Margaret River Eco-Heritage Tours
Feature image: sky spiral of a living, burnt-out Jarrah, Witchcliffe. Trees hold a very special role in the genus loci, or spirit of place. Margaret River lies in the far south-west of Australia, in the Leeuwin-Naturaliste region. A limestone ridge runs along the coast, and fades away inland to a sand plain cloaked with forests…
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Hamelin is a peaceful looking bay in the far south-west of Australia. For most of the year, its shores are sheltered from the swell by limestone reefs. Stingrays sweep the shallows feeding on scraps, people line-fish from the beach, and small children play in the wavelets. But the bay has a dramatic history. For a…
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There’s no denying that climate change will have a massive impact on Margaret River. Over the past 50 000 years, locals have witnessed dramatic changes to landscape and ecology, and there are likely many more to come. Within the caves of the Leeuwin-Naturaliste Ridge, Margaret River holds a record of climate change spanning over a…
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In the heart of a small town in Western Australia there grows an oak. Not a very big oak, just a young tree with a short history, but potentially a very long future. When Elizabeth was crowned Queen of England in 1953, Margaret River chose to plant a tree at Memorial Park in her honour.…
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Documenting old and significant jarrah trees in the forests of Margaret River. Jarrah forest is one of the major ecological niches in the wet south-west corner of Australia. It is endemic to the area, growing nowhere else in the world. Since the arrival of Europeans in 1829, vast areas of forest have been cleared for…
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SCULPTURE BY TREE Bleached and weathered; scored, lined and hollowed. A large marri, centuries old, collapsed across the swamp like the shin bone of a giant. Nourishment for myriads of small creatures and a feast for the mind that has the time to pause and wonder. The life history of a tree can be read…
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Boranup is a small outreach of Karri forest in the Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park. In Wardandi Noongar, the name means “place of the male dingo.” The dingos are long gone, but the Karri trees delight thousands of tourists a year. They stop on the roadside to snap images of nature, unaware that the forest clothes a…
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