Winter 2019 - OZ 8 Tingle Trees and Tree Walk

2019 - OZ  8    Tingle Trees and Tree Walk

Met These 2 On Our Way to the Tingle Trees

The Southwest of Australia has unique trees due to the frequent precipitation in the area. One of those ‘rare’ trees in Australia is the Red Tingle Tree (Eucalyptus Jacksonii), a giant of a tree. Somehow this tingle tree is picky about where it likes to grow. It picks gullies or hillsides and this tree even picks his neighbors. While it is a Eucalyptus tree, it has its own name because it has its own look, its own nationality so to speak. It prefers to be around Jarrah (see #4, Gnomesville) and/or Karri trees.

Tingle and Karri Trees

Or sometimes, around the Yellow Tingle or the Rate’s Tingle, but almost like the California Redwoods, it’s a picky tree as to where it likes to grow. But once it grows, it grows for centuries. Like the California Redwoods, it is shallow-rooted and needs soil that allows the roots to spread out. What is amazing about a Red Tingle is that often the actual trunk of the tree is hollow near the roots. The core of the trunk becomes rotted (due to insects or fungi) and the height of the tree attracts lightning which burns out the rotted core. Nourishment is pumped up to the top of the tree just below the bark, so the inside

View From the Top of the Tingle Tree Hill

 of the tree, the center, can be hollowed, it will not affect the life-force of this tree.

Our First Hollowed Out Tingle

Large Tingle

Wild fires had ravaged many of the trees we saw, yet the trees were sound. The burned out sections on some of the trees were so large, 100 people could congregate within its trunk. Somehow the Red Tingle Tree can cope with mild fires, a rarity for a tree.

 Naturally each of those trees was very different from its neighbor, none looked alike. The woods, the grove we walked through is on the 
National Register of Australia and 

Other Side of the Previous Tingle

 it's a National Park. The Red Tingle is endemic, it only grows around here. So… if you want to tinkle on a tingle you have to travel to the Southwest of Australia.  

 (Don’t ask, yes I did)

The Giant Tingle - Huge

Other Side of the Giant Tingle

Walpole, the town we slept in last night, the town I ‘thought‘ was a sleepy gulch, is actually famous.

Who would have thought? Well, famous for its trees, famous because there is not much around Walpole. 

Avenue of the Giants - Tingle and Karri Trees

Look For the Burned Out Tingle on the Left

Near the Beginning of the Video

                                  
 

Route of the Tingle Tree Walk

There is however a constructed Tree Top Walk. The setup of the Tree Top Walk is very safe and it was kind of an easy way to get around. It was bouncy but safe. Still Carol is a good trooper, she is not happy in very high places, yet she forced herself to walk the walk. 

A Long Way Down

Remember the Red Tingle Tree likes hillsides, so the walk was built like a giant, complicated loop off a hillside, among the canopy of the Red Tingles. We were about 40 or 50 meters above ground level however and it was a phenomenal walk and yes, scary if you get anxiety about heights. The views were special; the forest around us primeval and the trees one of a kind. A good outing and a good find to visit the Tree Top Walk.

The Construction Tried to Not Damage Any Trees

Highest Point on the Walk - 40  Meters Above Ground

A Wobbly Walk