Epping Forest is a national park in Queensland, Australia, 855 km northwest of Brisbane. The park is a scientific national park so it is not open to the public. Only scientists, rangers and volunteers may visit the park.
Restricted access is used to ensure Epping Forest remains very much undisturbed as it is the sole remaining natural habitat of the endangered Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat. The last census of the animal estimated there was a population of about 138 of the species. In the 1970s the population was estimated to have reached a low of somewhere between 20 to 30 wombats.
Most of the park is eucalypt woodland with patches of sandy soils that are used by the wombats for burrowing.
Famous quotes containing the words forest, national and/or park:
“Nature has from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest only toward the heavens, above men’s heads and unobserved by them. We see only the flowers that are under our feet in the meadows.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Simon Hoggart (b. 1946)
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We sat in the car park till twenty to one
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—Sir John Betjeman (1906–1984)