Do you ever look at a piece of timber furniture and wonder what kind of tree it came from, where it grew, or how tall it was?
I rescued some century old timber from up in Narrabeen recently (north shore of Sydney). There were about twenty planks and I could tell as soon as I picked one up that this timber was going to be very special. I was right; as soon as I milled one up, it revealed its species (blackbutt) and produced some extraordinary character and features that is only present in very old timber.
This got me thinking, where did this timber come from? How old would it be? Where on the tree did the planks come from? Where in NSW would the tree have grown? And...what is the tallest living blackbutt tree in Australia?
And so the adventure and challenge began to find Australia's tallest and widest Blackbutt!
After some research, I found that Australia's two largest blackbutt trees are located on the mid north coast of NSW, some 3 hours north of Sydney. Both trees are well over 200 years old and both are still standing. One has a girth of 15 meters, the other is 69 meters tall.
Friend and film maker Joseph Ryan was down in Sydney recently on his Royal Enfield motorbike, soon to ride home to the Gold Coast, so what better person to document this adventure.
If you love adventure, timber, motorbikes, and Australian landscapes, then settle in and watch this short film.