Wooroonooran National Park

Wooroonooran National Park
Josephine waterfalls
Coordinates: 17 ° 8 ′ 47 ″  S , 145 ° 47 ′ 36 ″  E
Location:	Queensland , Australia
Specialty:	Rainforest
Next city:	30 kilometer (s) from Innisfail
Surface:	1,149 km²
Founding:	1991
Walsh's pyramid
Masked dwarf parrot

The Wooroonooran National Park (English Wooroonooran National Park ) is a 1149 square kilometer national park in Queensland , Australia . Due to a multitude of endemic bird species, the park is part of the Wooroonooran Important Bird Area and the UNESCO World Heritage Site Wet Tropics of Queensland . The two highest peaks in Queensland, Mount Bartle Frere and Mount Bellenden Ker are in the national park.

location

The park is located in the North Queensland region and is approximately 30 kilometers west of Innisfail . In north-south direction, it extends over 75 kilometers from Gordonvale to Tully , where it connects directly to the Tully Falls and Tully Gorge National Park . The Palmerston section in the southern part can be reached via the Palmerston Highway , the Josephine section in the north from the Bruce Highway . The mountain range of the Bellenden Ker Range , with the 1622 meter high Mount Bartle Frere and the 1592 meter Mount Bellenden Ker extends over a large part of the area of ​​the national park. Walsh's pyramid with a height of 922 meters, one of the largest natural pyramids in the world, is located at its northern end directly at Gordonvale.

water falls

The visitor center near Josephine Falls was established and opened to the public in the 1970s. The water in Josephine Creek comes from the slopes of Mount Bartle Frere and flows into the Russell River . A 600 meter long hiking trail leads through the rainforest to a newly created visitor platform. In the past numerous people were injured and died on the way to the top pool on the slippery granite rocks . The endemic Bartle Frere Skink is native to the waterfalls area .

In the Palmerston section of the park, hiking trails lead to Tchupala Falls and Wallicher Falls . About 2 km further west on the Palmerston Highway begin the hiking trails to the Nandroya Falls. Here the Douglas Creek falls 50 m from a basalt slab . The Silver Creek Falls are also nearby .

Flora and fauna

100,000 years ago to around 10,000 years ago, the volcanoes of the Atherton Tableland shaped the landscape of the park. The nutrient-rich, up to 200 meters thick layers of lava form the basis for numerous animal and plant species today. The rainforests of the national park are home to over 500 different tree species such as the Australian chestnut , Alstonia scholaris and red tulip oak . Numerous epiphytes , such as the basket fern or elk horn fern, thrive on their branches and trunks .

Live to mammals in the park include the Streifenpossum which cercartetus , the Yellow-Footed Antechinus that Lumholtz's tree-kangaroo , and the musky rat-kangaroo , the smallest member of the kangaroo family . With a little luck you can also see Australia's largest snake in the park, the Australian amethyst python . It can be up to five meters long. The Wooroonooran National Park is also home to the banded tree monitor (Varanus scalaris) .

Countless birds, such as the masked parrot , the green-winged pigeon , the Australian fig pyrole , the glossy-tipped drongo or the golden-eared honeyeater can be observed both in the dense foliage of the trees and on the rainforest floor .

Web links

• Official site of the park (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Australian Government - CAPAD 2010 ( MS Excel ; 170 kB), DSEWPaC , accessed on January 7, 2013 (English)
2. ↑ Australian Government - CAPAD 1997 ( MS Excel ; 93 kB), DSEWPaC , accessed on January 7, 2013 (English)
3. ↑ Important Bird Areas (IBAs) - Wooroonooran , www.birdlife.org, accessed on October 7, 2012 (English)
4. ↑ ^{a b} Overview map - Wooroonooran National Park (PDF; 301 kB), Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service , accessed on October 7, 2012 (English)
5. ↑ ^{a b} Wet tropics coast national parks ( Memento of the original from October 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 5.7 MB), Queensland Government, accessed October 7, 2012 (English)  
6. ^ Official Park Website - Josephine Falls , Queensland Government, accessed October 7, 2012
7. ↑ ^{a b c} Park Official Website - Palmerston - Culture , Queensland Government, accessed October 7, 2012
8. ↑ Reptiles of Wooroonooran National Park on arod.com.au