Western Australia – Day 3 – Treetop Walk @ Valley of the Giants

Day 3 saw us heading to one of the key highlights of our itinerary: the Treetop and Ancient Empire walks @ Valley of the Giants. The 600m long walk goes up to 40m above ground level, and therefore at a height where it’s possible to reach out to touch the leaves at the top-most branches of the tall Tingle trees. The valley is so-called on account of its 400 year old trees – and very magnificent and majestic they were.

I previously did the same Treetop walk in the 2003 trip, but weather conditions couldn’t had been more different: the 2003 trip in December saw overcast weather, while the 2017 trip saw wonderfully sunny weather and despite it being winter, the sun warmed things up considerably to make for a very pleasant and cool walk among trees. Family admission for the four of us was AUD52.50, and the walk lasts about 45 minutes leisurely, after which we continued on with the Ancient Empire walk next. The park had opened for an hour or so by the time we arrived Friday today, but there perhaps just two other groups of visitors about, making for a very pleasant and quiet walk as we made our way up the boardwalk. Tripadvisor notes that the place can get choked with hordes of noisy visitors armed with their selfie sticks and spoil the general ambiance, so it might be a good idea to either go fairly early like we did, or later in the day.

A word of the journey to the Valley too: the Valley is about 125km from the Forest Lodge Resort in Pemberton, and the directions there from our lodging are simple. In effect though it took us about 1 hr 45 minutes to get there on account that most of the road there was single lane in either direction, and quite narrow – which made me uneasy when vehicles in opposing directions zoomed past us without bothering to slow down. The distance between vehicles were often less than 0.5 meters! As a result, we drove slightly-under the speed limit, which perhaps annoyed the two to three vehicles which occasionally crept up from behind us, frustrated that we won’t racing at 120km/h on a 90km/h road. Well – we like living, so there LOL.

Furthermore, the timing we drove outbound and in the return journey were early mornings and early afternoons: and the very bright morning and afternoon sun cast very strong reflective light on the road, and when mixed with hard shadows from trees in quick alternating fashion made it difficult for my eyes to adjust back and forth.

One more thing: on the Valley of the Giants road itself, you will come across a side-road branching off from the left that is barred with a gantry but also says “car park”. Ignore that: the main entrance and car park is several minutes down that road.:)