Big Trees

[Kyle]We spent another day in the Walpole area happily enjoying the big trees. This allowed us to leave our tent up for the day, saving us at least that job.

A sunrise drive started our day to gorgeous Mandalay Beach. We found (and startled) a couple of kangaroos on the way. Later on, I took a side trail to a lookout point and spotted another one on the trail. Maryanne started shouting at me to look up, which startled him off. Maryanne hadn’t seen the kangaroo, what she was trying to get me to notice was the big sea eagle circling directly overhead and very close. I guess it’s lucky I don’t look much like a rabbit.


Mandalay Beach

We drove up to the dirt Tingle Drive and had a look at some of the largest of the type. We were both just in awe of the majesty of the forest.

Further up the drive, we came to the Circular Pool in the Frankland River. This was a series of waterfalls and pools interspersed together. The water was filled with tannin and had the color of strong tea. The water was also filled with a lot of foam, which was the result of a gummy substance that gets in the river from dead tree sap. This caused me to come up with a new term: Foambergs.


Kyle gets snapping at circular pool
We drove to a spot to have another walk closer to the sea. The walk itself was just more trees and parrots. On the way back we passed an emu farm that also had a lot of kangaroos lounging on the grass.

On our way back to the camp, the sunset was an incredible display of fiery colors. We got to the tent and immediately turned right onto the road to Mandalay Beach, chasing down the sunset. We lost the race. Most of the color had gone by the time we got to the beach. The Kangaroos were all coming out for the night and we got to see quite a few of them on the way back. Maryanne made the observation that we had seen more kangaroos that day than people.


Australian Wildlife - Kangaroo and the Galah Bird