Qualla: Washpool National Park

Washpool National Park: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit FearTec, Public domain. Step off the Gwydir Highway and into the gully, and the temperature drops several degrees in a few paces. The light goes green. Somewhere above, a superb lyrebird is mimicking - perfectly - the call of three other birds in succession, just to show it can. This is Washpool, and the rainforest closing overhead is not ordinary forest. It is the largest stand of coachwood left anywhere in the world, a living fragment of the supercontinent Gondwana that the rest of the planet lost tens of millions of years ago.

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Image: FearTec | Public domain

Washpool National Park: A Forest Older Than the Continents

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paul Gierszewski, CC BY-SA 4.0. Washpool's rainforests are survivors from the age when Australia, South America, Africa, India and Antarctica were still joined as Gondwana. As that ancient landmass broke apart and Australia drifted into long dryness, these cool, wet, sheltered gullies held on, preserving plant ...

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Image: Paul Gierszewski | CC BY-SA 4.0

Washpool National Park: Country Held for Thousands of Years

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tentotwo, CC BY-SA 3.0. Long before any conservation map was drawn, this was - and remains - Aboriginal country. Washpool lies on the traditional lands of the Bundjalung, Gumbaynggirr and Ngarabal peoples, who lived in and cared for this landscape for thousands of years. The forests and creeks provided ...

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Image: Tentotwo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Washpool National Park: The Fight to Save It

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Froggydarb at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Washpool nearly did not survive into the present. Red cedar had drawn timber-cutters into these ranges since the 1800s, and by the late 1970s a highly mechanised forestry industry had the last great stands of the Viper and Willowie Scrub in its sights. Conservationists fought bac...

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Image: Froggydarb at en.wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Washpool National Park: Life in the Wet Green

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geoff Derrin, CC BY-SA 4.0. The biodiversity here is staggering. More than 878 species of vascular plants grow in the park, from 138 families, of which 81 are of conservation significance. The birdlife alone justifies the trip: the superb lyrebird and the rare rufous scrubbird perform in the understorey alo...

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Image: Geoff Derrin | CC BY-SA 4.0