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About Araucaria Ecotours
Also see the Araucaria
blog
and visit us on Facebook
Our
name: Why "Araucaria"
and "Ecotours" ?
"Araucaria"
The other Australian species is the bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii, important to the Aboriginals), and some of these have been planted on the Araucaria property. The Norfolk Island pine and the monkey puzzle tree of South America are also Araucaria species.
The Araucaria family - Araucariaceae - has a long history. It seems to have originated in Gondwana (the great southern supercontinent that included Australia, Antarctica, South America, Africa and India) before the days of the dinosaurs, and spread through much of the world. Later the family contracted again to be primarily southern hemisphere while Pinaceae while was the main conifer family of the Northern Hemisphere.
Araucaria species are nowadays found only in eastern Australia and neighbouring islands (New Guinea, New Caledonia and Norfolk Island) and the southern half of South America. Others in the family are the wollemi pine (found only in one locality west of Sydney) and Agathis (including the kauri pine of New Zealand, with other species in Fiji, Australia, New Caledonia and New Guinea, and extending into south-east Asia as far west as Sumatra
"Ecotours"
Ronda was involved in ecotourism long before the word was coined. Inspired both by a wonderful week at Binna Burra and a far less enjoyable experience at a holiday farm, she left school to found and run a holiday farm which emphasised both horsemanship and nature studies for almost three years before entering university to study zoology.
Click here for more details on ecotourism, our own dedication to ecotourism principles, and eco-accreditation
Our people
Ronda
has a doctorate in zoology and many years of
experience both in ecological
research and in nature interpretation for all ages, and
is the main
designer of the
tours.
Denis, her husband, has been a science and maths teacher, an industrial chemist and a computer programmer.
Darren, their son, has spent his life amongst the forests and wildlife of south-east Queensland, and is a keen nature photographer as well as a talented musician.
Ronda and Darren are the main guides for the tours. The whole family keeps the first aid training up to date, Ronda also has completed a food safety course and attends updates, and Darren and Ronda both completed an AussieHost course.
Denis, her husband, has been a science and maths teacher, an industrial chemist and a computer programmer.
Darren, their son, has spent his life amongst the forests and wildlife of south-east Queensland, and is a keen nature photographer as well as a talented musician.
Ronda and Darren are the main guides for the tours. The whole family keeps the first aid training up to date, Ronda also has completed a food safety course and attends updates, and Darren and Ronda both completed an AussieHost course.
To find out more
about us,
please visit:
We sometimes also employ
local
people on a casual basis, and
have at times hosted work experience students and
Wwoofers
(Willing
Workers On Organic Farms).
How we started
Most real estate agents
told us we were crazy when we looked for a property
within our budget
which was less than two hours’ drive from Brisbane, with
rainforest and
a permanent creek, adjacent to a National Park or
similar protected
area and at least 50 acres.However, we kept trying.
After some intensive searching, we found it: 87 acres at the foot of Mt Chinghee near the Queensland-NSW border, about a third covered in fairly mature rainforest regrowth, and almost another third in regrowth, adjacent to Mt Chinghee National Park (which harbours seasonally-dry rainforest) and with views to Border Ranges National Park and Lamington National Park. It borders one kilometre of Running Creek (which has never stopped running in even the worst of droughts), and is just a 90 minute drive to either Brisbane or the Gold Coast. Steep slopes that were covered largely in weeds and land-slips are now on their way back to being rainforest.
We
began running
ecotours in May 1997, with just one product, the 3-day
wildlife tour, in a 5-seater vehicle, advertised by
photocopied fliers
to backpacker hostels. Soon after, we purchased an
8-seater
minibus, started our first website, and achieved
eco-accreditation for
our tour. Travellers who could not stay in Queensland
long enough
for our 3-day tour started asking about day-tour
possibilities, so we
added three of these (bird-watching, bush-walking and
Coochiemudlo
Island) and soon had advanced eco-accreditation
for all four tours. We achieved our first
tourism award in 2002 and have won other awards since
then. All our
tours have now achieved advanced eco-accreditation.When a beautiful new Bed-and-Breakfast, Cougal Park, opened much closer to our house than the accommodation we originally used (Mt Barney Lodge: still a good place to stay), we switched to this, as Cougal is much closer to home and to rainforests with a good networks of walking tracks, and also a bit closer to the coast, enabling us to add sandy beaches, rocky headlands and mangroves to the tour.
We celebrated the
tenth anniversary of Araucaria Ecotours ion 2007 with an
open day for
our wildlife ecology centre, butterfly trail, creek
activities and 4WD
trip up the hill to the rainforest regeneration area (some
of the party
crowd, including the mayor of Beaudesert Joy Drescher, in
the photo to
the right)Our tour vehicles
Our usual vehicle is a 12-seater HiAce, but when we head to the outback, for some custom tours, or when heavy rains have made local unsealed roads muddy (on the second day of our three-day wildlife overview tour), we use a 4WD 'troopie.' Both are air-conditioned.
We tow a covered, lockable trailer. We can also bring a baby seat or a collapsible wheelchair as needed.
Community
involvement
The Araucaria team are engaged most weeks in some kind of
community
work, mostly to do with wildlife conservation. We are
especially
active in Wildlife
Tourism
Australia and Wildlife Queensland (mostly Scenic
Rim branch),
and represent these in other community events.Ronda also acts as mentor to students from Griffith University, and we sometimes provide work experience to students.
Darren gives free public performances of his piano compositions to community events such as Arts Dinners and the Drumley Walk, and Ronda and Darren do heavily discounted fauna surveys for conservation groups.
Research
Ronda conducts research into the dispersal of seeds by
fruit-eating
animals, and has in the past conducted research into effects
of habitat
modification on wildlife, urban wildlife, chimpanzee play
behaviour and
wildlife tourism. See
publications by Ronda
hereMusic and
computers
Nature Interpretation products/services (computer programs, videos, signs, written materials)
Denis
Green has
written a bird call quiz which has proved very popular
at the Lamington
Natural History Association's Information Centre at
Binna Burra (at the
edge of Lamington National Park). Ronda wrote an
extensive natural
history information program for the same computer, using
photos taken
by herself, Darren Green and
Lesley Hutley
(former LNHA president)
Ronda Green has designed a number of nature trails and published 'Guidelines to the Preparation of Nature Trails through the Australian Conservation Foundation. She has had long experience in nature interpretation for all ages, and is currently expanding the displays in the Scenic Rim Wildlife Ecology Centre and associated nature trails on the Araucaria property
We are available for consultation on the development of interpretive materials, including nature trails and computer programs
Ronda Green has designed a number of nature trails and published 'Guidelines to the Preparation of Nature Trails through the Australian Conservation Foundation. She has had long experience in nature interpretation for all ages, and is currently expanding the displays in the Scenic Rim Wildlife Ecology Centre and associated nature trails on the Araucaria property
We are available for consultation on the development of interpretive materials, including nature trails and computer programs
Musical
composition
and
performance
Darren
Green showed
talent for music at an early age when we got our first
piano and at age
three, barely able to see above the keyboard, he started
working out
not just simple melodies but quite complex
ones. He has
played violin,
guitar and recorder but his favourite instrument is the
piano, on which
he writes many of his own compositions. He also composes
on an
electronic keyboard (solar-powered of course) and an
Apple computer. He
has studied musical composition at tertiary level and
gets something
akin to withdrawal symptoms if away from a piano for
more than a couple
of days. He now performs his
own
compositions in various public venues.
He can be contacted
on
07 55441283
for performances and for consultation on
possibilities for composing music for videos (especially
nature
videos), games and other projects.