Sept 22, 2025 Parks-Part 1
We ventured into the rainforest today, at the Ma:Mu Tropical Skywalk. The rainforest canopy walkway is in the traditional country of the Ma:Mu Aboriginal people and is part of the ‘Wet Tropics’ of northeast Queensland.
The walkway overlooks a gorge of the North Johnstone River which gives a rare viewpoint over the rainforest.
We discovered that it’s not only snakes and spiders that can harm you in Australia, but plants can poison you in many ways as well!
The ‘lawyer vine’ is also dangerous, hanging vines have sharp thorns that can tear your clothes and skin! We walked through the forest, careful not to touch any plants or have them touch us!! The red ‘apple’ might be the fruit of the poison laurel, but something eats it!
A surprise bonus of our early arrival to the rainforest was sighting of a cassowary, a large flightless bird with an impressive horny growth on its colorful head and a bright red wattle hanging from its neck, casually walking by on the path!
After our introduction to the rainforest at the Skywalk we stopped along the road to hike a short distance to a waterfall. This being the ‘wet tropics’ there are trails to several waterfalls in the area.
Tchupala Falls is a 30 min. hike from the road, and a million years into the past!