Subtropical rainforest in Wollumbin National Park …
The mountain to which James Cook gave the name Mount Warning already had an Aboriginal name, Wollumbin (
Big Mountain). Today the national park acknowledges the traditional owners' name but the mountain usually retains the name bestowed on it by the great navigator.
The piccabeen palms (
Archontophenix cunninghamiana) on the right are around 20 m tall. There's a serious drop on that side of the narrow road!
Mount Warning is in New South Wales about midway up Australia's eastern Pacific coast (150 km south of Brisbane; 800 km north of Sydney). It is the same distance from the equator as Orlando, Florida.
A glance at this topographical map from my Ride with GPS record shows the ring of mountains surrounding the eroded caldera an ancient volcano. At the centre of the ring is Wollumbin National Park and Mt Warning, the remains of the vent from which molten lava spewed out to form a 100 km-wide shield volcano 23 million years ago.
My anticlockwise route can be broken into three sections:
- 50 km southwest from Chinderah (green spot) to Mt Warning;
- 40 km east through the hills to Wooyong on the Pacific coast;
- 30 km north along the coast to Chinderah on the Tweed River
The photo of the sugarcane was taken midway along the first section of the ride (near Murwillumbah) and the mown paddock near the turnoff to Mt Warning.
If you look north of my start/finish location you will see where the Tweed River enters the sea. Cook's Point Danger is at the end of 'Coolangatta'. Between Point Danger and the start/finish (Tweed Heads South) you might make out a white dot in the sea. That's Cook Island (named for him but not by him); he was seriously close inshore!
We now saw the breakers again. They lay two Leagues from a point under which is a small Island. Their situation may always be found by the peaked mountain before mentioned. This mountain or hill, I have named Mount Warning. It lies 7 or 8 Leagues inland the land, is high and hilly about it, but it is conspicuous enough to be distinguished from everything else. The point off which these shoals lay I have named Point Danger.