Walpole-Nornalup National Park covers a large area of the South West region of Western Australia and is known for its Karri and Tingle Trees – two of the tallest species of trees in the world. Red Tingle trees are unique to this area and cannot be found anywhere else. Both species can reach heights of over 50m.

We started at Coalmine Beach on the coast and walked the trail up to the ‘Giant Tingle Tree’. The trail was about 6km each way, and starting at the beach allowed us to see the trees getting larger and larger as we went further uphill and away from the coast. The Giant Tingle Tree is located at around 250m above sea level, and the trail also passes through Hilltop Lookout (a viewpoint area).

The Giant Tingle Tree itself is one of the largest trees in the area, and it has a hollowed-out base – which is common for Tingle Trees that have previously been in a fire (most of them have).

There actually used to be a different ‘Giant Tingle Tree’, and visitors would park their cars inside the hollowed-out trunk for a photo. All the visitor traffic caused the tree to collapse in 1990 and so they had to find another giant tree nearby to be the new ‘Giant Tingle Tree’. The mistakes of the past have been learned from, and you can’t drive your car right up to the current Giant Tingle Tree (only to the nearby car park).