Hey everyone, and welcome to World Heritage Journey.
For today's video, we're at the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia, in eastern Australia.
So this World Heritage Site is another of Australia's incredible natural wonders.
It's known as the Gondwana Rainforests, because when Australia was part of Gondwana the super-continent,
it was entirely covered in rainforests.
These days, after Australia has broken off from Gondwana millions and millions of years
ago, it's become the hottest and the driest continent on Earth, and there's not much rainforest
left.
What you can see behind me is one of the last remaining areas of sub-tropical rainforest
in Australia, and that's why it's so special.
Let's check it out!
The Gondwana Rainforests World Heritage Site is made up of fifty separate national parks
and nature reserves, totalling an impressive 350,000 hectares.
They're spread along an 800 kilometre stretch of Australia's eastern coast and can be roughly
divided up into eight groups: the Main Range group, Focal Peak group, Shield Volcano group,
Coastal group, Washpool and Gibraltar group, New England group, Hastings-Macleay group,
and Barrington Tops group.
For our visit, we decided to focus on a few key areas.
Our first stop was at Oxley-Wild Rivers National Park, in the Hastings-Macleay group.
Although it's largely a eucalyptus forest, there are small isolated patches of rainforest
that you can see from various lookouts and explore from several walking tracks.
But the absolute highlight here is definitely Wollomombi Falls, which at over 200 metres
is among the highest in Australia.
The falls are at the end of a large gorge that's just covered in rainforest, and it's
a fantastic sight from the nearby lookouts.
Unfortunately there wasn't much water going over the falls when we visited, but in full
flow it's apparently an incredible sight!
Next up was New England National Park, located to the east in the New England group, and
it was here that we started to understand why the Gondwana Rainforest was so special.
Starting at the Point Lookout, 1500m above sea level, you're surrounded by high-altitude
temperate rainforest, and looking down on a sea of sub-tropical and warm temperate rainforest
below you.
Hiking through the forest here is a real treat, as you're up close and personal with all sorts
of rainforest trees and plants, mosses and lichen.
It's fascinating to see how the dense rainforest canopy keeps the ground cool and dark, even
at high altitudes.
And the views from Point Lookout are sensational, looking down off the escarpment across wooded
valleys to the Pacific Ocean, 70 kilometres away.
Our next visit was to Dorrigo National Park, still in the New England group.
Located at a lower altitude from the New England park, Dorrigo is home to the fascinating Skywalk.
Here, you can walk on an elevated catwalk through the upper canopy of the rainforest,
giving you a fantastic close-up view of the birds, trees and animals that make their homes
in the rainforest canopy.
From here you can also take a stairway that plunges down the side of a cliff to the forest
floor, fully immersing yourself in the environment.
Surrounded by dark and damp, it's fascinating to see how the varying levels of sunlight
affect different areas of the forest.
Down here you'll find loads of beautiful forest floor plants, like ferns, mould, lichen, moss
and mushrooms, plus some ground dwelling birds like the brush turkey
and the superb lyrebird.
And then there's the final section: another catwalk through the mid-level of the canopy,
with trees towering above you and the floor falling away.
It's an incredible experience, and really shows just how special the Gondwana Rainforests are.
Heading further north, we also visited Nightcap National Park, part of the Shield Volcano
group and located just outside the famous surfing town of Byron Bay.
Nightcap is another large area of sub-tropical rainforest, and we immediately headed for
its most famous attraction: Minyon Falls.
Here at Minyon you'll find a 100m high plunge waterfall, off the edge of an extinct volcano.
Although the top of the falls is located in eucalyptus forest, it plunges directly into
the rainforest which makes for a fantastic sight. Ferns, palms, figs and other rainforest
trees reaching up towards you.
The final part of this World Heritage Site that we visited was the Iluka Nature Preserve,
located dramatically on the coast.
It's one of the last examples in New South Wales of littoral, or beachfront rainforest.
This area is quite a fascinating ecosystem, because although you walk through a typical
dark and cool rainforest, surrounded by animal noises and undergrowth with a towering canopy
overhead, you can actually hear the surf pounding just a few hundred metres away.
And the environment itself is really interesting, because the salt air and sea breezes from
the ocean restrict the upper reaches of the canopy.
Salt-crusted leaves and branches fall down into the sandy undergrowth, where they become
a haven for small creatures like birds, snails, mushrooms and moss.
These in turn provide food for the larger trees, growing up to the canopy tops, at which
point the cycle begins again.
One of the most interesting plants at Iluka is the Strangler Fig.
This epiphyte (or parasite plant) starts life as a seedling injected into the trunk of a
healthy tree.
Over time it grows tendrils up and down the existing tree, strangling it, and eventually
replacing it entirely.
There's heaps of examples here, and they're always interesting to look at - although they
are a bit horrifying when you think about it.
Sort of like face-huggers from Aliens.
Overall, the Gondwana Rainforests World Heritage Site is a fascinating place.
Although it's entirely rainforest, visiting so many different locations really highlighted
the variations between the warm, cool, beachfront, alpine and other rainforests.
And as usual for Australia, a lot of the national parks here are really remote and isolated.
Often, you're the only visitors, and it really helps you imagine what the Gondwana super-continent
must have been like, millions and millions of years ago.
Sadly, a lot of the areas we visited were heavily damaged in the 2019/2020 bushfire
season.
Typically, wet and humid rainforests like these are quite resistant to bushfires, but
the season this year was so intense and so destructive that many areas of rainforest were wiped out.
And unlike most Australian eucalyptus forests, which rebound extremely quickly, rainforests
take years and years to recover, if they ever recover at all.
And on that sombre note, thank you so much for watching.
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We'll see you next time.