A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege to spend time in Wild Mountains, an education and conservation centre in the Gondwana rainforest in South East Queensland. I was there as a WWOOF volunteer, and was hosted by Lizz Hills and her family. The Gondwana Rainforest is an area spanning 366,500 hectares through Queensland and NSW, and is named as such as the flora and fauna have remained largely unchanged since the end of the Gondwana Supercontinent 180 million years ago (this is represented by the last 180 metres of a Deep Time Walk). The Gondwana Rainforest is a very special area due the large number of plant or animal species which cannot be found anywhere else in the world including the Albert’s lyrebird and marbled frogmouth. to its. However, historical logging and invasive species have degraded the area necessitating conservation efforts to restore its pristine state. As a Deep Time Walk guide, i was particularly excited to visit this area as it is living evidence of a time long ago, and gave me a taste of what North East Australia would have looked like a long time before human impact.
As a volunteer for the week, I had various tasks including marking walking paths in the forest with the founder, Richard Zoomer, and building a chicken pen in Lizz and Justin’s garden. Lizz also tasked me with leading her on a Deep Time Walk through the forest as the concept had piqued her curiosity. The team at Wild Mountains often employed a time capsule activity to convey the vastness of Earth’s history to schoolchildren on excursions, and Lizz recognised the value of Deep Time Walks to extend that learning, particularly with older participants. Two weeks later Lizz sent me some pictures of her leading a Deep Time Walk on Wild Mountains. If i had any doubt until this point, this demonstrated to me that Lizz is the kind of person who wastes no time in doing what matters to her.
Those who have been on one of my walks will know i am keen to create a network of guides to enable people all over Australia to have a Deep Time Walk experience and connect deeply with… I am so excited that Deep Time Walks have now spread to Queensland. More exciting still, is that Lizz may be leading walks in NSW and South Australia in the coming months. Lizz is taking on the challenge to walk 6000km across Australia in her Trek to Reconnect to raise awareness, connect with schools and create positive change for the future. She will be deploying a variety of engagement tools to achieve her aim over the course of her 183 day trek, and Deep Time Walks will be among them. Good luck Lizz – this is exciting news indeed. If you are interested in following Lizz’s trek, or becoming involved in this mammoth project in any way at all then jump to this page.
