Lamington National Park
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| Lamington National Park | |
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| IUCN Category II (National Park) | |
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| Nearest town/city: | Canungra |
| Coordinates: | |
| Area: | 206 km² |
| Managing authorities: | Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service |
| Official site: | Lamington National Park |
Lamington is a national park in Queensland, Australia, lying on the Lamington Plateau 75 km south of Brisbane. It is a part of the World Heritage site, Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves. Most of the park is situated 900 m above sea level only 30 km from the Pacific's ocean shores. The plateau remains one of the world's most special sanctuaries.
The plateaus and cliffs in Lamington and Springbrook National Parks are the Northern and North Western remnants of the huge 20 Million year old Wollumbin volcano, Mount Warning. The Nerang River, Albert River and Coomera River all have their source in Lamington National Park.
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[edit] History
For at least 6000 years, Aboriginal people lived in and visited these mountains. Roughly 900 years ago the indigenous population began to decline.
Captain Patrick Logan and Allan Cunningham were the first European explorers in the area. The timber cutters soon followed.
Early European settlers such as Romeo Lahey also valued the natural beauty of the area, and fought to make it one of the first protected areas in Queensland. The O’Reilly family established a guesthouse near the park in 1926 and founding members of the National Parks Association of Queensland built Binna burra Lodge next to the park in the 1930s.
The park was named after Lord Lamington.
Benard O’Reilly became a hero when he rescued the survivors from a crashed Stinson plane from the remote Lamington wilderness. In typical Aussie Bushman Fashion he embarked on his rescue mission taking only onions to eat.
[edit] Natural heritage
Rugged mountain scenery, tumbling waterfalls, rainforest, wildflower heaths, tall open forests, picturesque creeks, varied wildlife and some of the best bushwalking in Queensland are protected in Lamington National Park. One of Queensland’s best-loved parks, Lamington is the core of the Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves Australia World Heritage Area along the ajoining Border Ranges National Park in New South Wales. The park’s beautiful rainforests include one of the largest upland subtropical rainforest remnants in the world and the most northern Nothofagus moorei|southern beech cool temperate rainforests in Australia.
Lamington is home to an incredible variety of wildlife including rare and threatened animals such as the Coxen’s fig-parrot, Eastern bristlebird, Albert's Lirebird, Richmond Birdwing butterfly and plants such as the Ravine and Blotched Sarchochilus orchids. Many of Lamington's plants are found nowhere else on earth such as O’Reilly's Pittosporum and the Lamington Peach Myrtle or the Mt Merino Eyebright, Everlasting Daisy and Gaultheria which are subalpine relics from the last ice age. Lamington is also one of the few locations where the rare eastern underground orchid (Rhizanthella slateri) has been reported. This species has no chlorophyll and depends entirely upon a symbiotic fungus for survival it is also one of only three(3)flowering plants on earth to complete it's life cycle entirely underground. In 2006 another species of this genus has been described, it has not yet been found anywhere else and is thus called Lamington Underground Orchid (Rhizanthella omissa).
[edit] Waterfalls
The park contains numerous waterfalls such as Elabana Falls and Running Creek Falls in the south of the park which falls into a box canyon. Yarrbilgong Falls and Coomera Falls flow into Coomera Gorge.
[edit] Bushwalking
The park is covered by a series of clearly marked walks that were constructed during the Great Depression. Some are short and others are steep and take up to seven hours to complete. The well maintained and signed Border Track, follows the border between New South Wales and Queensland along the top of the McPherson Range. This track links Binna Burra to the O'Reilly guesthouse at Green Mountains, a distance of some 21 kilometres which can be completed one way in a day or 7 to 8 hours.
A number of other well marked and varied walks connect with this Border Track creating a network which can be easily negotiated by relatively inexperienced bushwalkers. These include the Box Forest Circuit (10.9 Kms or 4 hours return from O'Reilly's), Toolona Creek Circuit (17.4 Kms or 6 hours return), and the Albert River Circuit (20.6 Kms or 7 hours return to O'Reilly's) to name some of the best known. While the Border Track remains reasonably level for most of its length, many of the other tracks decend to lower altitudes of 750 metres or less and provide access to some of the incredible variety of flora, fauna and geography to be found in the park.
For experienced walkers there are also numerous trails traversing the park. These trails do not have clear tracks; in many cases there are only occasional markers in the natural forest and it is inadvisable to use them without the company of an experienced bushwalker who knows the area. Map reading and good navigation skills are a necessity and National Park Rangers should be notified before commencing. Camping overnight is not permitted without a permit.
There are a number of natural hazards such as leeches, snakes and stinging trees that bushwalkers should be aware of.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Lackner, Thomas (1989). Discovering Binna Burra on Foot. Envirobook. ISBN 0-85881-088-3.
- (1980) Seeing South-East Queensland, 2, RACQ, p. 53. ISBN 0-909518-07-6.
