Walpole

After my two detours, I finally arrived in Walpole late on 18th February. Just in time for a great sunset. I stayed at the Walpole Lodge Hostel.

Fellow travellers at the hostel recommended I take the WOW Wilderness EcoCruise in the Nornalup Inlets Marine Park. (www.wowwilderness.com.au). We set off from the Walpole jetty and crossed to the far side of the inlets.

On the way over Gary, the skipper, told us several stories about Walpole including; how the original inlet tours were started by a French lawyer (Pierre Bellanger) over a century ago; how Walpole was the preferred location for senior allied troops to take their R&R breaks during the 2nd world war; and most incredulously how some of Leo Tolstoy’s papers made their way to Walpole. Once moored on the far side of the inlets, we made our way over the dunes to the southern ocean beach beyond.

The beach was deserted..

except for an illegal commercial shark fishing boat (all commercial fishing is banned in the marine park). Some of the group with better cameras than mine tried to use their tele photo lens to identify the boat.

After the trip to the beach our skipper demonstrated his diving skills.

The following day I set off for the Valley of the Giants tree top walk in the Walpole-Nornalup National Park (parks.dpaw.wa.gov.au/site/tree-top-walk).

The walk takes you 40m up in the canopy on specially constructed walkways that are designed to gently sway in the wind to give you the feeling of the trees swaying – a feature to far for me. Although not generally afraid of heights, I was very glad to return to ground level.

You can also walk around the forest to see some of the Red Tingle trees that are now only found in this part of Australia. They are the 3rd highest tree in the world. They were too tall to get in one picture so I focused on their trunks, many of which have had their centres destroyed by rot or fire.