Day 32: Fri 19 Apr 24 - Denmark to Walpole

Fri 19 Apr 24 - Denmark to Walpole (74km)

15 Deg clear and sunny and no wind at Denmark (although I'm sure the temperature is about 5 deg cooler at where we stayed), reaching an amazing 26 deg at Walpole, sunny and no wind. This weather is so much warmer than we were expecting - brilliant.

We packed and drove away at 0850am, heading for the Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk, only a short 57km drive away. We arrived in good time and parked in one of several caravan parking bays at the entrance. Our stay for the next two nights is Walpole at the Rest Point Caravan Park on the other side of town - about 25 km further on from the Tree Top Walk, but feeling confident about parking availability with the caravan, we decided to visit the Tree Top walk on the way, rather than have to drive back. It turned out not to be any problem at all.

We did two walks here: The Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk, which is a 600m long walk along an amazing walkway reaching 40m above the ground in the tingle forest canopy, and the 540m long Ancient Empire Walk at ground level which gave a completely different perspective of these magnificent giant 400-year-old red tingle trees.

While on our walk we had the company of a very chatty young lady and her mother for a while, before we bumped into another couple we met at Borden on a recent overnight stay. It was nice to see Colin and Carol again, and it was even nicer sitting under the giant tingle forest canopy in front of the Grandma Tree just chatting and enjoying the surroundings. The Giant Tingles are amazing to see up close and it's one of those experiences that you can only really do justice to by seeing in person. Have a read about the Giant Tingle Trees here, or google for another.

After two and half hours at the Valley of the Giants, we returned to the car, and continued the remaining 25km to our stay at the Walpole Rest Point Caravan Park where we arrived at 1230, checked in, set up and had some lunch. As we have other plans tomorrow, after lunch we drove the short distance back into Walpole to the Visitor Information Centre, then 10km further into the hills along a dirt track to a carpark, and an 800m walk under the ancient canopy of tingle and karri forest to the Giant Tingle Tree.

The Giant Tingle Tree is a Red Tingle that over the centuries has been hollowed out by fire. As with most Australian hardwood varieties that have adapted to fire, the heartwood of this tree has been damaged by fire while the outer sections of the tree remain living. At over 400 years old, this giant majestic tree is one of the biggest in terms of its base circumference.

With the sun setting we decided we had seen enough trees for today, so we headed back to the caravan park via a short scenic loop before the township of Walpole. On the scenic loop (which wasn't that scenic) we helped a couple (Patty and Roger!) who had blown a tyre on a mountain bike on their way into town for dinner, but didn't have a spare tyre anything to repair it with. They are on their 5th day into an unassisted ride from Albany to Manjimup along part of the Munda Biddi Trail (a 1000km trail from Albany to Mundaring - one of the longest continuous off-road cycling trails in the world). I had some duct tape in the car, so we removed the wheel, and layered copious amounts of duct tape on the inside and outside of the tyre to hold it together. With a new tube in place, I could see it it holding up in the rear vision mirror as we drove away, as they continued their 5 km ride into town for dinner. We arrived back at the caravan and had dinner too, before the arduous task of sorting through the many photos of trees that I took today, before completing the blog.