Forests and a 150km hike

This week is dominated by my hike along the 135 kilometre Cape-to-Cape Track (detailed in separate blog entry), however before undertaking the hike I spent a day driving from Walpole to Augusta, checking out the forest sights.

Week 3: Walpole to Augusta

Tree Towers: these are bizare things. Very tall trees are selected, then a spiral-like staircase is constructed around them all the way to a platform on top. Don't think of some kinda sturdy spiral staircase, this is simply peices of steel rod nailed into the trunk at semi-regular intervals.

The Tree Towers were built in the 1930s as a means of spotting fires. A network of eight towers were constructed around the area, each around 60 metres in height. I've included a photo from the 1930s which shows how they originally looked - the tree was stripped of all foliage and it's top. Also, in some photos the stair rungs are not shown as spiralling around the tree, but simply going straight up. No sign of the thin wire cage that surrounds the staircase now either.

I climbed the Bicentenial Tree,a giant at 75 metres. The rungs themselves weren't particularly difficult, it was the shaky ladders between the platforms at the top, not to mention the prospect of passing someone coming down while you were going up. I think going down was far worse than going up, but either way the views at the top were rewarding.



Driving Walpole to Augusta

View Magnetic North - Week 3 (part 1): Walpole to Augusta in a larger map