Gandalf's Staff Tasmania, Australia
By The Hancock Clan on 30-Nov-19. Waypoint GA14194

The Styx Valley is home to some of the world's tallest trees. Commonly called swamp gums in Tasmania and mountain ash in Victoria, their scientific name is Eucalyptus regnans. They are the second tallest tree in the world after America’s redwoods and the tallest flowering plant on the planet, which produces white blossoms in autumn. Regularly growing to over 85 metres with one recorded in Victoria as 132 metres, the trees have an average lifespan of around 400 years.

Since Europeans colonised Tasmania in 1803, huge amounts of forest have been felled to feed sawmills and, more recently, wood chip mills. It was only in the 1990s that campaigns against the destruction of the world’s last great unprotected stands of Eucalyptus regnans really began to gain momentum. Since then, conservationists have fought for a ‘Valley of the Giants’ national park to protect the Styx, clashing with loggers whose work remains an important driver of Tasmania’s economy.

The Big Tree Reserve in the Styx Valley is one location that has survived, and in 2005, following some interesting Greenpeace and Wilderness Society protests, the area expanded to include the 'Tolkien Track'. Although not as well-known as the Big Tree walk, the trees along the Tolkien Track are arguably more impressive where small wooden signs announce the names of notable giants with a Lord Of The Rings theme: Fangorn, the Cave Tree, Morannon and the famed Gandalf’s Staff.

This cache is located at Gandalf's Staff, and this is why it is famed!....

Back in 2003 this huge swamp gum, at over 84 metres high and between 350-400 years old, made international headlines when activists set up a Global Rescue Station high among its branches, camping up there for five months and setting a world record for the highest tree-sit in a courageous act that ultimately saved the tree from chainsaws. Remnants of this protest can still be seen with ropes still in situ from the aerial protest platforms.

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