Recently I had the amazing experience of visiting Vergelegen (which translates approximately as “far away place”). It’s a beautiful wine estate, but what I really loved were the 300 year old Camphor trees. Look at the size of them! They are immense!
Have you ever touched a 300 year old living organism? I don’t think I ever have before. It’s really something to be in the presence of a creature (yes, it IS a creature) which has not only been alive for 300 years, but is flourishing. Yikes! Our human lives seem so short in comparison!
How wonderful that these ancient trees which were planted in such a far away time have grown so great in a far away place…….and how especially wonderful to get up close!
Heroes Not Zombies 
Hi Bob
really enjoying your blogs from afar and loved the pictures of those trees. Did you know there is a thousand-year old Yew tree in Fortingall, Perthshire, Scotland? It is wonderful to be in its presence – such an ancient creature.
thank you Anne. Yes, I’ve been to visit that yew tree, but it’s been pretty ill treated over the years hasn’t it? But, yes, it’s really great to be in its presence – quite mind boggling to think what they’ve “seen” in their lifetimes.
I know that yew tree in Fortingall too – first visited it with a bunch of Stirling High schoolfriends staying at Garth Youth Hostel (don’t think you were on that particular trip, though, Bob.) But short though our human lives may seem in comparison to that tree, it pales into total insignificance when you compare our lifespan to the length of time that the Earth has been around. If you compress the age of the Earth – 4.5bn years – into one year, the average human lifespan of 70 years (the Biblical “three score year and ten”) becomes something like half a second. Now THAT really deserves a “yikes”!
Sorry to breenge back into this thread so soon, but while we’re on the subject of yew trees 1,000 years old, and wondering what they’ve “seen”, Brian McNeill wrote a wonderful song about this, recorded absolutely brilliantly by Dick Gaughan. Check out http://www.dickgaughan.co.uk/songs/texts/yewtree.html and, if you can, get hold of Dick Gaughan’s recording of it and marvel.