RHH's photos with the keyword: rainforest

We've been away for several days. We've been staying with our son and daughter-in-law in the northwest corner of Washington and my wife and I took a few days to travel to Olympic National Park on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. We took the ferry across to the peninsula and then traveled to the far west part of the park before working back to the north part of the park. On our way west, this was our first stop, Lake Crescent. We drove up the east side of the lake looking for orchids and stopping for photos. From there we went on to the Hoh Rainforest (first inset), a temperate rainforest on the west side of the mountains, one of three rainforests on the west side of the Olympic Mountains, and the most easily accessible of the three. At the Hoh we hiked the Hoh River River trail to Mineral Creek Falls, an easy hike of six miles out and back. Finished hiking there we drove further south to Ruby Beach (second inset) on the Pacific Ocean and walked the beach there for another five or six miles. We had our supper there as well and watched the sunset from the beach before heading to the town of Forks. The next day we drove around to the north part of the park and first explored part of the Sol Duc area before going on to Hurricane Ridge. From Hurricane Ridge we drove to Obstruction Point by way of an eight mile rough road and hiked the Grand Valley loop by way of Lillian Ridge (third inset), a strenuous hike of eleven miles with four thousand feet of elevation loss and gain. We spent the night in Port Angeles and then drove up the Deer Park Road, another rough gravel road, this morning and hiked to the top of Blue Mountain, a short hike with spectacular views. After driving back down we caught the ferry in Port Townsend and are "home" once again at our son and daughter-in-law and will be here until Monday when we return to Spokane.

The Hoh rainforest is a temperate rainforest on the west side of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, one of three rainforests there. We hiked the Hoh River trail for about three miles to a waterfall and then hiked back again before going on to Ruby Beach.

Cannonball Mangroves are found along the coast of Australia from Queensland to Western Australia and are named for the fact that they "explode" when ripe, scattering their seeds to catch the tides. The fruits grow up to 20 cm in diameter. This was photographed in the Marrdja area of Cape Tribulation.

This was the rainforest at Jindalba where we walked the prepared paths in a gentle rain. Jindalba is just south of Cape Tribulation and is part of the much larger Daintree Rainforest.

This is a Cassowary Plum, a favorite food of the Cassowary, the large flightless bird of Queensland. We photographed these while following the trails at the Jindalba Rainforest Walk. There were a lot of the fruits, some of them partially eaten, though whether by Cassowaries we could not tell. We did see a Cassowary, but not here. These fruits are toxic to humans but the Cassowaries are immune to the toxins. In fact, the digestive system of the Cassowary does something to the fruits that helps them germinate.

This was taken at Mossman Gorge in Daintree National Park. This was our first glimpse of the rainforest though we would see much more of in our travels.

This is one of the buttress roots of a rain forest tree in Mossman Gorge in the Daintree Rainforest of northern Queensland.

I have no idea what plant this is but the leaves caught my attention as we wandered through the rainforest at Mossman Gorge. The older leaves were green, like everything else but the new leaves were this striking white.

Barron Gorge is northwest of Cairns in Queensland, Australia. We arrived yesterday, June 8th, in Cairns and spent the afternoon and early evening exploring. This was one of the places we explored, though we were a bit disappointed by the lack of hiking. Today, June 9th, however, we were at the upper end of Barron Gorge and did some hiking there. Had a very good day there and at Dinden National Park, where we saw our first kangaroo, a big event for us though I'm sure a meaningless thing for most Australians.

I am no expert on mosses and lichens but it is obvious even to my untrained eye that there are four or five different kinds of mosses growing on these branches and maybe more than that. Taken on an April visit to the Hoh Rainforest on the west side of the Olympic Mountains of Washington, this is typical of that and other temperate rainforests.

On the west side of the Olympic Mountains and a part of Olympic National Park, the Hoh Rainforest is one of the largest temperate rainforests in the USA. It receives 12-14 feet of rain every year (up to 4.32 meters). When we were there last we hiked some of the trails and though it was sunny along the coast and had been sunny all day, had cloudy rainy weather here.