Tuesday, September 26, 2006
A Treemendous Experience
September 26th marks the day of the tree here in the southern forests of Western Australia. Our day has been driving all around eucalyptus forests and learning about (hopefully not falling from) the different trees.This morning, we came about the Bicentennial Tree, the tallest publically-accessible tree platform in the world. Normally I'd be all over a good climb, but this thing was a sketchy encounter at best. Steel bars were impailing this tree in a coil-like pattern all the way up the top. The highest platform, 210 feet tall, was used for fire lookout by the forestry department. Now, the tree has been turned over to tourism, inviting any unsuspecting sap to try and climb it.
No way this attraction would last a day in the states. One slip and you could easily fall to your death. Just slippery steel bars spaced four feet apart with no under-carriage or lanyard to clip onto. I got about thirty rungs up, enough to break a spinal cord, and started thinking twice about the whole thing. Back down I went quite gingerly. Peggy, the excellent tree climber she is, scampered up to the first platform which was about 40ft up. Didn't fare as well going down, but she got back to earth OK. There were some teenagers that did the whole tree - the steel bars were almost vertical at the end - they were much braver than I.
posted by ncawthon at 7:15 PM
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