Our group of 16 was led by Karen, along the ‘Lake Walk’ from the Mount Agony Road through magnificent stands of spotted gum and burrawang forest, to the northern edge of Durras Lake where we looked for rat’s tail orchids clinging to trees near the edge of the water. The orchids were duly found, but alas not in flower. We followed the lake’s edge through myrtle woodland before entering extensive groves of cabbage palm and temperate rain forest in gullies and in low damp creek flats near where the creeks from Mount Agony flowed into the lake.

After 4 km we joined the ‘Durras Discovery Walk’, a 1.5 km loop with several interesting features including part of an old timber jinker (used to support large logs so they could be dragged by horses through the forest to the old timber mill at North Durras), and a high platform with signs describing how timber-getters raised themselves above the often hollow bases of the larger gum trees in order to hew through solid timber. The loop climbs up to a small escarpment of flat-lying pebbly grey sandstone (the Snapper Point Formation), part of the same sequence of rocks we have seen on other walks along the coast at Murramarang and points farther north. We perched on top of this escarpment to enjoy our lunch, before descending back down to complete the ‘Discovery Loop’ and rejoin the ‘Lake Walk’ which took us back to our cars, all the while with the calls of a lyre bird echoing through the forest.

All up a 9 km walk through beautiful and varied forest on a fine, slightly cool day with a few ups and downs to keep us fit – ideal! Some history thrown in too which is always a good thing. Another good thing was that in spite of all the talk about ticks and leeches, there was only one leech attack and it was soon shooed away with a flick of the finger and a spray of tea tree oil for good measure.

Thank you Karen for a great walk.