Chasing Waterfalls Through Ancient Forest

There is a particular green you only find in the old forests, a deep, wet, mossy light that has been falling through the same canopy for tens of millions of years. These are the remnants of Gondwana, the ancient supercontinent, and tucked inside them are some of the most beautiful waterfalls in the country.

Dorrigo, above the clouds

Start on the New South Wales escarpment at Dorrigo National Park, part of the Gondwana Rainforests World Heritage area. The Skywalk launches you out over the canopy, but the magic is below it, on the Wonga Walk, where a suspension bridge delivers you to the foot of Crystal Shower Falls. A short side track leads behind the curtain of water, into a dripping cavern, and out through the falling veil.

Buchan, beneath the hills

Further south, in the green folds of East Gippsland, the Buchan Caves hide a different kind of water story: a limestone underworld of calcite pools and stalactites, carved over hundreds of thousands of years and held at a constant seventeen degrees whatever the season does above.

Russell Falls, the classic

Finish in Tasmania at Russell Falls, in Mount Field National Park, perhaps the most photographed waterfall in the country. A flat, sealed path winds beneath swamp gums among the tallest flowering plants on earth, past a grotto of glow worms, to a tiered cascade that drops in two graceful steps through a cathedral of tree ferns. It is barely an hour from Hobart, and it has been a reserve since 1885, Tasmania's first.

Bring a rain jacket to all three. In country this green, the weather is the price of admission, and it is always worth paying.