North Queensland's Crater Lakes NP; a special rainforest remnant

We recently spent ten memorable days in tropical north Queensland in the summer Wet Season. Some friends made little pretence of their belief that we were mad, but it was rich and wonderful - and as it turned out, a lot cooler on several days than was our home in 'temperate' Canberra over 2,000km to the south. 

Three of those nights were spent on the Atherton Tableland, whose rich volcanic soils, rainforest timbers, high rainfall and relatively mild climate (compared with the nearby steamy coast 800 metres below) have long attracted European settlers and farmers. (And of course people have lived there for tens of thousands of years before that.) This farming and logging has come at a great cost to the rich upland rainforests of the tableland.

The Atherton Tableland, roughly 50km south-west of Cairns on the coast. The Crater Lakes NP consists of
Lake Barrine and Lake Eacham (unconnected units) at the ends of the red lines above.
Elsewhere on the tableland the tiny Curtain Fig Forest Reserve (yellow) and Mount Hypipamee NP (green)
are the only other areas of conserved forest - all the other forest areas on the map are State Forest
(and thus open to logging). All the cleared land in the rest of the photo was once rainforest.

Crater Lakes National Park - Lake Barrine (north) and Lake Eacham.
Only the forest immediately around the lakes (or some of it anyway) is national park.
For instance the red arrow indicates Chambers Rainforest Lodge where we stayed,
within the forest on the park's edge; as I've mentioned before, I only name specific commercial accommodation
when I believe the owners have a genuine conservation ethos and the experience is exceptional.

Let's start with the view from our little verandah, looking straight into the forest. The following photos were taken from it (and yes, I confess we shared a little of our fruit to encourage the neighbours to drop by). 

As I mentioned, the verandah looks straight into the forest; not all of the cabins do so,
so you might want to make enquiries as to that if you're booking.

Black Butcherbird Melloria quoyi. This butcherbird, recently put into a different genus from all other butcherbirds,
lives and hunts in a range of forest types across northern Australia and New Guinea.

By contrast, the often confiding Grey-headed Robin Heteromyias cinereifrons, is confined to
the rainforests of Queensland's Wet Tropics region.

The Pale-yellow Robin regellasia capito is another rainforest specialist, with one population
in the Wet Tropics and another far to the south in south-east Queensland and north-east New South Wales.

Lewin's Honeyeater Meliphaga lewinii on the other hand is found along most of the east coast of
Australia in denser vegetation, where its 'machine gun' rattling call is familiar.

The Spotted Catbird Ailuroedus maculosus belongs to a genus of possibly primitive rainforest bowerbirds
which do not build display bowers. There are ten species, seven confined to New Guinea, plus the
Black-eared Catbird A. melanotis found in both New Guinea and Cape York Peninsula, and the
Green Catbird A. crassirostris from southern Queensland to the NSW south coast.
The yowling 'cat call' can be hair-raising if you're not expecting it!

Male Victoria's Riflebird Ptiloris paradiseus, one of three Australian riflebirds (which are
birds of paradise) with similar distributions to the three Australian catbirds (above),
reflecting the fragmentation of once-widespread rainforests as the continent dried out.
This one is restricted to the Wet Tropics.
He has wonderful iridescent plumage and his display, on a raised perch, is truly spectacular.
(And it's a bird of which I still don't have a decent photo!)

Musky Rat Kangaroo Hypsiprymnodon moschatus, a very primitive little daytime kangaroo, possibly
resembling the ancestral kangaroo. It is also a Wet Tropics endemic.
For more on this truly fascinating little ancient Australian, see my most recent posting.
After years of seeing them bound out sight with no chance of laying lens on one,
it was both a thrill and a bit surreal to have one pottering about right under our noses.

A walk along the access road (ie away from the crater) led us through mixed forest, with both rainforest elements and some tall wet eucalypt forest.

Flooded Gums Eucalyptus grandis. These magnificent trees are among the tallest of all eucalypts;
one near Bulahdelah (near Newcastle) was measured at 86 metres high.

One of the highlights for us was the feeding station set up near the cabins, with a shelter and benches where people can sit and wait for wildlife to come (or not) to minimal food offerings. In particular a small amount of honey is poured on to a couple of tree trunks to attract some special possums. The trees are floodlit but the animals don't seem perturbed, which is quite counter-intuitive. I first saw this on floodlit waterholes at Etosha NP in Namibia, and it puzzled me then too. I am very dubious about feeding wild animals, but in the three nights we were there the few individuals which came stayed no more than 15 minutes or so, and then went about their main business. None of them came on all three nights.

Sugar Gliders Petaurus breviceps occur right around the north, east and south-east coast
and hinterlands of Australia, and in New Guinea and the Moluccas. They eat nectar, pollen,
invertebrates and the sap of some acacias and eucalypts. To access the sap they will
chew notches in the bark with their sharp front teeth.

