Walpole-Nornalup National Park is a national park in the South West region of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to t ...

, south of

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

. It is famous for its towering

karri ''Eucalyptus diversicolor'', commonly known as karri, is a species of flowering plant in the family Myrtaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a tall tree with smooth light grey to cream-coloured, often mottled bark ...

and tingle trees. Red tingle trees are unique to the Walpole area. The park is part of the larger

Walpole Wilderness Area The Walpole Wilderness Area is a group of conservation reserves on the south coast of Western Australia. The area includes vast tracts of jarrah, red tingle and karri forests surrounding granite peaks, rivers, heathlands, and wetlands. Coas ...

that was established in 2004, an international biodiversity hotspot.

History

The

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have right ...

of the area are the Murrum of the Minang peoples of the larger

Noongar The Noongar (, also spelt Noongah, Nyungar , Nyoongar, Nyoongah, Nyungah, Nyugah, and Yunga ) are Aboriginal Australian peoples who live in the South West, Western Australia, south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton, Western Au ...

group who have inhabited the region for over 30,000 years. The park is named after the nearby town of Walpole which in turn honours William Walpole, who served alongside James Stirling on HMS '' Warspite'' in 1809. The Noongar peoples know the area as Nor-Nor-Nup, meaning the place of the black snake, which was anglicised as Nornalup. The explorer

William Nairne Clark William Nairne Clark (1804–1854) was a public notary and publisher, active at the Swan River Colony and Tasmanian settlements founded in Australia. The son of Charles Clark of Princeland, he was born in Scotland at Coupar Angus, Perthshire, to ...

visited the area in 1841 and sailed up the Frankland River. The botanist and explorer

Ferdinand von Mueller Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (german: Müller; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Vict ...

explored the area in 1877.T he Bellanger family were the first European settlers to arrive in the area in 1910, settling alongside the Frankland River and building a homestead in 1914. The park was first declared in 1910 when James Mitchell the Minister of Lands and Agriculture visited the area and was so impressed with the beauty that he set aside for conservation as an A-class reserve. Another portion west of the Irwin Inlet was declared as a reserve in 1912 and later absorbed into the park. The park received 158,167 visitors through 2008–2009.

Tourism

The Valley of the Giants is one of the main tourist draws in the area. Those with a

head for heights To have a head for heights means that one has no acrophobia, an irrational fear of heights, and is not particularly prone to fear of falling or suffering from vertigo, the spinning sensation that can be triggered, for example, by looking down fro ...

can get a tree top view on the Tree Top Walk a high walk way that can accommodate wheelchairs. Most similar canopy walks around the world are constructed using

suspension bridge A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridges, which lack vertical ...

-type structures — not for the faint of heart. The Tree Top Walk, however, is a series of sixty-metre, lightweight steel trusses built on steel pylons to form a secure ramp. Beneath the canopy walk there is a pathway around the tingle trees for walkers — this is known as the "Ancient Empire". A

whale watching Whale watching is the practice of observing whales and dolphins (cetaceans) in their natural habitat. Whale watching is mostly a recreational activity (cf. birdwatching), but it can also serve scientific and/or educational purposes.Hoyt, E. 2 ...

vantage point is settled at Conspicuous Beach, providing views of migrating whales ( humpback and southern right) and dolphins.

Environment

The tingle tree has evolved to cope with bush fires and can withstand low level fires. The

Department of Parks and Wildlife The Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW) was the department of the Government of Western Australia responsible for managing lands described in the ''Conservation and Land Management Act 1984'' and implementing the state's conservation and en ...

carries out fuel reduction

backburning A controlled or prescribed burn, also known as hazard reduction burning, backfire, swailing, or a burn-off, is a fire set intentionally for purposes of forest management, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement. A control ...

in the national park; this limits the risk of a large scale bush fire by reducing the amount of dry leaf litter on the ground. Tingles can look completely burned in the inside but continue to survive as they grow from just under the layer of outside bark. The park also extends to the coast, providing a range of habitats from forest to coastal heathland featuring swamp paperbark and a red flowering gum which is endemic to the region. Conspicuous Cliff is one of the few places the coast is accessible in the national park. The area also the Walpole-Nornalup Inlets, which are fed by the Deep and Frankland rivers. The

Bibbulmun Track The Bibbulmun Track is a long-distance walk trail in Western Australia. It runs from Kalamunda in the east of Perth to Albany, and is long. It is managed by government agencies, and has a foundation. It traverses the Darling Range and has i ...

winds through the park to the coast.

References

Gallery

Image:Red tingle.jpg, Red tingle

External links