The Man Who Climbs Trees by James Aldred

Author:James Aldred
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2017-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Roaring Meg – Australia

2008

It was a warm autumn day in the temperate rainforests of the Hume Plateau, south-east Australia. The air was thick with the tangy aroma of eucalyptus oil evaporating from leaves in the afternoon’s heat. This vapour created a light-blue haze that drifted gently through the trees, the breath of the forest made visible. Leaning against an enormous fallen tree trunk, I inhaled deeply to allow as much of the aromatic air to enter my lungs as possible. My heart slowed as I exhaled. I was feeling calm and relaxed and it felt good to stretch my legs after the long-haul flight from England to Melbourne.

What a journey that had been. Stuck at the back of a 747 for almost twenty-four hours, surrounded by drunk gap-year kids. But I was here now, and there was no time to lose. We had only three days to shoot a half-hour film about climbing and sleeping the night aloft in one of the tallest trees in the southern hemisphere. This was just about manageable so long as everything went to plan. But on top of this, our presenter, Guy, had never climbed a tree before. Talk about in at the deep end. He’d have to learn the ropes pretty quickly, that’s for sure. I wasn’t too worried about it, though: he looked pretty handy and was up for the challenge. We could give him some training when he joined us tomorrow. In the meantime, before anything else could happen, we had to find a suitable tree, and as usual this was proving easier said than done.

Thankfully, my companions on this adventure included two of Australia’s best big-tree experts. Between them, Tom and Brett had discovered, climbed and measured most of the country’s champion trees, and the fallen trunk next to me was testament to the fact that Australia is home to some very tall trees indeed.

Eucalyptus regnans, known locally as mountain ash, is the second tallest species of tree on earth, rivalled in height only by the coast redwoods of California. The tallest mountain ash so far discovered is a 327-foot-tall living skyscraper called Centurion growing in Tasmania. Nipping at its heels is the Douglas fir of Oregon (another conifer like the coast redwood). In fact, the fourth and fifth tallest species of tree are also both conifers native to the Pacific North West. So Australia’s mountain ash really is an exceptional tree. By far and away the tallest angiosperm – flowering plant – on the planet and certainly the tallest living thing in the southern hemisphere.

In fact, many people – not just Aussies – consider mountain ash to be the one-time tallest species of tree on earth. Legends of 430-foot-tall giants loom out of the mists of the nineteenth century. But such issues are for the botanically pedantic. The bottom line is that at around 300 feet tall, the trees I’d caught tantalising glimpses of from the back seat of the 4 × 4 on our way north from Melbourne were by far the tallest living things I had ever seen.

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