So… after enjoying everything that Albany has to offer we pointed the cruiser back west and drove the 230km to Denmark on the Wilson Inlet. We didn’t stay in Denmark itself but headed on a little further to the Big4 Denmark Ocean Beach Holiday Park, which is situated close to the opening of the Wilson Inlet. The park was quite big but the sites were roomy enough and well spread. The location felt a bit isolated but that’s not necessarily a bad thing!
The Boston Brewery ran a courtesy bus to the van park and so we took advantage of it one afternoon. It proved not to be one of the stays highlights. The setting of the brewery was quite lovely but the food was only average and, unfortunately for Rob, it’s another brewery that has a manic passion for ‘pale ale’ (yuck, yuck and yuck again). They did do a reasonable ‘Nut Brown Ale’ and a ‘Stout’ that partially saved their reputation for Rob. Jo enjoyed an alcoholic ‘Peach Lemonade’ or two…
The Dam
On our way to and from Greens Pool we noticed a a place called ‘The Dam‘. The thing that primarily attracted us was the opportunity to taste marron for the first time.
A little bit off the South Coast Highway, you drive down a short dirt road to discover a number of large dams, which are the marron ponds. As you approach the main building you pass a small plot of plants that turned out to be a commercial hemp crop. The Dam also operates a distillery and uses the hemp to produce their spirits. They also brew beer and make a range of wines.
We settled in for a late lunch there and enjoyed some share plates of marron, pickled octopus and bread with oil and dukkah. The marron was very nice but in terms of value for money we both felt that we were paying for the venue more so than the food. In that respect, despite being a beautiful place and a magnificent setting, we were left feeling a little disappointed. It would probably have been better with a larger group. As it was it was a little quiet and subdued…
The Denmark coastal area is has numerous natural attractions including Greens Pool, Elephant Rocks, Sinker Bay and Waterfall Beach, all of which are quite stunning in their own particular way.
Greens Pool
Greens Pool is a stunning natural sea pool set on a white sandy beach nestled amongst granite outcrops and boulders. It is very popular with tourists and this was the case when we were there but not so crowded that you couldn’t find a spot to yourself if you wanted it.
We weren’t up for swim that day so we elected to walk up and over the granite outcrop on the left side to view the area from a bit of height. The beaches on the southern coast of Western Australia are much more like the east coast rather than the red dirt of the western coast but the water still seems to have that glassy green’ish colour that is quite mesmerising and calming.
Elephant Rocks
Walking up over the granite outcrops for a few hundred metres brings you around to Elephant Rocks. This is another sheltered beach that is dotted with large exposed granite boulders some of which stand around 9m out of the water.
One rock in particular seems to be a favourite jumping rock with young folks scrambling up the rock spine to leap down into the crystal clear water below. We watched a number of people do it and it seems to us that the 9m leap is actually the easy part. The scramble up the sharply sloping spine of the rock looks like a great way to enjoy a broken bone or two if you lose your grip and/or balance. Two young girls in particular looked extremely precarious at one point but did manage to get to the top and hurl themselves back off. Kudos to them.
Sinker Bay
Sinker Bay is a rocky inlet area on the Denmark coast that sits in contrast to the calm green waters of Greens Pool and Elephant Rocks. The ocean breaks straight onto Black Hole Rock in a ceaseless effort to wear it down into the ocean. Once again we came across a fair size gouge in the rock that contained a sizable amount of salt that had crystallized from sea water that had washed in and evaporated.
A testament to the power of the sea was a large rock pool about 2 metres above the water line that had a plate-sized Wrasse swimmming around in it. It had either been put there by a fisherman or washed in by a tidal surge. It didn’t seem to perturbed about its predicament swimming in and out from under a rock ledge (see video).
Waterfall Beach
Waterfall Beach is exactly what is named. A beach with a waterfall! Having said that… it took a bit of searching to actually find the waterfall. We turned the wrong way once we got onto the beach and found a small trickle of water coming down the bank and thought that was it but it didn’t quite match the pictures we had seen before getting there.
So we set off in the other direction and noticed a washout cutting through the sand down into the surf. tracking that back to the low cliff we we found the actual waterfall as it tumbled out of a cleft in the rock, spilling into a small rock pool before cutting a washout through the sand into the ocean.
On our way back we passed another couple who remarked about how ‘unremarkable’ the eaterfall was… We quietly pointed them in the direction of the actual waterfall, for which they were most grateful…
The star attraction of the Denmark region is without a doubt the Valley Of The Giants and the magnificent Tingle Trees, Karri, Marri and Jarrah trees. And the best way to see them is via the Tree Top Walk.
Tree Top Walk
The Tree Top Walk is a 600m suspended walkway that winds through the canopy of the Tingle and Karri trees at a height of 40m. So once again we found ourselves testing our fear of heights as we made our way up along the ramp and onto the suspended path.
Each length of the walkway is suspended between bettween steel poles with a circular platform atop each where you can stop and look into the tops of the trees and all the way down to the bases. The walkway is similar to the Tahune Air Walk in Tasmania but probably a little less challenging without the overhang points that have you standing out with no support below the platform. It’s still a long way up though and has a reasonable amount of bounce and sway as you make your way around it.
An interesting thing about the walk is that it was built with minimal disturbance to the ground and the trees around it. Surprisingly, despite their enormous size, the Tingle Trees are quite shallow rooted and they can be very easily damaged just by having too many people walking on them, which is one of the reasons the Tree Top Walk was built… The whole thing is free-standing with only the 40m poles for support. Everything else is held up under tension from the poles.
Walking through the canopy give a whole new perspective on these magnificent trees, which still have a fragility despite their enormous size. You get to look down on nests and burls that you wouldn’t otherwise see from below. You also gain a perspective on the normal sized trees and plants that live in the shade of the giants.
The Giants
Aside from the Tree Top Walk you can wander through parts of the forest although we were unable to do the Ancient Forest Walk due to construction work being done to extend the low-impact walkways. We did do a guided walk down a forest trail with a volunteer guide who showed us the difference between Tingles, Karri and Marri trees.
One of the amazing things about the Tingles, apart from their size, is that it is really only a thin part of the outside of the tree that is living. Some of the Tingles are virtually hollow with huge splits in the trunks that you can walk through, yet they’re still living. Some of the trees had enormous burls that in a fairytale setting could be turned into a giant’s coffee table.
The giant trees weren’t the only attraction of the region. There was a great diversity of trees, grasses, shrubs and fungi. One standout was a slim tree with a series of spiral twists in the trunk. At first look it might have been some sort of strangler vine but close up it appeared to be the actual tree trunk. Another was a beautiful bright orange fungus growing on a fallen tree trunk. It was the size of a dinner plate and would no doubt kill you of you ate it.
The giant trees of Western Australia aren’t quite as big as the sequoias in the U.S., which we walked amongst back in 2016, but they are just as magnificent in their own right. They only inhabit a small pocket in the south of W.A. Hopefully they will continue to flourish there for millennia to come.