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You can reach a genuine rainforest barely an hour out of Melbourne — and today we did. We began with the Wirrawilla Rainforest Walk in the Toolangi State Forest, then took in the shorter Margaret Lester Forest Walk nearer the city. Wonderful ferns, extraordinarily tall trees, and birds in full colour — a complete change from roasting on the city pavements. There was driving involved, but the roads were calm and the going easy.
Now we’re turning our attention to dinner over at nearby Forest Hill.
Those “insanely tall trees” have a fair claim to a world record. The forests around Toolangi are Mountain Ash country — Eucalyptus regnans — the tallest flowering plants on Earth and the tallest hardwoods anywhere, routinely topping 90 metres and, in rare individuals, approaching the height of a coastal redwood. The delicate fern boardwalk and those towering trunks belong to the same rare pocket of cool-temperate rainforest.
Further reading: Mountain Ash, the tallest flowering plant