BACK TO NATURE
11 LISTEN TO THE TREES
When tree hugging was a thing, I gave it a good nudge. I’d wrap my arms around those solid, dependable trunks, sending warm fuzzies deep into their growth rings. In all the times I did it, I never expected to be hugged back.
Then one day, a 75-metre-tall beauty returns the love. Named the Walk-Through tree, I find her at the end of a leaf-strewn bush trail flanked by trees that are among the tallest in the world. Believed to be 400 years old, her gnarled base has formed into an arch, and a ladder grants entrance to her open-sided cavern. I step in and am gently cuddled by impenetrably dense, living wood. Its age and strength emanates contentment, calm and, remarkably, zero claustrophobia. As I lean back in the darkness, I have the most unusual feeling: I sense a heartbeat.
The Walk-Through tree – and her countless cousins – are found in Pemberton, 3.5 hours’ drive south of Perth. A place where tracts of pale, smooth-surfaced karri trees rise like Roman columns and fringe the rolling earth like stubble on a man’s chin. And while everyone’s attention is focused on Margaret River, 1.5 hours’ drive west, these giant trees are left to whisper among themselves.
There are several elders in Greater Beedelup National Park, their old-growth grandeur – measuring up to 90 metres in height – clear to see against those that have sprouted since the milling days of last century. I’m enchanted by them all as I
