Werrikimbe-Nationalpark

The Werrikimbe National Park is a national park in the northeast of the Australian state of New South Wales, 486 km north of Sydney. It is located halfway between Port Macquarie and Walcha on the eastern slopes of the Great Dividing Range.

The park is part of the Hastings - Macleay Group of World Natural Heritage of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia. In the southwest of Cottan - Bimbang National Park closes at, in the north -east of the Willi Willi National Park and the northwest of the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park.

Survey

The Werrikimbe National Park is known for its rich flora and fauna, its rainforests, its seheneswerten, wild rivers and the opportunities offered there of recreational activities in a remote area. In this park there is also a stone structure Aboriginal consisting of two rings, the Bora -rings in which you carried out initiation rites.

All access roads to the park are unpaved, winding and sometimes steep. They are unsuitable for caravans. Beyond the Mooraback Road there is a lane for all-wheel gearbox vehicles to the visitor center at the Youdales hat. This requires that you pick either of the National Park Authority or by the company Apsley Motors in Walcha a key to a gate. There are five visitor areas with basic facilities - three in the eastern part near the rock barrier and two in the western part of the plateau.

Tent sites, there are:

• At Brushy Mountain ( 20 pitches ) on the northwestern edge of the park. The course is suitable for cars with caravans (not for campers). There are toilets, a supply station, picnic tables and a wood-fired barbecue
• In Mooraback (5 pitches ) on the northwestern edge of the park. There are restrooms, picnic tables and a wood-fired barbecue
• On the plateau Beach ( 5 pitches ) on the east side of the park. For people who shy away from a long way from the car to caravan or tent. There are dry toilets, a supply station, picnic tables and a wood-fired barbecue

The Bicentennial National Trail (hiking trail to commemorate the 200 -year-old anniversary of the Australian colonies ) for the western edge of the Werrikimbe Wilderness along the sources of the Hastings River and the Client Rank Brook. Horses and motor vehicles are not allowed in this protected area.

History

The area around Mooraback was one of the earliest settlement areas in Falls Country east of Walcha. Already in the 1850s the first settlers farmed pastures there. Their names still appear in different corridor designations in the park on: Bishop Swamp, Cleghorns Creek Trail or Carey.

In the 1950s they built from manganese ore in an area that is now part of the National Park.

Flora

There are a large number of vegetation zones here, depending on the frequency of precipitation and the altitude: Livhter eucalyptus forest with Coach Wood ( Ceratopetalum apetalum ), Sassafras ( Atherosperma ) Dendrocniden, long-leaved wax flowers ( Philoteca myoporoides ) and Yellow- Carabeen trees ( Sloanea woolsii ) with its buttress -like strains. There are also endangered plants, such as the Vogelorchidee ( Chiloglottis anaticeps ), Fairy Lantern ( Thismia rodway ) and Pygmäenzypressen ( Callitris oblonga subsp. Parva ). In these forests there are also the only copies of Filmy King Fern ( Fern, Leptopteris fraseri ) in the entire northern New South Wales. The forest with Antarctic Book ( Nothofagus moorei ) at the end of the North Plateau Road should be over 1000 years and represents the largest contiguous Buchenwald in Australia represents the threatened Pygmäenzypresse comes in northern New South Wales only on the eastern edge of the plateau of New England in Werrikimbe National Park before.

Fauna

In Werrikimbe National Park is home to at least 22 threatened species, such as the sensitive Ferruginous thicket of birds ( Atrichornis rufescens ). The rare, native Hastings River Mouse ( Pseudomys oralis ) was already considered extinct until it was rediscovered in 1981 Werrikimbe National Park. This mouse lives in heathland and in sparse forests along water courses. It can be observed in the park and the bush chicken, the koala, the black-haired - Wippflöter ( Psophodes olivaceus ), the Riesenkauz ( Ninox strenua ), the gliders ( Petaurus ), the Quoll ( Dasyurus ) and the lyrebird ( Menura ).