Wooroonooran National Park, Nature reserve in Queensland, Australia
Wooroonooran National Park is a nature reserve in Queensland covering tropical rainforest with the state's highest mountains. The area features dense forests, steep hillsides, and mountain ridges where rare plants and animals make their homes.
The Wet Tropics of Queensland, including the rainforests of this park, was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1988; the area runs from Townsville to Cooktown and holds some of the world's oldest surviving rainforests. Volcanic activity on the Atherton Tablelands between about 100,000 and 10,000 years ago laid down nutrient-rich lava layers up to 200 m thick that now support the park's plants. Between 2007 and 2008 the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service had the Mamu Rainforest Tropical Skywalk built, contracted to Hutchinson Builders Pty Ltd.
The Aboriginal name Wooroonooran means Black Rock and reflects the deep connection of Indigenous communities to this mountainous area. Local peoples have maintained their relationship with this land over generations through stories and traditions tied to the landscape.
The Josephine Falls section is reached from the Bruce Highway and has a 600 m track through rainforest to viewing platforms; the top pool beyond them is closed because the granite is slippery. The Palmerston section lies 30 km west of the Bruce Highway on the Palmerston Highway, with tracks of about 600 m to Tchupala Falls and 800 m to Wallicher Falls. Camping is allowed at Henrietta Creek; permits are required, and bush camping along the Mount Bartle Frere Trail has no facilities.
The park's high-altitude areas hold Australia's only native rhododendron species, found nowhere else in the country. Its rainforests contain more than 500 tree species, among them the Australian chestnut, Alstonia scholaris and brush box, whose trunks and branches carry epiphytes such as the basket fern and staghorn fern.
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