The Australian rainforest is an absolute delight.
Last week we took off for a couple of days to go up into the rainforest of the Lamington National Park on the Queensland/NSW border.
We walked the Morans Falls track, just 4.6km on our first day.
The path takes you down through a subtropical rainforest of booyongs and brush box adorned with thick twisted vines and birdsnest ferns ~ As well as strangler figs ~
The one below is in its relatively early stages of sending roots down from the seed that sprouted high in the host tree.
Around your feet you hear scuffling and leaves rustling… Busy scratching and raking the leaf litter for food (and therefore very hard to capture still enough not to be blurred)
are Logrunners foraging for food.
Here’s a link to both a male and female logrunner foraging ~ They never keep still!
From the enclosed confines of the rainforest the vista suddenly opens and there is Morans Falls...
tumbling 80 metres down the cliff face
Beyond this viewing spot one can cross the creek just above where it plummets over the edge down into the valley below.
So calm, tranquil and meandering, who would guess that that tunnel of light is a window through which this creek is about to be thrust out into gravity’s arms.
Ahead of us on the path was this goanna (or Lace Monitor) ~ I love their spotted and stripped markings.
On the far side of the creek, the view opens up to the sweeping Albert River valley.
West, over to the volcanic plug, that is Mt Lindesay.
And Mt Barney
I love the layers of blue, fading into the distant horizon.
The start of Moran’s Falls Walk is just 800 metres before you reach O’Reilleys , which is 35 km up a winding (precipitous in parts) dead end road that rises from Canungra ~
Canungra is 26km west of Nerang off the Pacific Highway.
Allow 2hours from Brisbane, 1.5hours from the Gold Coast.
Have you done any walks up in the Lamington National Park?
Would love to hear which in the comments below 🙂
The following day we walked the Box Forest Track, a 10.6km hike, full of more wonderful rainforest and waterfalls.
Beautiful story telling, your photos are always so restful. Such a wonderful birthday memory 🙂
Thank you Catherine 🙂
Its amazing what you can do with just a night away, and so close to home!
It’s a very beautiful part of the world. Spectacular pictures. It’s very difficult to take a photo of the canopy from underneath, so I especially loved that photo.
(I’m not sure that’s a scrubwren. It looks more like a male logrunner, I think.)
Thanks so much Snail ~ I’ve looked up Logrunner – and Logrunner it is!
I’ll update the post accordingly –
I have to be honest, I went by an information board (that was just in black and white) that described the Scrubwren as being the little bird with foraging habits ‘hopping around the forest floor almost at your feet’ – As this was the only little bird I saw that fitted that bill, I (incorrectly) assumed they must be one and the same 🙁
I’m going to insert a little video clip of both a female and male logrunner foraging ~ Thanks so much for putting me right on that 🙂
It’s tricky working from those info signs, especially when they can only present a small selection of species because of space constraints. The species you need to identify is guaranteed not to be on the sign!
I’m not too bad on birds, but I’m hopeless on plants. I’m trying to learn a new one each day, but mostly I stand around scratching my head.
When one considers the plethora of bird, animal, reptile and plant life in the rainforest its not surprising ‘the’ one you want to know about isn’t on ‘the’ sign before you LOL
Great idea setting the challenge to learn a new plant each day ~
I gleaned all my knowledge of British wild-flowers from a fabulous ‘nature’ teacher who set us the challenge come summer to find examples from a list of 10 names she put up on a board each week (for the term), that she knew to be in flower from her cycling to school each day.
Once learnt, you never forget 😀
Happy belated birthday! And thank you for this lovely photo essay of the falls 🙂
LOL 😀
Thanks so much Brooke for the birthday wishes ~
I can really recommend the Lamington National Park as a great spot to see some rainforest only a couple of hours south of Brisbane 🙂
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What a beautiful photo essay! I love Lamington National Park — the wildlife, the nature, the views, everything — and I really must go back to see Moran’s Falls.
I’ve only ever made it to Elabana Falls, which was stunning and well worth the short hike. I would love to go back to it as well! I’ve posted my favourite photo from that hike at http://www.bootsandabackpack.com/elabana-falls/.
We came back via Elabana Falls the following day when we did the Box Forest walk (link there to that post) and I did take a photo of Elabana Falls, but yours is gorgeous – Taking the time to set up the tripod really paid off 🙂