Coombadjha Nature Stroll

Easy

Family Friendly Historic Rainforest Swimming

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An easy walk from Coachwood picnic area along a 400m bitumen path through World Heritage rainforest to a viewing platform on Coombadjha Creek, with an optional loop extension along the creek banks to the fern-fringed Coachwood pool swimming spot.

☰ Trail details

Hide panel — map only✕

Distance

1.42 km

Est. time

28 min

Elevation gain

65 m

Route type

Loop

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In an emergency

Call 000 for police, fire or ambulance — Australia's emergency number works even with a weak signal, and without a SIM if any carrier has coverage.

You're in Washpool National Park, Glen Innes / Grafton, NSW. Mobile reception in this area is not guaranteed — this is exactly why the offline map and GPS position on this page work without signal.

Tell someone your plan and expected return time before you set off. A PLB is the most reliable backup where there's no reception at all.

Tracks & plans

+ Add to tracks / plans

Species to look for on this trail

Ancient trees and rare flora confirmed in this park. Spot one? Add it as a sighting pin below.

Coachwood

Ceratopetalum apetalum

Defines Washpool's Gondwana rainforest canopy▾

Defines Washpool's Gondwana rainforest canopy

Washpool National Park protects the world's largest stand of coachwood trees, a defining feature of the coachwood-sassafras rainforest community that characterises NSW's Gondwana Rainforests World Heritage reserves.

How to spot it

Smooth, greyish, fragrant bark marked with distinctive horizontal scars encircling the trunk; grows to around 25m (exceptional specimens to 40m) with pale pink to pinkish-brown timber that carries a caramel-like scent when cut. Common canopy associate of sassafras in cool, moist rainforest gullies.

Family Cunoniaceae · Source: Wikipedia: Ceratopetalum apetalum; NSW National Parks — Washpool National Park

Photo: Poyt448 (Peter Woodard) (Public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

Sassafras

Doryphora sassafras

Coachwood's rainforest partner species▾

Coachwood's rainforest partner species

A common mid-to-upper storey tree of NSW's Gondwana Rainforests, pairing with coachwood to form the coachwood-sassafras rainforest community found across the state's northern escarpment reserves. All parts of the tree carry a spicy smell but contain a poisonous alkaloid, so it's for smelling, not chewing.

How to spot it

Opposite, glossy, toothed leaves 30-110mm long; white six-tepalled flowers from May to October. Grows on basalt and sedimentary soils in temperate rainforest gullies, typically found growing alongside coachwood.

Family Atherospermataceae · Source: Wikipedia: Doryphora sassafras

Photo: Murray Fagg (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons

Red Cedar

Toona ciliata

"Red gold" — logged to commercial extinction▾

"Red gold" — logged to commercial extinction

Colonial timber-getters called it "red gold" for its prized cabinet timber, and 19th-century logging was so intensive that large wild red cedars are now essentially commercially extinct. Surviving specimens are landmark trees — Washpool NP protects extraordinary specimens of giant red cedar, and both Border Ranges and Dorrigo name walking tracks after the species.

How to spot it

One of Australia's few native deciduous trees, dropping leaves in autumn and flushing reddish-pink new growth in spring. Long compound leaves to 90cm with 10-14 pairs of leaflets; small white tubular flowers give way to star-shaped brown seed capsules.

Family Meliaceae · Source: Wikipedia: Toona ciliata; NSW National Parks — Washpool, Border Ranges & Dorrigo National Parks

Photo: Forest & Kim Starr (CC BY 3.0) via Wikimedia Commons

Wildlife you might see on this trail

Animals confirmed in this park. Spot one? Add it as a sighting pin below.

Eastern Freshwater Cod

Maccullochella ikei

Endangered (EPBC Act)▾

Endangered (EPBC Act)

A large native river cod found only in the Clarence River system of northern NSW, now surviving mainly in remote, clean sections of the Nymboida/Mann and Guy Fawkes/Sara rivers after disappearing from most of its historic range through overfishing, mining pollution and habitat loss.

How to spot it

A deep-bodied, grouper-like freshwater fish with an intense yellow-gold back and flanks overlaid with dark mottling, giving it a leopard-like pattern; look for it (rarely, given its rarity) in deep clear pools with timber cover.

Family Percichthyidae · Source: Wikipedia: Eastern freshwater cod; Wikipedia: Washpool National Park

Wikimedia Commons contributor, license per file page

Fleay's Barred Frog

Mixophyes fleayi

Endangered (IUCN)▾

Endangered (IUCN)

A moderately large rainforest frog found in fragmented, high-elevation populations from the Conondale Range in Queensland south to Yabbra Scrub in northern NSW. It has vanished from parts of its former range, including Mount Tamborine, since the 1970s.

How to spot it

Light brown with darker blotches and a dark band running from behind the eyes down the back; the top third of the iris is pale silvery-blue, the bottom two-thirds brown. Found near clear rainforest streams above 400m.

Family Myobatrachidae · Source: Wikipedia: Fleay's barred frog; Wikipedia: Nightcap National Park; Wikipedia: Washpool National Park

Froggydarb, CC BY-SA 3.0