We managed to get away for a week in the middle of January, between student intakes for both Wanda and Alistair. Gloucester Tops was our first destination – beautiful Gondwana remnant forest clinging to the slope of the Barrington Tops mountain range. These forests create their own microclimate – damp, cool air and cloud cover that encourages amazing mosses, epiphytes and fungi to grow under a rainforest-like canopy. We enjoyed walks alongside the young Gloucester River and by Staples Creek, marvelling at a lyrebird’s amazing repertoire of sounds and spectacular feather display. We also saw a number of other beautiful birds at the campground – iridescent blue superb fairywrens, the noisy green catbird and the rare rufous scrubbird, among others.