Florentine and Upper Derwent

The Florentine Valley is relatively flat and was heavily exploited by ANM for its fine mature stands of Eucalyptus regnans forests from the 1950's to the 1990's - What frustrates many current foresters was that most of these fine sawlogs were turned into newsprint. A few tiny reserves survive in the valley as well as some remnant old stands on the fringes that demonstrate what an amazing place this must have been before the logging took place. The Upper Derwent includes areas like the Wayatinah  forests - much of which has been added to the WHA, and the Counsel forests - most of which has been logged. 

The view from the 89m tall  'Old Regret' looking back to 'Still Sorrow'. This extraordinary, twin trunked eucalypt contains over 350 cubic meters of wood in its trunks. However, adding the wood from its branches takes it to over 390m3 - making it arguably the largest living eucalypt. The climber in yellow on the lower right of the trunk gives perspective.

Before (above) and after (below) photos of the Wayatinah Giant. A fire in 2010 severely impacted the tree, but did not kill it outright. However, its weakened base was never going to be be strong enough to hold the immense trunk and crown for long and at when I visited it in January 2017 it had collapsed.

Climbing the Wayatinah Giant, before the fire in 2010.

A giant tree, 80m tall 16m girth, vaulting out of myrtle rainforest near Wayatinah

Above: One of the last 'living' photographs of the largest known Australian tree of modern times: 'El Grande' - this tree contained over 400 cubic metres of wood in its trunk alone. It was tragically destroyed by a regeneration burn in April 2003
​Below is a photo after the fire.

Above three photos: The Titan 19.3m girth - dominating the surrounding ancient myrtle and sassafras rainforest

Above: The Wicket Tree - a giant Eucayptus obliqua deep in the old growth forests of Wayatinah