The rising sun warms the forest canopy far above me as I weave between some of the tallest trees in the world. At ground level,there's barely any hint of dawn;natural light fails to penetrate. And it's deathly silent,save for the gentle burbling of the Aire River through this part of the Otway Ranges,200 kilometres southwest of Melbourne.
The California redwood forest in the Aire Valley Reserve,bordering the Great Otway National Park,has been described as one of the best-kept secrets in Victoria – hidden in plain sight,and yet thousands of kilometres from the redwood's natural habitat.
Found close to Beech Forest,a potato-farming region that briefly basked in the limelight of being the hometown of shuffling ultramarathon runner Cliff Young during the 1980s,they took root during an experiment that was conducted close to 100 years ago,when the Forests Commission of Victoria planted six trial plots containing 460 seedlings as part of an expansion program to meet the growing timber needs of the housing and construction industries.
Native hardwood eucalypts were readily available for logging at that time,so the planting of these towering softwoods were a break from convention. Experts had noticed similarities in soil composition and climate in the Otways compared with the redwoods'customary habitat in northern California and the southwest part of Oregon,so the risk of the trees not growing was deemed minimal. A similar experiment was conducted near Warburton,east of Melbourne.
The redwoods grew slowly at first,averaging just five metres tall after 15 years. But as they matured,they began to flourish. Now roughly 90 years old,some have reached heights exceeding 60 metres.
Unsurprisingly,the tallest redwood in the world can be found in California. Called Hyperion,it tops out at 115 metres and is believed to be around 1000 years old. The Otways redwoods are minnows in comparison,though they are also much younger. But at their current rate of growth,forestry pundits predict they may even outstrip their forebears north of the equator.
The tallest tree in Australia at present is a 100-metre mountain ash in Tasmania's Arve Valley,west of Geeveston. Appropriately,it's called Centurion. And although these Otway redwoods are mighty impressive,they are not even the tallest trees in Victoria. That mantle belongs to some mountain ashes in the Yarra Ranges.