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Day 21: Wooroonooran Rainforest
October 12, 2005

Today I went with a tour guide into the Wooroonooran Rainforest. (I can't even say the Aboriginal name for this ancient rainforest without tripping over my tongue, regardless of how many times I've asked my guide to repeat it.) Our guide Kirsty led several hikers and I on a brisk trek up the steep, lush green slopes of Barte Frere Mountain - the second tallest mountain in the Queensland region about 4500 feet. This fragile ecosystem, a bouldered rainforest that's been here for 35 million years, is thick and overgrown with trees and vines of every possible shape and size. Twisting patterns of odd green leaves were everywhere, racing upwards, always upwards to the forest canopy.

  

The cool air was filled while the sounds of exotic birds, cookooing and cackling from the canopy above us. Laughing at us perhaps? The trail was narrow with the overgrowth of arching branches and vines, and after an hour or so, you could see how easy it would be to get lost in this maze of green lights and dark holes. And while the soft trail floor was thick with rocks and creeping vines, I kept my eyes on the ground mostly to avoid the poisonous snakes that I was knew lived here. Death Adders and Red-bellied Black snakes.

 
 

 


Click to play video: On the trail

 

Left: We take a pit-stop for water at a boulder-strewn stream (Click to play video.) This lush forest is filled with boulders like these. Many left behind in the steep narrow valleys of these rain-soaked mountians, carved by millions of years of erosion. The fragile forest continues to thrive in this ever-changing landscape.

 
     
 

Click to play video: Hike along the mountain ridge line

Vines become trees, trees become vines. Many of the plants here are in a constant struggle for a good grip into this soft mountain-side. Together, they create a web of root systems that bind the fate of many trees together when one dies. The Strangler Fig will wrap itself around a tree over many decades with it's descending roots and clmbing branches, eventually choking a young tree off from it's own natural expansion and growth. When the host tree dies and rots, the Strangler Fig will continue to grow, even with it's hollow core. (Click to see video)

 
     
 

Across our trail, we come across a fallen log supporting a family of delicate, ghostly funghi. Only 5% of the sun's light makes it down through the canopy to the forest floor. So whatever has to survive here has to be very clever about how it keeps a foothold while managing to gather energy. In another illustration of adaptation, a tree frog with a tenuous perch on a tree knot displays a skin that's evolved to match many tree barks here in both color and texture.

 

 

Below: The small Bartle Frere Skink, while visually similar to the dozens of lizards of this type that live throughout the country, is unique to his rainforest region. They are just as comfortable on the mossy forest floor as they are scampering amongst the rocks around the streams running through this forest.
 
     
 
 
 
     
 

Many of the species discovered by the white settlers arriving here over the last 200 years were named (renamed) according to visually similar plants and animals they new from European forests back home. As you might guess, this creature above is called the "Bush Turkey". However, nothing in Europe looks like the Boyd's Forest Dragon (seen left) that we walked by near the end of our hike on this day. I've been lucky enough to see this rare lizard three times on my trip. They have all been great to photograph, sitting comfortably still even as you approach to within 2 feet.

 
 
     
   
 

 

Josephine Falls had been a swimming hole for the Aboriginals (the Wooroonooran Tribe in these parts) well before the white settlers discovered it's beauty and refreshing waters - and then claimed them as their own. As for us, we gave our appreciative thanks to the Wooroonoorans, and enjoyed these waters ourselves with a brisk swim in this pool after our 5 hour hike through the slopes of this mountain rainforest.

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