"Walpole - Home Of The Tree Top Walk" a Walpole Travel Page by Mikebb

We had visited Albany in the South West for the weekend and decided to take a few days returning to Perth. Our first overnight stop was Walpole a quaint coastal town facing the Southern Ocean.

The area was explored during the 1830's and found to have straight-limbed forest and luxuriant vegetation, however it failed to entice settlers due to its isolation from Perth and lack of infrastucture in the fledging colony of Western Australia. The district remained largely uninhabited until a land settlement scheme was set up in the 1930's to provide city people with work during the Depression.

Today the small town provides services to surrounding beef and cattle district and has developed into a tourist destination where visitors can enjoy the Walpole - Nornalup National Park and the Tree Top Walk established in 1996. In recent years many Perth residents have recognised the unique beauty of the district and have built holiday homes.

For those who enjoy boating and fishing there are waterways to be enjoyed, boat and houseboats for hire as well as fishing charters. Beware of taking a boat into the Southern Ocean as the waters can become dangerous .

In the area below the Tree Top walk there are tracks you can walk which enable you to touch and feel the giant Tingle Trees. Here my wife poses inside a healthy Tingle tree.

This super continent was warm and moist before it broke up 50 million years ago. The district around Walpole and in particular the Valley of The Giants where the Tree Top Walk is located remains similar in climate to those times, enabling the huge Tingle trees and other vegetation to exist as they were millions of years ago. The Tingle trees are restricted to this district.