The Giant Tingle Tree

Trail and tourism pages call this the largest living eucalypt known in the world by girth, and quote a base of about 24 metres. The register measurement we found is a little more modest, 22.3 metres round. Either way, both numbers describe a trunk with a hole burned through the middle of it. This is a red tingle, hollowed out by fire and still standing, at the heart of a short loop walk in Walpole-Nornalup National Park. A boardwalk runs right around its base, there to keep the feet of everyone who comes to look off its roots. The figures deserve a word of caution. Two of the tourism pages print 24 metres as the tree's height, which looks like the girth copied into the wrong line. The only height we found, from the same register as the girth, is 30 metres. So this is not a tall tree. It is a wide one, and wide is the whole point. Nobody has published an age for it. If you know of a dating, tell us. Getting there is part of the visit. Hilltop Road leaves the South Coast Highway about two kilometres east of Walpole and runs one way, on gravel, fine for an ordinary car but not for caravans. From the car park an 800 metre circular walk, 20 to 40 minutes, brings you to the tree. Entry to the national park is free, and there is no public transport; town is about seven kilometres back by road.