Palatine Wood Gnome

There are many that spread over a much larger territory; that host a wider range of peculiar plants or give shelter to much more interesting wildlife species.
But the Palatine Forest is the largest coherent wood in Germany and, most of all: It's my home.
Why "Wood Gnome"?
Well, I have been named thus because I turn into Rumpelstiltskin kind of regularly when "visitors" come over from the other side of the Rhine Plains (where they have lots of forest as well...) with their huge cars, jamming the streets of my village, drive up to a forester's lodge, have lunch there, return home after a final cup of coffee and then claim "Oh, we have been to the WOODS this weekend"

That's why.

Monday 24 March 2008

Walpole; Saturday

After a short side trip to the surf beaches of Prevelly and a walk across the dunes we resumed our zoom towards Walpole, a tiny village at the corner of the Nornalup Inlet. Though zoom is a bit imprecise, as it was more like meandering. Street signs on minor roads are a mess here and of course we got lost despite our map and took a large detour over Nannup instead of heading towards Pemberton directly. Another 100km, who cares by now....
Entering the Southern Forests was a kind of revelation. I love trees of all sorts and I'm guilty of hugging some of them from time to time. And no, I'm not crazy. Try it, it feels.....special. Consoling.
Anyway, there they were, enormous, mighty, stately trees, almost the same circumference from root to top, greyish-red or silvery or yellow bark; hundreds and hundreds of them! Yeah, silly, that's probably why they call it a FOREST....

Most impressive and I was grateful that Harald was driving that morning as I was fully occupied gazing at the trees and would have steered us directly into the shrubs at some point. Just look at them, aren't they gorgeous?

Best of all, tomorrow would be spend wandering around beneath and around them, something I was very much looking forward to.

When we arrived at our hostel in Walpole I was pleasantly surprised. A very nice, clean, familiar and best of all, quiet hostel with a lovely couple running it and guests that were as much into hiking as we were. So we spent the evening cooking together and exchanging tips on were to go/what to see and a good time was had by all.
Walpole Inlet/Frankland River+Nornalup Inlet

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