Sunday, June 19, 2005
Lamington National Park
History
Lamington National Park has a rich modern history and a similarly fascinating natural history. It forms part of the north and western rim of the Mount Warning Shield Volcano – a 60km ring of rainforest covered escarpment (the McPherson Range), with Mount Waring isolated in the centre and with steep valleys radiating outwards from the rim. The fertile volcanic soils, high rainfall and sub-tropical climate have created a biodiversity hotspot, warranting World Heritage status as part of the Eastern Rainforest Reserves Australia World Heritage Area.
The Park was named after a former Governor of Queensland (1896-1901), Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane Baille, or Baron Lamington to people who weren’t his mates, who visited the park just once, in 1897, to shoot koalas.
The altitude of the rim – about 1,100m – and the prevailing moist easterlies create a cool micro-climate that has allowed more temperate tolerant Antarctic Beech trees to so far survive Australia’s 60 million year continental drift northwards from Gondwanaland towards the equator. Lamington is the most northerly extent of these ancient trees (some over 2,000 years old), any further north and it is too warm and rainforest takes over. Many of these trees would have been just middle-aged when the Industrial Revolution kick started global warming. They have survived and adapted over millions of years, but they could be early casualties to global warming. - another two or three degrees warmer up there and vine thickets and figs will take over.
Just off the peaks of the rim, the cooler microclimate gives way to sub-tropical rainforest, carved away by fast flowing water creating deep gorges and valleys. Further down the slopes, lower rainfall means more open forests, eventually giving way to open bush forest.
The O’Reilly factor
The modern history of the place is similarly as rich. In 1911, a bunch of Irish settlers, the O’Reilly brothers, attracted by cheap land just released by the government, pushed their way up the steep ridges in an attempt to farm dairy cattle. Huts were built and an area was cleared before agitation from the beginnings of the green movement succeeded in having the area designated a National Park in 1915.
Now, isolated in the middle of a National Park, and facing the enormous logistical problem of getting milk down of the mountain on a daily basis, without a decent road, the O’Reilly family realised they were better employed as guides to the growing number of visitors wanting to visit the park. They began their operation by carting groups up on horse back and putting them up in a series of huts. Later, the dairy farm became a guesthouse; further helped in the mid-1930s when a logging track was cut to the boundary of the National Park, then extended by the family to the doors of their guesthouse soon after.
The Stinson crash
O’Reilly’s further came to the attention of visitors when, in 1937, one of the brothers set out to find the site of a crashed Stinson aeroplane that failed to arrive at its destination. After two days searching through thick rainforest – some 10 days after the crash - Bernie O’Reilly found two survivors next to the wreckage. Four people had died in the crash. Bernie set out to find the seventh passenger, who had set out for help. He was later found dead after falling over a waterfall. The two survivors were later evacuated by a local farmers. The full story is recounted in the book “Green Mountains”.
This story of local heroism is all the more remarkable when you experience the terrain in which this happened. The rainforest is so dense and the valley’s are so steep that movement is severely restricted and navigation all but impossible for lack of clear view through the canopy. To have searched this huge area, looking for something as insignificant as a crashed Stinson is astonishing.
Now, O’Reilly’s Guesthouse is the sole operator, smack bang in the middle of a World Heritage area and a Mecca for bushwalkers. The family still runs the show and still guide guests through the park, being entitled ‘Honorary Park Rangers.’
Yesterday
The Green Mountains/O’Reilly’s settlement is up high at nearly 1,000m, so on a wet, windy and winter’s day, when we arrived before 9am it was only a 6 or 7 degrees. Through the day it didn’t really get much warmer, as later cloud came down and the place was shrouded in mist and drizzle.
Still, I guess it is ‘rainforest’ and true to form, it was raining; just a bit of the 2,000mm of rain they get each year up there.
It was the amazing trees which made the place. There were Antarctic Beeches, some over a thousand years old, huge Watkins and Strangler figs, Hoop Pines and Bolly Gums. But most astonishing were the Brush Box trees – huge stands of trees 40-50m high, some with trunks 15, maybe 16, metres in circumference. Standing underneath is quite humbling.
Our walk took us down a steep forested valley, dropping maybe 200m down to Canungra Creek. I had feared that the creeks would be dry, but this was a major creek and still full, well into winter - too full for James, as he slipped off a rock right up to his middle. Matthew also went in, crossing a creek.
On the way back up the valley to O’Reilly’s you pass by some wondrous waterfalls. Being such an overcast day, you could take some great photos of falls, with slow shutter speed, without fear of over-exposure. The results below are probably testament to the natural beauty of the place, rather than any latent ability I have with a camera.
Also pictured is the rainforest canopy walk; a series of suspension bridges at the lower canopy height. James also bravely ventured further up a ladder to a platform about 30m up in a Brush Box tree.
We had a late lunch at the famed O’Reilly’s Guesthouse before setting off down the gloomy rainforest track through the trees and mist with 50m visibility, followed by a 20km winding road down the valley.
Lamington National Park
Posted by Living with Matilda at 9:03 PM
History
Lamington National Park has a rich modern history and a similarly fascinating natural history. It forms part of the north and western rim of the Mount Warning Shield Volcano – a 60km ring of rainforest covered escarpment (the McPherson Range), with Mount Waring isolated in the centre and with steep valleys radiating outwards from the rim. The fertile volcanic soils, high rainfall and sub-tropical climate have created a biodiversity hotspot, warranting World Heritage status as part of the Eastern Rainforest Reserves Australia World Heritage Area.
