In which I visit Endor

Do you ever have those moments when something seems to reach into your brain, grabs a fistful of consciousness then yanks you out of your meatware to really appreciate where you are or what you're doing?

As I'm an old geezer who remembers turbo buttons on computers and the gently glowing 66 that meant you were a player, I get it frequently when holding a modern mobile phone; the sheer computing power stacked into something so small, the array of things it can do. Camera, calculator, diary, video camera, music player, organiser - and it makes calls too. Take yours out now and really think about what it's taken to put all the stuff in the palm of your hand. If you don't find yourself thinking isn't technology amazing, you're not concentrating hard enough.

So you can give yourself a sudden moment of clarity by thinking about stuff, but the other way to have a wooooaaah moment is to go visit places like the Redwood State Parks in California and have it impressed upon you. The groves of Coast Redwoods and Giant Sequoias thrive on the sun and frequent fogs of the Pacific coast, growing well over 300 feet tall. And these things are old too, typically 2000 - 3000 years old. In the California Academy of Sciences they have a specimen 4,700 years old when it was cut down by accident....

It was only relatively recently when the national park organisations really got into their stride around the turn of the 20th century that people realised just how old these trees could get and started putting in place protected areas to stop the rampant logging that might otherwise have devastated the cathedral-like groves.

Have a think about that for a moment, a living thing older than human history. Existing, growing quietly out there in the hard to reach canyons and forests of California. As I was wandering around the groves getting a crick in my neck looking up, I started to wonder what else is out there in the natural world, away from human habitation that we haven't yet stumbled on? What other massive giants and ancient things could be quietly going about their existence in the wilderness or deep oceans our short 'intelligent, civilised' life hasn't got round to meeting yet?

More Big Tree pictures