Border Ranges National Park

Description

Border Ranges National Park, 636 km north of Sydney, Australia, is in northern New South Wales with a small portion located in Queensland.

The Park is part of the Shield Volcano Group of the World Heritage Site Gondwana Rainforests of Australia inscribed in 1986 and added to the Australian National Heritage List in 2007.

The Border Ranges region, which includes the McPherson Range, Tweed Range, Lamington Plateau and Levers Plateau, were formed from the erosion of the Tweed Volcano over many years. A number of volcanic plugs remain in the Border Ranges National Park. Notable for extensive stands of Nothofagus moorei (Antarctic Beech), the park offers a 64 kilometre gravel road circuit through sub tropical, cool and warm temperate rainforest types. The area was extensively logged during the 20 th century, providing timber to a number of nearby sawmills. The Lions Road and the Sydney-Brisbane rail corridor pass through the park at its narrow middle section.

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Border Ranges and Lamington National Park are recognised as a biodiversity hotspot, containing a mixture of northern and southern flora species (the McPherson-Macleay overlap) with a number of endemic, rare and endangered species. Fauna is similarly diverse and species like the Hastings River Mouse, have been rediscovered in the park in recent years.

Lower areas of the park contain eucalypt forests that provide habitat for grey kangaroos, red-necked wallabies and koalas.Pademelons and potoroo are also found in the park as well as a diverse array of birdlife including the rare Albert's Lyrebird.

Two camp grounds (car/camper and walk-in tent camping only) and plentiful picnic areas, some with shelters, water and composting toilets, are available at various points in the rainforest adjacent to the road, and one picnic spot at Blackbutts Lookout, offers spectacular scenic views to Mount Warning, and of the Tweed Valley, an erosion caldera which, while broken by the sea on its eastern flank, is considered larger in size than the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania.