Gold Coast - Bushwhacking

Binna Burra
Lamington National Park is 25 miles inland and spreads west from the strangely named town of Binna Burra.  It's a subtropical forest growing from the remnants of a large volcano.  Most of the park is on a plateau 3,000 feet above sea level.  Lamington is one of the fifty reserves that comprise the Gondwana rain forests of Australia.  The name refers to the ancient singular land mass when Antarctica was joined to Australia.

The coast dissolved into the horizon as we zigzagged up the narrow road to Binna Burra.  You drive on the left in Australia and since we were heading south we got a harrowing close up of the long drop to the valleys below.  At times the road narrowed to a single lane - Dodo's mom almost got carsick from all the swerving.

After an hour we caught our first glimpse of the remains of the caldera, in the distance on the right in this shot.  The valleys had been picked clean by cows and we passed road side farm stalls selling "avos" - short for avocados.  We would later stop at one and buy avocados and tomatoes.

Dodo and mom taking a caldera shot.  They were both shivering - the wind was howling and it was in the low 60's.

This sign was totally unnecessary.   Anyone doing more than 30 miles an hour was asking for an early death.  I was happy to crawl around the turns like a turtle.

When we arrived we went into the information center and studied the map.  There were a variety of hiking trails of various lengths.  We settled on the 3 mile "Cave Trail" which winds down the side of a cliff past a cave and then up again to the lodge.  Dodo's mom wisely stayed at the lodge sipping tea and watching Hong Kong dramas on her iPad.

Before setting off we took in the view.  Forest for as far as the eye could see.  Aborigines lived here for more than 6,000 years. 

As Joanne peered off into the horizon I jumped off the deck to take a few shots of the local flora.

Joanne, C-Long, Dodo and I headed off from the lodge to start our hike.  The head of the Cave Trail was nothing more than a sliver in the forest.  This shot doesn't quite capture how narrow and dark the trail looked from the road.

Both sound and temperature dropped noticeably 100 yards down the path.  What stood out immediately was the incredible height of the trees and the girth of their trunks and roots.

Rarely did we get a glimpse beyond the forest, as we did here.  The canopy consumed all the light completely.

This tree survived a fire that gutted part of its trunk.

Sometimes it appeared that one tree had grown around another, as if one started out as a vine that thickened over time to look like a trunk.

There were an impressive variety of vines hanging from the forest roof.  Many twisted around themselves.

We tested the strength of a few that crossed the path.  They're amazingly strong - you could imagine swinging on them or climbing them with no worry that they'd break.

I took this shot looking straight up to the canopy.  The larger trees were close to one hundred feet tall.

The first hour of the walk was easy as we were winding our way downhill towards the cave.  It was amusing to be walking with forest novices.  These city gals, two from Singapore and one from Hong Kong, were very excited at every different tree, vine, fungus, fern and bird.

They'd never seen lichen up close and personal.  They stopped to read about it from the handout we'd gotten from the information center.

The diversity of flora and fauna was fantastic.  I later read that many of the birds and flowers found here are not found anywhere else on the planet.

Two hours in we arrived at the cave.  It seemed more like a rock outcropping to me - I was expecting to be able to enter.  We then began the slow climb back up.

We crossed over a small stream loaded with boulders.  I teased them that we could make quick work of the climb directly via this stream.  They looked at me momentarily like I was serious.

I welcomed the climb back up to the lodge - it warmed me up a bit.  Our tight knot began to stretch out with me in the lead, Dodo a ways back and the two slowpokes meandering slowly at the end of the line.   Near the top it began to get dangerously steep.  So much so that there were fences and chain-link "body-catchers" along the route.

At these heights we began to see Antarctic Beech, whose pale skin stood out amongst their greener neighbors.

At the top we got back our expansive view out across the valley.  We stood at this point, gasping and panting, letting the cold wind blow through us.  It seemed almost magical - we'd forgotten about the coral beaches that we'd return to within the hour.