We spent a fairly wet Easter in Coffs Harbour with a visit to the World Heritage Listed Dorrigo National Park. This is in New South Wales, about a 5 hour drive (with coffee stops) from Brisbane.
On the 31st March there was serious flooding in the area, which probably made doing the tracks in the area a bad idea but it is the first time we’ve got down there and probably won’t get there again for a while so decided to drive in and take our chances. The road up through the hills was pretty hairy in places with slips still evident but they had done a fabulous job of clearing roads and making the area safe and passable.
The Dorrigo National Park information centre is worth a visit for its own sake, there is a tree top walk, very good audio visual display, cafe, shop and photo gallery that had a great exhibition when we visited.
The Wonga walk leaves from outside the information centre, it is about 6.6km and a circular track out to the waterfalls by one route and back via another. Unfortunately we got half way, as far as the Crystal Shower Falls (which were fabulous after all the wet) and the track had washed out and wasn’t passable after a big slip so we backtracked the way we had come and didn’t get to see the Tristania Falls.
Just before the falls I looked to the side of my boot on the track and saw this red bellied black snake, it wasn’t a wide track so that was way closer than I would choose to get.

The Crystal Shower Falls were worth the walk, while I don’t enjoy rain I do love the rainforest during or after a good wet it is just beautiful to all the senses, it smells fresh, the frog and bird song seem clearer and the wildlife is out in force (snakes included it appears).

There are a few things I really don’t like and being trapped is one of them so having come to the edge of the cliff by the falls and not being able to continue I was a bit wound up at finding a few metres back the other way that this fella was now looking equally pissed off and blocking our path.

He’s a red bellied black, just over 1.5 metres so fully grown and they are highly toxic, with his head raising facing us like that pushing past him wasn’t an option. He’d also found the only patch of sunshine and seemed to like it so I started to think we could be stuck there a while.
I contemplated calling the ranger station for advice as there was no way around him with the rainforest banks really dense on either side so we were left with waiting him out or scaring him off – with us stuck between him and a sheer drop I didn’t really want to make him mad. I decided to make the call but the Blackberry had no signal, darn technology when you need it.
In the end some other walkers had decided to walk out to the falls and their approach from the opposite direction was enough to scare him off so we made a hasty pass back up the track without incident.
Lesson for the day, this isn’t the NZ bush, watch where you put your feet and gaiters are starting to look less like paranoia and more like a good idea!