I first found this place in the late eighties.  I set up the year eight SCEGGS Redlands environmental education programme to run from an environmental field studies centre on the coast.  A gorgeous program where we worked with the schools biology teachers, and did surveys in the rain forest and from canoes in the mangroves.  

We waked the kids into the active logging forest for three days.  We sat them in the logging bays and asked them what life would be like without trees.   

By the time they met the forestry guys they were very questioning of thier methods, and asked them directly.   

Oh the days of Adventure Education Pty Ltd. 

On one of these camps I drove the headmaster around in a tiny Suzuki Sierra. As we bounced up the hill to visit the kids in thier camp, Peter Cornish told me, that the programme I had designed and run for the past year or two had changed the culture of the school.  Made the kids more community minded.  He had seen a sweeping change through the school.  That comment still sits proudly in my memory.   

These ghostly trees are now preserved in a National Park and the picnic area at the Pines is well worth the visit.   

Yarrabini National Park now.  Some things do change for the better.  Even if it is just a tiny slither of this stunning forest area.   

Gums.  Photographs and text copyright ©️ Len Metcalf 2018