Big Trees and Forest Lakes

During our van trip from Western Australia to the north of Queensland to Cairns, we experienced a lot and saw amazing things. We were on the most beautiful beaches and climbed several peaks. But Australia's nature has much more to offer.

We particularly liked the trip through the southern part of WA. In this region there are many large and old trees and wonderful lakes that invite you to swim. The region in and around a town called Manjimup is known for its huge centuries-old trees. The first settler in Manjimup was the lumberjack Thomas Muir, who settled in this area in 1856. To this day, the main industry in this region is still the timber industry.

But a very special tree has been spared by lumberjacks for centuries, the King Jarrah Tree, which is not far from the city. This tree is 45 meter high, has a remarkable diameter of 2.6 meter and is estimated to be 300-500 years old. It is that big that it almost does not fit on a photo, only from far away.

It was a hot day and we did quite some walking and spend a lot of time exploring the Trees. After lunch it was definitely time time to cool down. But where do you go to cool off if you are too far from the sea? It only took us a few minutes to find a promising lake in the forest thanks to our wiki camps app.

About half an hour later we reached the Big Brook Dam. This lake is located south of Manjimup on the Karri Forest Explorer Drive. It is not only a local recreation area, but also a source of drinking water for the region.

We loved that place from the first sight. The lake has only one beach on a clearing in the middle of the forest and is therefore perfect for hot days like this one. Furthermore it was great to swim in fresh water instead of the salty ocean.

After spending the whole afternoon at the lake, we had only one mission for the evening, to find a place to sleep. It is not always easy to find a place to stop with the van, but it is relatively easy in western Australia, so we just stayed in the middle of Manjimup.

In the morning we noticed how lucky we were with the place. It was made to stay there overnight, including toilet and picnic table where we could have breakfast in peace.

On this day it was time to move on again. The path led us to a town called Walpole 120km away and back to the coast. But we didn't come here to see beaches because we had seen enough of them since we were in Australia. We came here to see more trees because there are some of them here too.

There is a famous Tree Top Walk called Valley of the Giants, but with an entry fee of 21$ per adult this wasn´t in our budget. You do not have to spend money to see beautiful nature, you just need to keep your eyes open.

So we went straight into the Walpole-Nornalup-Nationalpark that was founded in 1957 and is known to be one of the last major occurrences of the Karri Tree and the Red-Tingle. We were really impressed with the size of these trees, but one tree really stood out. The Giant Tingle Tree, a huge fire-hollowed red tingle tree. Tingles are the largest girthed eucalypt known in the world and this is not difficult to see, since there is no problem finding space for several people inside the tree.