Golden Valley Tree Park
Balingup
The Hike - With a free day to explore the area around Bunbury, one place on my "to-hike" list was the Balingup Golden Valley Tree Park and I was hoping I wouldn't be too late to experience the kaleidoscope of autumn hues this park is famous for. Located a short drive/walk south of the centre of Balingup, the park is well signed from South Western Highway and is the official exit out of town for the Bibbulmun Track. I arrived at the main information board and old homestead after a cracking morning exploring the Bridgetown Jarrah Park. This picturesque little building was once the main building for the farms that occupied this area and since 1980 the land has been turned into the 60ha arboretum that is the largest in the state.
The park is divided up into two sections, the World Collection and the Australian Collection. The appeal for me today was going to be the deciduous trees of the World Collection but I was interested to see how they had organised the Australian Collection so would be walking the entire 4.5km loop around the park. This meant driving a short way from the homestead to the World Collection car park and parking under the spectacular colours of the vibrant poplar trees. There are three loop walks you can do in the World Collection and I would be doing a combination of these as part of my larger loop around the entire park. My first visit was to the Sequoia Short Walk that take you on a flat loop to the duck pond and back again. With so many different varieties of trees it is made very easy to identify the names of each tree with a plaque in front of every tree telling you the name (both common and Latin) and who sponsors it (click here for more info on sponsoring a tree). With the sun out and a wisp of cloud in the sky, the foliage was looking spectacular as I wandered past cedars, sequoias, oaks and birches. Being a very dry autumn there was no water in the duck pond but I think this may have also delayed the onset of the annual leaf shedding so I shouldn't complain really. With a bit of imagination I could see the pond brimming with water and the grass transformed from a pale yellow to a lush green.
There is a cool little gate (one of many along the walk) just after you turn back towards the car park providing a nice photo opportunity. The walk back to the finish point takes you past some very old poplars, planted before WWII and some English Oaks that were planted just after the war. They provided a good amount of shade over the area and were so big it was pointless trying to fit them in one shot so I settled for shots of their leaves littering the trail. It looked like they were in the process of updating the old picnic area with a new gazebo and hopefully more trees will be planted in the space in-between the trail and Old Padbury Road. A wooden bridge was all that separated me from finishing this loop and continuing on to the next section. The next part of my journey would be utilising the outer half of the Pear Walk and the climb up to the Pear Lookout. Starting at the toilet block, the climb is a gentle incline past some pear trees before you pass through the gate at the top next to some pomegranates. The gates are there for a reason as I soon discovered the presence of a sheep population on the next part of the walk. I passed two men on my way up to the lookout and they looked to be having a leisurely afternoon stroll amongst the pear trees. The views back down the valley are impressive with a variety of colour and having a north facing disposition I imagine that sunsets would be magically from this vantage point.
Two rows of ash trees marks the way forward along the ridge but with the local sheep population forming their own tracks in the dry grass I wasn't quite sure which path to take. I figured I would stay close to the trees that were marked with plaques and see how far that took me. Looking back at the official map I took a sheep path directly from the ash trees to Yongerup Spring and missed some wild fig trees on the border of the park. Even with no rain for an extended period, the spring had a decent amount of water in it. This used to be a popular hunting site for local aboriginals but now it looks nothing like the native forest that would have once dominated these hills. The spring does provide a great photo spot with a vibrant Trident Maple on the other side of the water coupled with some Chinese Tallows. At this point the men I had passed earlier caught up and remarked to me that I had missed the best colours by about a week but there was nothing I could do about that now so enjoyed what I had to photograph and continued on, leaving the Pear Walk and joining the Oak Grove Walk. They must have been locals, possibly volunteers given they had visited a week prior and were inspecting the trail, discussing certain sections they thought were prone to people slipping on. I once again pushed on and past a lovely collection of Valley Oak's from the late 1980s that sheltered a very large congregation of sheep. They were a bit wary of me and I don't blame them so I took some photos and moved on to a slightly barren section up the hill.
I'm sure this hill would look very nice with a covering of green grass but right now it was a bit underwhelming. The reward for this bare patch is well worth it as an avenue of Chinese Pistachio trees line the path on a slightly downhill section. Their red, orange and yellow leaves were abundant; both attached to the branches and spread across the ground, so I had great fun shooting this area from different angles. These are the kinds of shots I had in my head from seeing photos on Instagram and Facebook so it was nice to get an iconic autumn shot of the place. Unfortunately I couldn't see any pistachios in the trees so I continued on to another highlight of this section, the London Plane's. At over 100 years old, these giants had carpeted the ground with their leaves and together with another gate they provided yet another great photo spot. Through the gate is the area close to the old homestead and an area marked on the map as the "Bambooserie" for good reason. Although fairly dry at the time of my visit, there were a few little ponds and surrounding the area was a nice collection of bamboo varieties. I imagine in winter and spring this place would be amazing with more greenery and full ponds to photograph. For now though I still had some thick bamboo patches to enjoy as the trail takes you right into a thick collection of it and you get a brief experience of the darkness that bamboo forest contains. Maybe two or three metres in just went pitch black even though the sun was out so I can imagine that a whole forest of it would be quite daunting.