The animal on the right, with extended left hind leg, is demonstrating part of its gliding membrane
which stretches from wrist to ankle. With this it can glide up to 50 metres between trees, changing
direction by adjusting one or other membrane, and braking to land upright on the tree trunk.

Another visitor to the tree was even more exciting for us though, as it is restricted to the forests of far north Queensland and New Guinea. The Striped Possum Dactylopsila trivirgata is in the same family as the Sugar Glider, but does not glide.

Striped Possum Dactylopsila trivirgata. This is not a well-understood animal, but it is said to emit an
unpleasant odour, which might indicate a bad taste too and thus explain the warning colouring.

Striped Possums are largely insectivores, and in particular relish wood-boring larvae. They locate them by tapping
on the wood, then chew a hole and use the elongated fourth toe, quite obvious in this photo, to extract
the unlucky grub. It is a remarkable example of parallel evolution with the utterly unrelated big
nocturnal Madagascan lemur, the Aye-aye.

And this lovely huntsman (or huntswoman) was waiting for us on the verandah when we got home.

We of course visited both lakes, including an early morning circumnavigation of Lake Eacham, a pleasant rainforest stroll of three kilometres.

Lake Eacham is truly a lovely little crater lake; both it and Lake Barrine are about 65 metres deep.

Another view. The explosions took place only about 10,000 years ago, and local people tell the stories.
(My mind reels at the idea of a 10,000 year old accurate oral tradition.)
At that stage - late in the last glaciation - the surrounding forest was dry, as told by pollen studies from the lake.

A typical section of the track, most of which is a boardwalk.

At one stage the track passes through the root curtain of this magnificent old strangler fig Ficus virens(though there are several other species which are also stranglers).

A bird has deposited a fig seed on a branch of an unwitting host tree; the germinating seedling sends down aerial
roots which eventually reach the ground and boosts the seedling's growth. The fig takes nothing from the host
but support. It does however eventually kill it - not by strangulation
(hard to imagine what that might mean to a tree!) but by shading out its canopy.
Eventually the host trunk and branches rot, leaving only the free-standing fig.

A couple more trackside glimpses.

Bracket fungi - sorry do better than that! Busy turning wood back to soil.

Bank of Common Maidenhair Fern Adiantum aethiopicum. Despite the scientific name it is not
found in Ethiopia, though it does grow in southern Africa, a testament to the antiquity of ferns.

We visited Lake Barrine late in the afternoon, without time to do a full circuit, but it was nonetheless a rewarding time.

Again a lovely lake rimmed with rainforest, though the rim is sadly thin.

Lake Barrine through the trees.

Lianas, a key component of tropical rainforests. These are plants which use the huge investment of trees in
building vast wooden trunks, to get their own foliage into the sunlight.

Climbing Palms Calamus sp. There are some 400 species of these rattan palms in African, Asian and
Australian rainforests. Their thin stems can be over 100 metres long, and climb with the help of
wicked spines. Their spiny dangling tendrils can make walking in the forest very hazardous.

New growth, before it's gained its chlorophyll; presented here just for aesthetics!

A famous pair of huge Bull Kauris Agaathis microstachya, near the start of the walk; they are nearly 50 metres tall
and estimated to be around a thousand years old. They belong to the old Gondwanan conifer family Araucariaceae.

This beautiful lizard was clinging to a tree trunk near the kauris; we'd been here in winter a couple of times, but never seen one. Another reason to come in summer!

Boyd's Forest Dragaon Lophosaurus boydii, a lightly built lizard but up to half a metre long.
It has a relative in the rainforests of the Queensland - NSW border region.

Spectacled Monarch Symposiachrus trivirgatus; a common rainforest monarch in rainforests north from near
Sydney to southern New Guinea and Indonesian islands to the west.

The Atherton Scrubwren Sericornis keri is not nearly so widespread -
in fact it is endemic to the Wet Tropics rainforests. Unlike the very similar Large-billed Scrubwren
it has a straight (not uptilted) bill and forages on or near the ground.

I've left one of our trip highlights to last, but it's the appropriate place for it, as we saw it on foliage
just above us as we were about to leave Lake Barrine.

Male Cairns Birdwing Ornithoptera euphorion; this is Australia's largest butterfly, with a wingspan of up to 15cm,
and is truly magnificent. It is found from Mackay to Cooktown.

Next time you're up that way - and it doesn't have to be in summer, though you might see more then! - put aside some time for the Crater Lakes. There's more to them than their tiny size might suggest. And if you can spend some nights there, so much the better!

Next time I'm back - on a different day from my usual! - it will be to celebrate National Eucalypt Day! Who knew?

NEXT POSTING SATURDAY 23 MARCH
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