Platypus Creek - New England National Park

A narrow foot track leads through snow grass and twisted gums to a little visited rocky point called Platypus Lookout in New England National Park. The outcrop provides a bird's eye view from the edge of the New England escarpment across the deep valleys and forest far below where we plan to venture for a three day exploratory walk. From this perspective, the terrain looks inspiring but a little daunting and an aerial perspective presents only a broad brush of the landscape. You can see the forest but not the trees. There are few clues as to what really lies beneath the gently undulating tree tops and amongst the steep gullies that break the escarpment.

New England National Park - walking the cloud forest

We are off track; walking the New England escarpment to Darkie Point. Nests of light settle on the forest floor having broken through a closely woven canopy of Antarctic beech trees which tower above us. Then low cloud streams in. The light freezes mid air, forming thick golden shards that angle against our compass bearing. Ahead, the forest slopes towards the escarpment's cliff line. A prevailing wind drags mist out of the valley below and whips it  up the rock face. The air is so dense with moisture it is caught on leaves and branches and drips, drips, drips as if it were raining.

This is the cloud forest at work: the manifestation of a landscape shaped in such a way, located in such a place, as to draw in and create its own cycle of wild weather that keeps this cool temperate rainforest constantly supplied with water.

2012 Campsites: the best of the best

The tent and the campsite is a home away from home, even if just for one night. It’s nice when a campsite comes up with the goods – million dollar views or beautiful forest, soft ground, water, the right feng shui. That’s not always possible. Sometimes we are left searching out a patch of clear ground between too many trees or pitching on a tiny edge of river bed too close for comfort to the rising water.

However, more often than not, nature comes up with the goods and we have had some truly stunning campsites. So, with a new year now in swing and new adventures ahead of us we thought we’d quickly share some of our best campsites of 2012.

Five Day Creek - New England National Park

I am trying to put my finger on the cause of this left-over yearning following last weekend’s walk – an off-track meandering along Five Day Creek in New England National Park. Back at the day job now, the feeling is being fed by sounds of a power-saw in the industrial estate across the highway, ambulances screaming in and out of the nearby hospital, the thousand trucks a day roaring past on the highway: everyday things in this town, but not for a body desperate to return to the wilderness it walked out of on Sunday.