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:
““I am as brown as brown can be,
And my eyes as black as sloe;
I am as brisk as brisk can be,
And wild as forest doe.”
—Unknown. The Brown Girl (l. 1–4)
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—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I’m engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.”
—Sir John Betjeman (1906–1984)