Splendid Protection

Kept safe by a quarter of a century of World Heritage listing, the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia are an unparalleled glimpse into an ancient wilderness.

- Elizabeth Ginis

DIRECTLY OVERHEAD, on outstretched wings, a wedge-tailed eagle floats. It’s just a metre or two away and, if I reach up, I can almost stroke its broad golden chest.

Nearby, a high-country river plummets once, and then again, over the double drop of a mighty waterfall. It pummels a deep pool 100m below and in the doing spreads a shimmering mist across the rock-strewn gorge. The eagle turns, glances down at me, and glides away. It rides the updraughts of a wind that ruffles the canopy of a rainforest, whose inhabitant species are as old as the hills it covers.

In this tangle, towering trees stand dressed in coats of the softest, emerald-green moss. These are the ancients – descendants of another place, another time. This is Gondwana country, and, like my soaring feathered friend, it’s breathtaking.

Dorrigo National Park

In the hinterland behind Coffs Harbour, on the New South Wales mid-north coast, sits one of the country’s 40 World Heritage-listed Gondwana rainforest sites. Here the trees are bent and bowed, gnarled and knobbly, smeared in lichen, and dripping with vines.

Just an hour’s drive south-west of Coffs along Waterfall Way, Dorrigo National Park is one of the most accessible places to explore these forests. Centuries-old Antarctic beech rub shoulders with prehistoric tree ferns and palms, and you can wander on well-maintained tracks and boardwalks admiring their grandeur.