Wonga Walk at Dorrigo National Park

Today we set of on a day trip from our park through the pretty town of Bellingen and up the mountain to Dorrigo National Park.  Driving up we where glad that we left Willow behind as the road was very tight and windy and really not caravan friendly.  Of course as soon as we got there the kids where hungry so we had morning tea at some picnic tables and where soon joined by a bush turkey.  What a strange looking bird, a bit bigger than a chicken, black feathered, red head and and wearing a wrinkly yellow necklace.   We where scared he was going to help himself to our morning tea.

We spoke to a nice lady in the visitors centre who recommended we do the Skywalk followed by the, wait for it, "Wonga Walk."  The skywalk was about 100 meters above the rainforest canopy with a view of the National Park and surrounding mountains.  Very nice.  We then set of on the Wonga Walk full of enthusiasm and taking lots of photos.  Not surprising it was very dark and little chilly walking through the forest.  It was very impressive walking through the old trees some ageing 300 years old.  A lot of the trees had vines growing all over that I later found out are called Strangler Figs.  These made all sorts shapes and patterns.  We came to the Tristania Falls ,water cascading over shiny black rock.  A quick photo session then we moved on and kept going.  Just keep walking ,just keep walking still going downhill.  To the Crystal Shower Falls , beautiful sparkly falls doing the long fall with a cave behind.  This is where we sat to have our packed lunch vegemite and peanut butter rolls to the side of the cave we a view of the falls and the suspension bridge we where about to cross.  Revived we set of on the upwards return to the carpark.  By this time we had tied kids with tied legs lucky it was Bush Turkey Territory and we attempted a Bush Turkey Stakeout. ***** NEWS FLASH the 8.23pm train has just crossed the Bellinger River Bridge*****.  While on stake out we could hear the whip bird calling out to his mate.  For bird lovers there was a side walk  called "walk with the Birds boardwalk."  We only managed to see our friend the Bush Turkey and some other fat bird sitting way up high on a branch.  The whole walk was 6.6 km and took us just over 3 hours.

View from Skywalk

Bush Turkey

Tristiana Falls

Crystal Falls

Crystal Falls from Cave

We then headed through the Dorrigo township to the Dangar Falls and walked the 10 steps to the viewing platform.  These falls are fairly wide an fall straight down into what looks like a big deep pool. No rainforest here.  We had a bit of a father/daughter /swing/ sore leg/ incident so it was only Pete and James who made the 10 minute walk down to the bottom of the Dangar falls

The lesson learnt from todays expedition was pack even more snacks  and maybe a walk of 4.5 to 5 km is our limit.  Kids went to sleep no problems tonight.  I wonder why that is??

Head over to Petes Ramblings for his fishing update