forest – Pelican Yoga

Looking down (#9 in series: trees “2”, Lake Waikaremoana)

Published January 20, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#9 in series: trees “2”, Lake Waikaremoana)

This post’s featured image is another example of how remarkably “different” trees and forests can appear when one is able to look down on them…literally.

I took the above photo from a hilltop/outcrop near the edge of the deepest lake on New Zealand’s North Island.

At 54 square kilometres, Waikaremoana it is that island’s fourth largest lake by surface area, but is #2 in water volume. (#1, in both respects on the North Island, is Lake Taupo. Taupo has the largest surface of any NZ lake. Several of the South Island’s glacially-gouged lakes contain more water)

Waikaremoana is very beautiful, but sees remarkably few tourists, thanks to its “remote” location.

Most of the lake’s rugged surrounds have temperate rainforests that have never been logged.

An astonishing fact: until circa 2,200 years ago this lake simply did not exist!

Looking down (#8 in series – trees “1”: temperate rainforest, Australia)

Published January 19, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#8 in series – trees “1”: temperate rainforest, Australia)

Walking on a forest’s or woodland’s floor often yields a great deal of visual delight, as most living humans have directly experienced.

However, relatively few humans have experienced the pleasure of looking down to a forest’s floor, from forest canopy height, or higher.

The view from “up there” is usually a visual treat in its own right.

In recent decades – across a growing number of nations – the construction of elevated walkways has made that experience newly/readily-accessible to millions.

(such walkways also spare tree roots from the potentially-lethal impact of too-many tourists’ feet compacting the relevant soil)

The very same forest looks astonishingly different, when one’s feet are more than 20 metres above the ground.

Morocco & Andalucia: “characteristic” (altitude & climate “2”)

Published November 24, 2025 by Pelidoug

Morocco & Andalucia: “characteristic” (altitude & climate “2”)

The pictured location is not in the Atlas Mountains, but is in Morocco.

Morocco’s northernmost mountain range rises to 2,456 metres above sea level – a deal more modest than the Atlas, but still 228 metres higher than the Australian continent’s high point.

The Rif Mountains’ western end is very much wetter than is any other part of Morocco.

In most winters the Rif’s upper slopes are probably the nation’s snowiest; at any time of year they offer dramatic vistas and some beautiful (albeit threatened/remnant) forests.

The Rif is “very Moroccan”, but its wetter, higher parts do not at all resemble most visitors’ preconceptions of what Morocco “should” look like.

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Winter 2025, South West WA (#16 in series: forest understorey & river-mirror, under grey sky)

Published September 25, 2025 by Pelidoug

Winter 2025, South West WA (#16 in series: forest understorey & river-mirror, under grey sky)

What a difference five minutes can make!

By 4.55pm on 18 August 2025 the skies above Warren National Park had become overcast, whilst the Warren River’s surface remained “glassy”.

The gentler light improved a camera’s ability to capture the subtle beauty of the forest’s understorey – as viewed directly, and as reflected by the river.

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Winter 2025, South West WA (#15 in series: river as mirror)

Published September 23, 2025 by Pelidoug

Winter 2025, South West WA (#15 in series: river as mirror)

30 minutes on from the taking of the previous chapter’s photos, we were just a little further upstream.

The sun was low in the sky, which was still mostly-blue – or had again become so.

Briefly, no wind was blowing.

This particular stretch of the Warren River was now almost-entirely unruffled.

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Deep South WA, Feb ‘25 (#36 in series: threatened giants “4”)

Published April 19, 2025 by Pelidoug

Deep South WA, Feb ‘25 (#36 in series: threatened giants “4”)

Wonderful as are the “giant” trees in WA’s southwest, their forests’ understorey is every bit as splendid, and is also unique.

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Deep South WA, Feb ‘25 (#35 in series: threatened giants “3”)

Published April 18, 2025 by Pelidoug

Deep South WA, Feb ‘25 (#35 in series: threatened giants “3”)

Eucalyptus Jacksonii is one of three Tingle species; the other two are less gigantic, but still very substantial.

All have very thick “skins”, as pictured.

They occur only within the “Walpole Wilderness”.

Like their “biggest brother”, a Rate’s tingle (Eucalyptus brevistylis) or a yellow tingle (Eucalyptus guilfoylei) can live for 400 years.

It appears increasingly likely that no 21st century “newborn” is even remotely likely to attain such a lifespan.

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Deep South WA, Feb ‘25 (#34 in series: threatened giants “2”)

Published April 17, 2025 by Pelidoug

Deep South WA, Feb ‘25 (#34 in series: threatened giants “2”)

The photo shows part of the base of a Red Tingle, Eucalyptus Jacksonii; no other Eucalypt attains a greater girth.

The pictured example is not as “obese” as the nearby “Giant Tingle Tree”, but it is also several hundred years old, and massive.

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Deep South WA, Feb ‘25 (#33 in series: threatened giants “1”)

Published April 15, 2025 by Pelidoug

Deep South WA, Feb ‘25 (#33 in series: threatened giants “1”)

You are looking at new growth on a very old, very large tree.

The Red Tingle – Eucalyptus Jacksonii – is a survivor, just, from a much wetter time.

Its “suitable habitat” has shrunk to a tiny portion of Western Australia’s south coast; almost all of it within Walpole-Nornalup National Park, which contains the wettest part of southern Western Australia.

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Deep South WA, Feb ‘25 (#24 in series: Porongurup “7”)

Published April 6, 2025 by Pelidoug

Deep South WA, Feb ‘25 (#24 in series: Porongurup “7”)

Wikipedia description of the Porongurup Range’s geomorphology:

The Porongurup Range is 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) from east to west and consists of porphyritic granite^[3] peaks levelled into domes. The range is the remnant of a sizeable reservoir of molten granite that bubbled up when the Antarctic continent struck Australia in the Stenian Period of the Mesoproterozoic Era, around 1200 million (1.2 billion) years ago.^[9]

The sea levels of the late Cretaceous were around 100 metres higher than today^[10]and during this time the Porongurup Range was an island surrounded by the sea.

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Tag: forest