Perth to Esparence - Day 2

Tue 9 Jan 2007 32 °C

Set off early this morning to the bi-centennial tree. This tree is 60 metres tall, an estimated 400 years old and is huge. It is still used as one of 3 trees of it's height by the bush marshals to spot and monitor bush fires in the area. I expected there to be a nice staircase up around the tree but oh no...it was just metal spikes in the trunk with no safety net or anything. I didn't go up all the way and getting back down was hard because you had to go backwards but I did it!

On to the Valley of the Giants. It's a walk 38 metres high through the Tingle forest tree canopes. It was so windy and pouring of rain, the walkway was really swaying. It was a shame really, I would have liked to have spent more time up there but as it was it took 15 minutes to walk round. Then I did the Ancient Empire walk at ground level. It's a boardwalk through a grove of veteran Tingle trees - the girth of the Tingle trees can reach 24 metres around!...and they're usually hollow trunks where a fungus eats the insides, it's easy to see why the first settlers used these trees as their homes.

Off we went again, this time to Elephant Cove and Greens Pool beach, they were once again...amazing. We spent an hour or so exploring before setting off for the Natural bridge - a rock formation which has eroded to form a bridge and The Gap - kind of like a gorge. It was so windy and still pouring of rain that scrambling over the slippery wet limestone to view them both was a bit scary, what with the sheer drops everywhere. We were so high up and yet the gale force winds made the sea so strong, the top of the waves hit us.

On to our last stop for the day, Albany. Albany is the oldest settlement in Western Australia and at one point was going to be the Capital of WA. For many years it was the first port of call for the mail from England which put it in a better position than Perth.

We went stopped for 20 minutes at the Anzac war memorial before arriving at our hostel for the evening. After dinner we walked to the local pub for a couple of beers, and then to bed.

Bi-Centennial Tree climb