The first time I walked beneath a canopy of tree ferns in a Queensland rainforest, I understood why early European explorers found these places so disorienting. The sheer scale of the fronds overhead – some stretching 15 meters or more…
Curtis Falls sits in one of Queensland’s oldest rainforest reserves, and the walk to reach it has become something of a default choice for people visiting Mount Tamborine. The appeal is obvious: it’s marketed as accessible, it’s close to the…
The Atherton Tablelands sit at around 600 to 900 metres elevation in Far North Queensland, and the rainforest here operates differently than the lowland tropical forests most people imagine. After spending considerable time moving through these forests – early mornings,…
Spend enough time in recovering forests, and you start to notice the birds before you notice much else. They arrive in waves – sometimes dozens of species in a single morning – moving through the canopy with purpose, stripping berries…
Lake Barrine sits in the Atherton Tableland, surrounded by one of Australia’s oldest rainforests. The walk around it is frequently described as easy, scenic, and manageable for most fitness levels. That’s not wrong, but it’s incomplete. After multiple visits across…
The rainforest walks around the Gold Coast hinterland are reliable enough that you can count on them for a half-day or full-day outing, but they’re also crowded enough that timing matters more than most visitors realise. I’ve done these walks…
Spend enough time walking through the eucalypt woodlands of eastern Australia, and you start to notice something odd. The landscape doesn’t feel entirely consistent. The dry, open forest floor with its scattered gum trees and sparse understorey will suddenly give…
The Blue Mountains sit west of Sydney, and the forests there have a particular character that doesn’t fully reveal itself until you’re moving through them on foot. Most people arrive with expectations shaped by photographs – the famous cliff views,…
Spend enough time walking through a rainforest, and you start noticing patterns in leaf shape that seem almost deliberate. Many of the broadleaf plants have leaves that taper to a sharp point at the tip – what botanists call a…