Thursday 20 October 2016

the big storm

Yesterday Penny went for one of her favourite walks, along the Yarra River at Warburton.

But what was this? A big mess at the entrance!


But no worries. Someone had been very busy clearing up the fallen trees after the big storm last weekend, so we could get through easily.


Many of the fallen trees were enormous. They must have been many decades old.


'Come away from this one,' I said to her, because it looked ready to fall the next time the wind blows.


Every fallen tree we saw was a eucalypt. Here's Penny examining the roots of one of them. This one had fallen across the river.


But here's something interesting... That tree was right beside a stand of Californian redwoods planted early last century. Not a one of them had fallen. (Can you see the fallen eucalypt across the path in the distance?)




I searched for references to this little glade of redwoods in Warburton township, but most sites direct to the bigger forest of redwoods in East Warburton,

Yarra Views Blog is the only site I could find that has information about the trees beside the Yarra River in Warburton itself. The writer says these trees were planted by a group of American Seventh Day Adventists. I recall from a previous blog post of my own that they were planted about 1922, which makes them older than the ones at East Warburton, I think. (I'm not sure about that.)

I think this site, about the forests ofWarburton, is fascinating.

2 comments:

Molly the Airedale said...

What a shame to lose so many big beautiful trees.

parlance said...

Molly and Mackie, you're so right. If only the trees were growing as nature intended, in an old forest, surrounded by friends, they would probably have survived.