details

Statement of Significance

A tree outstanding for its large height, trunk circumference or canopy spread. A magnificent Mountain Ash, known as the Ada Tree, growing in isolation along a small gully dominated by Nothofagus cunninghamii (Myrtle Beech). The specimen has developed enormous buttress wings which radiate around the trunk. The tree is in good condition and the former Department of Conservation Forests & Lands moved to protect an area surrounding the tree.

Location

The Ada tree is located in the Ada River Valley off the Federal Track NE of Powelltown.

Other

"A Tree For Prosperity" by Mary Ryllis Clark, in The Age, Friday 7 May 1993.

The Ada Tree is a living monument to the wilderness. MARY RYLLIS CLARK reports.

THERE is a poignant and vaguely absurd monument on an area of cleared land in South Gippsland. It is a tall concrete pole with the words ``World's Tallest Tree" suspended at the top. The tree, known as the Thorpdale Tree, was measured at 114 metres high in 1881 and promptly cut down.

The late 19th century in Victoria abounds with stories of giant trees.

They were valued for their statistics, as well as their timber. At the Centennial International Exhibition in Melbourne in 1888, a reward of 20 was offered to anyone who could locate a tree taller than 122 metres. The tallest identified was a mountain ash, Eucalyptus regnans, on Mount Baw Baw, which measured at 99.4 metres.

Many early settlers found Victoria's damp, dense mountain forests of towering mountain ash and ancient tree ferns a mysterious and alien environment. The novelist, Marcus Clarke, found these magnificent trees ``fit emblems of the departed grandeur of the wilderness".

The search for the tallest tree in the world continues to fascinate.

In the early 1970s, Werner Marschalek who spent his spare time prospecting for crystals in the mountain forests of Victoria, came across the biggest tree he had ever seen. He measured it at roughly 25 metres in circumference two metres off the ground.

Years later, Werner and his brother Joseph decided to return and measure the tree properly and register it officially with the Guinness Book of Records as possibly the largest tree in the world. They spent months scouring the area with a friend, Ray Wright. Eventually, they came across a timber cutter who boasted of having cut the giant tree down. He had had to use dynamite!

When the Marschaleks found another giant mountain ash in 1986, Werner decided to leave nothing to chance. He contacted his local Member of Parliament who spoke to Joan Kirner, the then Minister for Conservation, Forest and Lands. Werner was assured that no logging would take place in that particular section of forest _ the headwaters of the Little Ada River _ but that the department did not have the resources to create a public walkway to the tree. Werner and Ray decided to do it themselves.

For the next five years, the two men spent every other weekend and $30,000 building a path to the Ada Tree, with occasional financial and physical assistance from the Friends of the Ada Tree and encouragement, support and grants from the department. At one stage, a group of prisoners from Pentridge worked on the project.

The path to the Ada Tree is via an enchanting rainforest gully full of mosses, ferns and liverworts growing by a creek under the cool, damp shade of ancient, gnarled myrtle beeches and sassafras. ``We decided to make lots of bends and twists to make the walk surprising," Ray said. ``We also put in ramps instead of steps to make it accessible to everyone _ even people in wheelchairs." There are vast stumps of trees long since cut down, still marked with the slots where boards were secured for the timber cutter to climb above the buttress.

Finding the Ada Tree is an adventure in itself. The winding Ada River Road is unsealed and a bit rough in patches. It is lined with huge trees and layer upon layer of interlaced ferns. It seems to go on forever but the carpark is well signposted. The walk to the tree and back is four kilometres and takes about one-and-a-half hours. There is an alternative route back to the car park via the bush track from the old Federal Mill site.

The department has constructed a platform around the base of the Ada Tree so that its roots will not be damaged by large numbers of people walking round it. It is a joy to watch people coming out of the undergrowth into the clearing round the tree and see the look on their faces after the wonder of the rainforest and then the sheer size of the tree. Most walk up to the tree and touch it reverently, like the toe of St Peter in the Vatican.

Like Michelangelo's statue, the Ada Tree is an inspiration but it is also very much alive. It is 76 metres high and 15 metres round the truck at 1.5 metres above the ground. It is more than 300 years old.

As it takes at least 100 years to form tree hollows, such a giant of the forest offers priceless accommodation to birds and animals totally dependent on hollows, such as the endangered Leadbeater's possum - one of the emblems of Victoria.

IF YOU GO THE Ada Tree is on the Ada River Road, a left turn off the Powelltown Noojee Road, after Powelltown but before Noojee. The most direct route from Melbourne is to go to Yarra Junction via the Maroondah Highway.

Allow about two hours. There are toilets near the Ada Tree carpark.
______________________
This article is held online at: http://www.accommodationgippsland.com.au/accommodation-gippsland-articles/1993/5/7/a-tree-for-prosperity/