The Park was named after a former Governor of Queensland (1896-1901), Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane Baille, or Baron Lamington to people who weren’t his mates, who visited the park just once, in 1897, to shoot koalas.
The altitude of the rim – about 1,100m – and the prevailing moist easterlies create a cool micro-climate that has allowed more temperate tolerant Antarctic Beech trees to so far survive Australia’s 60 million year continental drift northwards from Gondwanaland towards the equator. Lamington is the most northerly extent of these ancient trees (some over 2,000 years old), any further north and it is too warm and rainforest takes over. Many of these trees would have been just middle-aged when the Industrial Revolution kick started global warming. They have survived and adapted over millions of years, but they could be early casualties to global warming. - another two or three degrees warmer up there and vine thickets and figs will take over.
Just off the peaks of the rim, the cooler microclimate gives way to sub-tropical rainforest, carved away by fast flowing water creating deep gorges and valleys. Further down the slopes, lower rainfall means more open forests, eventually giving way to open bush forest.
The O’Reilly factor
The modern history of the place is similarly as rich. In 1911, a bunch of Irish settlers, the O’Reilly brothers, attracted by cheap land just released by the government, pushed their way up the steep ridges in an attempt to farm dairy cattle. Huts were built and an area was cleared before agitation from the beginnings of the green movement succeeded in having the area designated a National Park in 1915.
Now, isolated in the middle of a National Park, and facing the enormous logistical problem of getting milk down of the mountain on a daily basis, without a decent road, the O’Reilly family realised they were better employed as guides to the growing number of visitors wanting to visit the park. They began their operation by carting groups up on horse back and putting them up in a series of huts. Later, the dairy farm became a guesthouse; further helped in the mid-1930s when a logging track was cut to the boundary of the National Park, then extended by the family to the doors of their guesthouse soon after.
The Stinson crash
O’Reilly’s further came to the attention of visitors when, in 1937, one of the brothers set out to find the site of a crashed Stinson aeroplane that failed to arrive at its destination. After two days searching through thick rainforest – some 10 days after the crash - Bernie O’Reilly found two survivors next to the wreckage. Four people had died in the crash. Bernie set out to find the seventh passenger, who had set out for help. He was later found dead after falling over a waterfall. The two survivors were later evacuated by a local farmers. The full story is recounted in the book “Green Mountains”.
This story of local heroism is all the more remarkable when you experience the terrain in which this happened. The rainforest is so dense and the valley’s are so steep that movement is severely restricted and navigation all but impossible for lack of clear view through the canopy. To have searched this huge area, looking for something as insignificant as a crashed Stinson is astonishing.
Now, O’Reilly’s Guesthouse is the sole operator, smack bang in the middle of a World Heritage area and a Mecca for bushwalkers. The family still runs the show and still guide guests through the park, being entitled ‘Honorary Park Rangers.’
Yesterday
The Green Mountains/O’Reilly’s settlement is up high at nearly 1,000m, so on a wet, windy and winter’s day, when we arrived before 9am it was only a 6 or 7 degrees. Through the day it didn’t really get much warmer, as later cloud came down and the place was shrouded in mist and drizzle.
Still, I guess it is ‘rainforest’ and true to form, it was raining; just a bit of the 2,000mm of rain they get each year up there.
It was the amazing trees which made the place. There were Antarctic Beeches, some over a thousand years old, huge Watkins and Strangler figs, Hoop Pines and Bolly Gums. But most astonishing were the Brush Box trees – huge stands of trees 40-50m high, some with trunks 15, maybe 16, metres in circumference. Standing underneath is quite humbling.
Our walk took us down a steep forested valley, dropping maybe 200m down to Canungra Creek. I had feared that the creeks would be dry, but this was a major creek and still full, well into winter - too full for James, as he slipped off a rock right up to his middle. Matthew also went in, crossing a creek.
On the way back up the valley to O’Reilly’s you pass by some wondrous waterfalls. Being such an overcast day, you could take some great photos of falls, with slow shutter speed, without fear of over-exposure. The results below are probably testament to the natural beauty of the place, rather than any latent ability I have with a camera.
Also pictured is the rainforest canopy walk; a series of suspension bridges at the lower canopy height. James also bravely ventured further up a ladder to a platform about 30m up in a Brush Box tree.
We had a late lunch at the famed O’Reilly’s Guesthouse before setting off down the gloomy rainforest track through the trees and mist with 50m visibility, followed by a 20km winding road down the valley.
Pictures:
- Orange fungus on tree
- More of the orange fungus on tree
- An enormous Brush Box, nearly 20 metres in circumference
- Canungra Creek
- Another enormous Brush Box
- Tree ferns in rainforest
- That Brush Bob again
- Mini eco-system, 30m up in the rainforest canopy
- O’Reilly’s Guesthouse, shrouded in cloud
- Elabana Falls
- Brush Box Falls
- The rainforest canopy walk
- More waterfalls
- Matthew and tree
Posted by Living with Matilda at 9:03 PM
Disclaimer:
| I am employed by Brisbane City Council. All views expressed in this blog are my own and in no way reflect the views of my employer. |
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From WeaselWords.com.au
1 Comments:
Andy - you know I'm a life-long convert to the place's charms, and your comments about O'Reilly's are spot on. But don't sell your photos short - you've captured the mood brilliantly. Looking forward to seeing more. (James C)
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