Explore the untamed appeal of the Gondwana Rainforest, where beautiful pockets of wilderness beckon with roaring waterfalls, misty forest routes and encounters with unusual wildlife.
A coupleof years ago, when my partner and I were effectively preventing growing up, we would park our van in Nightcap National Park, stoke a campfire and strum a guitar as possums emerged from the treetops. We’d bushwalk in the rain to the base of Protesters Falls simply to hear the Fleay’s disallowed frogs call out to each other, and take long, leisurely drives out of Byron Bay to teeter atop long drop waterfalls and slim dip far underneath them.
Not too much has altered — about us or the farnorth- coast rainforests we liked. Protesters Falls is still a valuable tangle of wild on Bundjalung — and in specific Widjabul — nation. Hidden upstream through 700 metres of Bangalow palms along Bat Cave Creek, the falls were called for the neighborhood who battled for its security. Their efforts not just conserved the falls, however likewise paved the method for the production of Nightcap National Park and its addition in the impressive Gondwana Rainforest of Australia World Heritage Area.
Nightcap National Park harbours endemic Nightcap oaks and a susceptible feathered mate made up of rufous scrub birds, red goshawks and sooty and masked owls, and there are frogs so threatened that swimming is forbidden. But the defense that this special World Heritage location uses wild animals peters out downstream where cleared farming lands sever those once-great forests that covered the ancient continent of Gondwana.
Today, Australia’s most fragmented World Heritage location jointly safeguards an islandchain of 41 residue islands of beautiful jungle situated inbetween Newcastle and Brisbane: Barrington Tops and the Border Ranges, to Washpool and Oxley Wild Rivers National Parks. These parks are little however seriously crucial, with the kinds of primitive communities that excite researchers and nature enthusiasts alike, and home to plants and wildlife types reasonably thesame from their fossilised forefathers.
Herein lies the world’s most substantial subtropical jungles and most of the last Antarctic beech forests too, however what nature-seeking souls will discover are hundreds of miles of misty, forested walking tracks, peaceful camps, rumbling rivers to raft and kayak and granite peaks to climb. To checkout all 41 pockets of question, you’d requirement a coupleof months or more, so we narrow our list down to a preferred coupleof, stack into our campervan and hit the roadway.
Over the Scenic Rim
From Nightcap National Park, we head for high ground to stand with our heads in the clouds along the appropriately called Scenic Rim. This significant arc of weathered volcanic peaks forms a natural border inbetween Queensland and New South Wales, with nationwide parks aplenty. Many wilderness locations are too unattainable to checkout, prioritising the security of identified quolls and yellow-bellied gliders, the oddly called land mullet (the world’s biggest skink) and Alberts lyrebirds that belong to the world’s earliest group of songbirds. These are the animals that have us browsing by spotlight and quietly lurking tracks and waterways.
A brief drive southwest of Brisbane, Mount Barney’s impressive twin peaks beckon us over the Border Ranges to discover the trick plunge swimmingpools that collect below rugged spires of the ancient Focal Peak Shield Volcano. Barney’s major top climbsup need devices we puton’t have on board, so we roam for an hour to the deep, dark swimmingpools of the Lower Portals. A peaceful swimming hole scattered with extra-large stones, the Lower Portals may well be paradise enough. But simply up over the ridge and a little additional upstream, the Upper Portals supplies personalprivacy where coupleof others intrude.
Bush outdoorcamping is standard in Barney’s safeguarded surrounds, so we climb back into the van and hit the roadway, bound for another World Heritage-listed pocket of Gondwana in Main Range National Park. Occupying the far northern pointer of the park in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range, Goomburra is a picturesque forest center that bushwalkers love. Half a lots tracks lead past rocky swimmingpools and clear, toppling waterfalls and, if you can prevent lolling all day in those extremely appealing swimmingpools, lift you high atop the variety.
We stretch out on the grassy flanks of Dalrymple Creek below peeling ribbons of manna gums and setout in search of unusual tiger quolls on the two-hour walk to Araucaria Falls. Tiger (or spotted-tail) quolls rate as the mainland’s biggest marsupial predators, however they have long pulledback out of sight into the mountainous scrub of the Main Range. Instead, we area koalas and echidnas and shiny black cockatoos and roam to the balanced tune of bell miners at daybreak.
Teetering atop Minyon Falls
Back throughout the NSW border, I discover myself on familiar ground, traipsing alongwith Boggy Creek previous blackbutt trees leaking with dew. There are far mucheasier methods to reach the amazing Minyon Falls however none so beautiful as this 30-minute rock-hop through the fern gardens that fringe this puddly, gurgling stream. We set out at veryfirst light from Rummery Park, a state forest-turned-conservation location that offers one of the coupleof locations to camp in the Byron Bay hinterland.
It’s well understood amongst seaside escapees and an simple drive 24km southwest of Mullumbimby in Whian Whian State Conservation Area. The abundant volcanic soils of ancient basalt and rhyolite lava streams support nutrient-dependant temperate and subtropical jungles, while lofty massifs snag the sky, pulling down enough rain to make this one of the wettest areas in the state.
The typical line-up of rainforest-loving wild things calls this environment home — kookaburras, koalas and the red-necked pademelons that graze the campground — however eager eyes may catch the brilliantly coloured wompoo fruit-dove in flight or spot-masked owls or little bent winged bats after darkness falls. As sensational as this forest camp unquestionably is, it’s Rummery Park’s distance to World Heritage-listed Minyon Falls that charms crowds with its 100m sheer-drop waterfall.
The outdoorcamping is totally old school with common fireplaces and lots of forested nooks amongst the kauri and hoop pine trees. There are gas barbecues and composting toilets, however no drinking water or firewood, while towering Peates Mountain obstructs out the world, firmlyinsisting we take a social-media vacation and soak up the tranquility rather.
For daring walkers, the overnight Historic Nightcap Track links Rummery Park to Mount Nardi, covering 16km of tough ground and requiring a bush camp enroute. This path takesatrip part of an historical postal path inbetween Lismore and Murwillumbah and dat