain but after four days of on off rain I was quickly becoming acclimated to the wet weather of this beautiful area of Australia.

Next Posting: Cape Leeuwin

Prior Posting: Exploring the Logging Past of Pemberton

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On Walkabout In: The Ancient Empire

Published on January 29, 2007 in Western Australia. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

A Walk Through the Ancient Empire

Adjacent to the Tree Top Walk in Western Australia’s Walpole-Nornalup National Park is the fabulous walk through an impressive grove of karri trees known as the Ancient Empire. This walk is on boardwalks through another grove a giant karri and red tingle trees. If you have come this far to do the Tree Top Walk you must do the Ancient Empire walk as well. This walk allows you to explore the bottom of the forest compared to the top of the trees like you do in the Tree Top Walk.

 

The trees in the Ancient Empire grow up to a height of 60 meters. This picture kind of gives you an idea how large these trees are compared to me:

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They may not be as big as America’s red wood trees but they are still quite impressive. However they are not the biggest trees I have seen in Australia though because the mountain ash trees I saw at Mait’s Rest in the Otway Ranges.

A number of the trees are hollow at the bottom due to past bush fires. This provides for some good picture opportunities:

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These burned out bottoms are extremely important for bio-diversity in the forest because many animals and birds use these burned out sections of the karri trees as their homes:

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Fire is extremely important to the various species of gum trees such as the karri trees because they allow the trees to reproduce along with the side benefit of creating the hollows in the trees as shelter for the forest’s various animals:

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Some of the hollows in these trees are so large that people can walk right through them:

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A few of the trees have fallen over due to old age which provides a different perspective of how big these trees are:

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As you can imagine the under growth is very thick in the Ancient Empire, but it is filled with plenty of colorful flowers:

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The walk through the Ancient Empire takes about an hour, but there is plenty of park benches for you to sit on if you want to hang out for a while. When my wife and I were there, the park wasn’t too crowded and it ended up being a very pleasant day.

Really no trip to the southwest of Austrlia would be complete without taking both walk through the Valley of the Giants and the Ancient Empire to admire these incredibly impressive trees.

Prior Posting: The Valley of the Giants

Next Posting: Exploring the Logging Past of Pemberton

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On Walkabout In: The Valley of the Giants

Published on January 28, 2007 in Western Australia. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Walking Among Giants

Just down the road from the southwestern city of Denmark is the Valley of the Giants. The Valley of the Giants is an ancient grove of karri and tingle trees located in the Walpole-Nornalup National Park. The drive to the park was once again a pleasant and scenic drive along coastal southwestern Australia:

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It is quite clear when you enter the Valley of the Giants because you are suddenly surrounded by giant trees. The vast majority of the giant karri trees in southwestern Australia have been chopped down by loggers over the years and most of the trees you see in the area are regrowth. The Valley of the Giants is one of the few areas that escaped the lumberjack’s axe and has now been protected and developed into a full fledged tourist attraction:

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The most famous attraction of the park is the Tree Top Walk. This walk is a series of bridges hanging from the top of these giant trees. Here is the start of the Tree Top Walk:

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From here you slowly ascend up into the upper reaches of the trees. The idea to create this walk was decided upon to reduce the amount of hikers damaging the environment in the valley. By having the hikers walk above the trees the environment below is protected plus the walk ended up proving popular with hikers because it provided people with a view of the forest that had never been seen before: 

From these tree top walkways are just spectacular views of the surrounding forest that gives visitors an even greater appreciation of how big these karri trees can get:

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Some of these trees are so big that they soar even higher then the walkway:

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If look look closely at the below picture, you can see the walkway on the top of the trees:

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This should give everyone a good idea of how high above the ground these walkways can get. For people afraid of heights it may be best to avoid this walk especially since the bridges sway in the wind as well:

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While my wife and I were walking along the walkways we were getting rained on off and on which limited the views we had available to us. Occasionally we could see some rolling hills in the distance whenever the clouds broke up a little bit:

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However we came here to see the trees and there would be plenty more of these massive karri trees for us to check out as my wife and I left the Valley of the Giants to take a walk through the Ancient Empire.

Next Posting: The Ancient Empire

Prior Posting: Traveling to Denmark

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